Renewing the Center: Evangelical Theology in a Post-Theological Era - Softcover

Stanley J. Grenz

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0801031818 ISBN 13: 9780801031816

Publisher: Baker Academic, 2006

Synopsis

Renewing the Center is an important foundational book for the emerging church. The second edition includes a new foreword by Brian McLaren and a new afterword from John Franke updating the book for the contemporary church scene. Praise for the first edition: "Grenz has written a lively and engaging work that should help American evangelicals chart the challenging course of their theological future. He offers a balanced, carefully-argued, and lucid prescription for the way ahead. Accordingly, I highly recommend this book and hope that it receives the wide reading that it so richly deserves."--Kenneth J. Collins, author of The Evangelical Moment

About this title

From the Back Cover:

"Certainly Renewing the Center marks a milestone in Grenz's work and may, if found plausible, constitute a landmark in evangelical reflection."--Theology Today

"This account of where evangelical theology has been and where it is going bears all the virtues that one expects from a book by Stanley Grenz: clarity, fair-mindedness, thoughtfulness, comprehension, and faithfulness."--Gary Dorrien, Union Theological Seminary

"Perhaps Renewing the Center wasn't the best title for this book. Perhaps this book reaches toward a new center, a new vantage point, a new floor that must be discovered (or constructed) for the first time, so that words beginning with "re-" don't apply. Perhaps the ultimate center--Jesus--is actually a moving center, moving and always on the move, so that our faith centers less in an old position we claim and defend and more in a set of fresh footprints we track and follow. But then again, recalling the best sense of evangelical, the newest thing is also the oldest thing: the ever-new good news is also the original story of Jesus, continuing through history and stretching through today into a vast future that is full of danger, yet even more full of hope."--Brian McLaren (from the foreword)

"Stanley Grenz presses the question of whether evangelicalism can embrace a doctrine of the church that is believably universal and comprehensive. Evangelicals, Catholics, and other Christians have a very big stake in how that question is answered in the years ahead."--Richard John Neuhaus, editor in chief, First Things

"Stanley Grenz urges a re-forming of evangelical theology in a coherent apologetic, churchly, missional, forward-looking world so as to interface effectively with the intellectual thoughts of postmodern and postchristian culture. His exposition is a tour de force that commands our attention, and merits our gratitude."--J. I. Packer, Regent College

From the Inside Flap:

According to Stanley Grenz, "The postmodern condition calls Christians to move beyond . . . [a] polarity that knows only the categories of 'liberal' and 'conservative' and thus pits so-called conservatives against loosely defined liberals. . . . The way forward is for evangelicals to take the lead in renewing a theological 'center' that can meet the challenges of the postmodern, and in some sense post-theological, situation in which the church now finds itself."

Grenz begins with a historical survey, considering the influence of two major strands within evangelicalism. He goes on to sketch a creative vision for a renewed evangelical theology that faces the intellectual challenges of its time. He further envisions an "evangelical center" through the establishment of a "generous orthodoxy" that enables the church to fulfill its mission in the world.

Stanley J. Grenz (D.Theol., University of Munich) is the Pioneer McDonald Professor of Theology and Ethics at Carey Theological College and professor of theology and ethics at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia. He is the author or coauthor of over twenty books.

About this edition

• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0801031818
• ISBN 13: 9780801031816
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 384