Book: Above all Earthly Pow'rs: Christ in a Postmodern World
Author: David Wells
This was the longest of my Post/Modern biblioquartet. Concerned primarily with the sociological and ecclesiological aspects of the shift to Postmodernity, Wells spends most of the book trying to discover the origins of Postmodernism.
He argues (rather well in my opinion) that Postmodernism is the product not of the Academy, but rather of the affluent, pluralistic society of the West. The loss of meaning, epistemological certainty, "center" of life, and truth in general, result from the immediate realities of contemporary human existence, not the abstract ideas of French philosophers.
Such is the closest thing I found to a "unifying theme" in the book. Wells is most definitely a Modern and offers many critiques of the Postmodern Church. He is very adept at drawing connections between the present and the ancient. History, it is said, repeats itself, and Wells has quite the eye for it.
Wells often incorporates demographic and other sorts of empirical evidence to support his ideas and generally presents his arguments in a thoughtful manner.
I imagine I'll post more on this book later, and I hope to provide some juxtaposition of ideas carried within these last four books in the near future....but it will probably be later rather than sooner!
1 comments:
Good reviews man. You are a quick reader! Although I am not sure Sproul and Wells would be happy with the label 'modern.' John Franke told me that the best two books on Pomo and the faith are the one by Smith and one by Downing called 'How Pomo serves faith.' I read the latter but with the loss of objective truth, the exclusivity of Christ (and thus his honor & the gospel) are thrown out, at least in her book. Well's chapter called "Christ in a meaningless world' was fabulous. Press on bro.
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