Читать книгу We Evangelicals and Our Mission - Lianna Davis - Страница 8

What happened to the church? The founder of Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) provides some answers in his The End of White Christian America. Many erstwhile attendees of mainline denominations will indicate agreement. Evangelical answers will tend to be mixed, but it will perhaps surprise you how many will respond in terms of their particular experience and the “way things are going” in the church they attend now. Not all evangelicals have the larger picture in mind, especially when North America is in view.

Kregel Publications published my book Paradigms in Conflict: 10 Questions in Christian Missions Today. A second edition, enlarged and enhanced by contributions from a number of well qualified and well-known missiologists, is scheduled to be released this summer (2018). My chapters and most of the additional chapters in this second edition are given over to biblical analysis of important missions/missiological questions.

First, for reasons that will become apparent, this follow-up book complements Paradigms in Conflict—one might almost say is a companion to Paradigms in that it is not about “biblical analysis” but rather “historical analysis.” Second, it is also anecdotal, not in the sense that it highlights missionary stories, but in the sense that it highlights missionary/missiological relevance. All of Christian history has relevance and importance for Christianity(!), but some of it has special importance for evangelical mission/missiology. That is our special focus here.

I want to express profound appreciation to my granddaughter, Lianna Davis, for accompanying me over these last two hundred pages of history and commentary. She is a graduate student, wife of Tyler Davis (an actuary in the life insurance industry), and mother of two daughters. She is conservative but contemporary, and she and Tyler have been helpful in keeping me informed of current evangelical thinking and doings in missions. Without their help in summarizing, along with other endeavors, this book—short as it is—may have proved impossible.

Finally, I want to express gratitude to my son-in-law, Marty Kroeker, who helped to finalize the text.