Brian McLaren's A New Kind of Christian (2001) issued a strong, if controversial, wake-up call to proposition-minded evangelicals eager to reach the millennial generation with the gospel. For those who agreed with the basic tenor of McLaren's book but felt he went too far in downplaying logic-based, creed-centered apologetics, Rick Richardson's Reimagining Evangelism (which tellingly boasts a preface by McLaren) offers a healthy and appealing middle ground.
Richardson agrees with McLaren (and others in the emerging church) that postmoderns are more likely to join us on a spiritual journey than to respond to a one-time, high-pressure conversion sales pitch, that they are more eager to hear the Bible's grand story than the dogmatic statements into which that story has been abstracted by theologians.
What Richardson adds is a powerful vision of a collaborative, Holy Spiritled apologetics in which a community of believers pools together their diverse gifts.
In today's world, he persuasively argues, seekers must feel they are part of such a community before they embrace Christ: "Belonging comes before believing."
Richardson also helps evangelists to reimagine themselves as detectives "looking for clues of God's Spirit at work in the lives of others."
Copyright © 2007 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.
Related Elsewhere:
Reimagining Evangelism is available from ChristianBook.com and other retailers.
InterVarsity Press has more information, including an excerpt, from the book.
Have something to add about this? See something we missed? Share your feedback here.
Our digital archives are a work in progress. Let us know if corrections need to be made.
Annual & Monthly subscriptions available.
- Print & Digital Issues of CT magazine
- Complete access to every article on ChristianityToday.com
- Unlimited access to 65+ years of CT’s online archives
- Member-only special issues
- Learn more
More from this Issue
Read These Next
- From the MagazineEric Liddell’s Legacy Still Tracks, 100 Years LaterWith his refusal to race on Sunday, the Scottish sprinter showcased a bigger story about Christians in sports.日本語
- Editor's PickN.T. Wright: What Jesus Would Say to the ‘Empire’ TodayHow Jesus and the Powers, cowritten with Michael F. Bird, calls Christians into the political sphere.