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Christian Apologetics in the Postmodern World
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Evangelicals are beginning to provide analyses of our postmodern society, but little has been done to suggest an effective apologetic strategy for reaching a culture that is pluralistic, consumer-oriented, and infatuated with managerial and therapeutic approaches to life. This, then, is the first book to address that vital task.
In these pages some of evangelicalism's most stimulating thinkers consider three possible apologetic responses to postmodernity. William Lane Craig argues that traditional evidentialist apologetics remains viable and preferable. Roger Lundin, Nicola Creegan and James Sire find the postmodern critique of Christianity and Western culture more challenging, but reject central features of it. Philip Kenneson, Brian Walsh and J. Richard Middleton, on the other hand, argue that key aspects of postmodernity can be appropriated to defend orthodox Christianity.
An essential feature are trenchent chapters by Ronald Clifton Potter, Dennis Hollinger and Douglas Webster considering issues facing the local church in light of postmodernity. The volumes editors and John Stackhouse also add important introductory essays that orient the reader to postmodernity and various apologetic strategies.
All this makes for a book indispensable for theologians, a wide range of students and reflective pastors.
Part I Definitions: Apologetics and Postmodernity
1. Introduction
Timothy R. Phillips and Dennis Okholm
2. The Pragmatics of Postmodernity
Roger Lundin
3. From Architecture to Argument: Historic Resources for Christian Apologetics
John G. Stackhouse Jr.
Part II The Apologetics of Modernity
4. Schleiermacher as Apologist: Reclaiming the Father of Modern Theology
Nicola Hoggard Creegan
5. Politically Incorrect Salvation
William Lane Craig
Part III Apologetics Between Modernity and Postmodernity
6. On Being a Fool for Christ and an Idiot for Nobody: Logocentricity and Postmodernity
James W. Sire
Part IV The Apologetics of Postmodernity
7. Facing the Postmodern Scalpel: Can the Christian Faith Withstand Deconstruction?
J. Richard Middleton and Brian J. Walsh
8. There's No Such Thing as Objective Truth, and It's a Good Thing, Too
Philip D. Kenneson
Part V The Church in a Postmodern Setting
9. Christian Apologetics in the African-American Grain
Ronald Potter
10. The Church as Apologetic: A Sociology of Knowledge Perspective
Dennis Hollinger
11. Evangelizing the Church
Douglas Webster
Notes
Bibliography
Name Index
Subject Index
List of Contributors