Faith and Modernity. Edited by Philip Sampson, Vinay Samuel and Chris Sugden. Oxford: Regnum Books International, 1994. Pp. 352.

These papers arose from a 1993 Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization consultation in Uppsala called to work on issues raised at the Lausanne II Conference in Manila in 1989 by Os Guinness. They represent a variety, largely Western and almost totally negative, of Evangelical responses to ongoing changes in the Western intellectual tradition and its social manifestations. Despite some real flaws this is a valuable resource and as it claims, a challenge to the church.

There is confusion about terminology, which is not surprising given the state of debate at the time and the spread of writers. This is ameliorated by the excellent introduction and Sampson’s careful paper on postmodernity. There is also plenty of food for thought in the topics - theology, eschatology, New Age, anthropology, morality, economic life and information technology. Vinay Samuel’s brief paper provides ideas about colonialism and modernity in relation to Hindu and Muslim societies which could well be seminal and his contribution is the sole one to take the discussion outside the West.

The negativity is a worry and in missiological terms would now be unacceptable in relation to any other culture. The tendency to regard modernity and postmodernity as representing everything a particular writer does not happen to like about Western culture does not add to the credibility of the arguments. Os Guinness may have been frustrated at the way evangelicalism is infected by modernist assumptions, and his forceful expression provided the catalyst for the consultation, but his belief that modernism is globally dominant does scant justice to the resilience of non-Western cultures and their impact on the West. By contrast Newbigin’s contribution on “Truth and authority” is refreshing in his approach to fundamental issues and his footnotes engage critically with some of the other contributors.

If Guinness provided a wake-up call, the tools to respond adequately are still to be found. On the whole we need better exemplars of how to go about what ought to be after all a routine Christian exercise in cultural awareness and apologetics. One wonders what might have happened if the group had taken the Lausanne Willowbank report on Gospel and Culture as its methodological starting point. Perhaps for this we can look forward to the further publication from the consultation that is due out in the Lausanne Occasional Papers series in 1999.

In every age and culture Christians have to engage with their world, be aware of what is consistent with the gospel and what is not, and work through what it means to be Christian in a particular time and place. It would be ironical indeed, if the charity and insight shown towards other religions in other volumes of the Lausanne series, proves to be elusive when the compilers come to address their own cultural and religious traditions. If the lessons that there is good to be found outside the church as well as evil and that it is hard to evangelize what you fear or hate, have been learnt in relation to others, they may also need to be learnt on the home front. It is always more difficult, but it is no less necessary.

John Roxborogh

Bible College of New Zealand