Renewing the Center: Evangelical Theology in a Post-Theological Era [Hardcover]

Stanley J. Grenz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 2000

Where has evangelicalism been, and where is it going? As we enter a new century and a new millennium, it is appropriate for evangelical Christians to take stock of their faith and its relationship to the world around them. In Renewing the Center, Stanley Grenz challenges the thoughtful to do just that and provides them with an insightful guide.

According to Grenz, "The postmodern condition calls Christians to move beyond a polarity that knows only the categories of 'liberal' and 'conservative' and thus pits so-called conservatives against loosely-defined liberals. The way forward is for evangelicals to take the lead in renewing a theological 'center' that can meet the challenges of the postmodern-and in some sense post-theological-situation in which the church now finds itself."

Grenz begins with a historical survey, considering the influence of two major strands within evangelicalism. He goes on to sketch a creative vision for a renewed evangelical theology that faces the intellectual challenges of its time. He further envisions an "evangelical center" through the establishment of a "generous orthodoxy" that enables the church to fulfill its mission in the world.

Renewing the Center is an important new book for professors and students of theology, pastors, and church leaders.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

A leading voice among American theologians, Grenz (theology and ethics, Carey/Regent Coll., British Columbia) builds upon and advances the discussion begun in his Revisioning Evangelical Theology. The first four chapters explain the "three concentric circles of evangelical theological history": the Reformation, the Evangelical revival of the 18th century, and modern conservative evangelicalism. The second half of the book is devoted to the author's call for a critical appropriation of postmodern insights for evangelical theological tasks. Grenz rejects the present "two-party system" of an orthodox commitment to an "external definable, and transcendent authority" and the "progressive" commitment to "resymbolize historic faiths according to the prevailing assumptions of contemporary life." He calls for a "generous orthodoxy, read through the lenses of conservative piety" that is left without too detailed a definition but is doctrinal in orientation and focuses on the gospel of salvation by faith. Perhaps in his future studies Grenz will spell out more of what this means in terms of specific doctrines and actionable policies. Recommended for public and academic librariesDEugene O. Bowser, Univ. of Northern Colorado, Greeley, CO
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"... bears all the virtues that one expects from a book by Stanley Grenz: clarity, fair-mindedness, thoughtfulness, comprehension, and faithfulness." -- -Gary Dorrien, Kalamazoo College

"Grenz presses the question of whether evangelicalism can embrace a doctrine of the Church that is believably universal and comprehensive." -- -The Rev. Richard John Neuhaus Editor in Chief, First

"His exposition is a tour de force that commands our attention, and merits our gratitude." -- -J. I. Packer, Regent College

"I highly recommend this book and hope that it receives the wide reading that it so richly deserves." -- -Ken Collins

"This is a book to be read carefully, more than once, in conversation with friends." -- -Robert A. Pyne, Dallas Theological

"This is an important and provocative book... Stan Grenz has set forth an interpretation that cannot be ignored." -- -Timothy George,

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Baker Academic (November 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801022398
• ISBN-13: 978-0801022395
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,241,682 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Stanley J. Grenz (1950-2005) earned a B.A. from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1973, an M.Div. from Denver Seminary in 1976 and a D.Theol. From the University of Munich (Germany) in 1978, where completed his dissertation under the supervision of Wolfhart Pannenberg.

Ordained into the gospel ministry in 1976, Grenz worked within the local church context as a youth director and assistant pastor (Northwest Baptist Church, Denver), pastor (Rowandale Baptist Church, Winnipeg), and interim pastor. In addition he preached and lectured in numerous churches, colleges, universities and seminaries in North America, Europe, Africa, Australia and Asia.

Grenz wrote or cowrote twenty-five books, the most recent of which is Rediscovering the Triune God: The Trinity in Contemporary Theology (2004). His other books include The Social God and the Relational Self: A Trinitarian Theology of the Imago Dei (Westminster John Knox), Beyond Foundationalism: Shaping Theology in a Postmodern Context (with John R. Franke; Westminster John Knox), The Moral Quest: Foundations of Christian Ethics (IVP), A Primer on Postmodernism (Eerdmans), Women in the Church: A Biblical Theology of Women in Ministry (with Denise Muir Kjesbo; IVP), Revisioning Evangelical Theology: A Fresh Agenda for the 21st Century (IVP), and The Millennial Maze: Sorting Out Evangelical Options (IVP). He has also coauthored several shorter reference and introductory books for IVP, including Who Needs Theology? An Invitation to the Study of God (with Roger E. Olson), Pocket Dictionary of Ethics (with Jay T. Smith), and Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms (with David Guretzki and Cherith Fee Nordling). He contributed articles to more than two dozen other volumes, and has had published more than one hundred essays and eighty book reviews. These have appeared in journals such as Christianity Today, The Christian Century, Christian Scholar's Review, Theology Today and the Journal of Ecumenical Studies.

For twelve years (1990-2002), Grenz held the position of Pioneer McDonald Professor of Baptist Heritage, Theology and Ethics at Carey Theological College and at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia. After a one-year sojourn as Distinguished Professor of Theology at Baylor University and Truett Seminary in Waco, Texas (2002-2003), he returned to Carey and resumed his duties as Pioneer McDonald Professor of Theology. In 2004 he assumed an additional appointment as Professor of Theological Studies at Mars Hill Graduate School in Seattle, Washington.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Read it and decide about the premises for yourself, July 20, 2001

By 

Sean Meade (Columbia, SC USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Renewing the Center: Evangelical Theology in a Post-Theological Era (Hardcover)

I write this to encourage you to look beyond the only customer review this far. For example, start by simply clicking above to view all of the editorial reviews of this book. Many good minds have commended it to you.

I'd hate to see you decide not to read this book based on one other person's conclusions. I happen to disagree with him about the 'faulty historical premises', 'fallacies', 'tired old dichotomy' and 'caricatures'. But this is not the place to argue that. If you don't have your mind made up in agreement with that critic about this one, basic premise, then I encourage you to read the book and then decide what you think.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Appreciation and critique of postmodernism in theology, March 31, 2010

By 

Darren Cronshaw (Melbourne, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Renewing the Center: Evangelical Theology in a Post-Theological Era (Paperback)

Stanley Grenz, Renewing The Center: Evangelical Theology in a Post-Theological Era (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000)

Grenz articulates a fresh evangelical theology for our transitional time. He describes the history of evangelicalism through to current post-evangelical and charismatic influence. He calls Christians to move beyond any polarities of liberals and conservatives to a renewed `center' that can address the needs of post-modern (and perhaps post-theological) context. (`Post-theological' is not to diminish theology in itself but to recognise the emerging non-academic, non-huge-systematic-foundationalist text based approach to theology.) He articulates a belief mosaic for our times, champions a move towards Trinitarian local theologies, explores the place of science and other religions, and emphasises the role of the gathered community and their witness. Thus rather than bemoaning postmodernity and its influence on theology, he calls for a critical appropriation of postmodern insights in the evangelical theological task.

Originally reviewed in Darren Cronshaw `The Emerging Church: Spirituality and Worship Reading Guide.' Zadok Papers S159 (Autumn 2008).

29 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing, but based on faulty historical premises, June 14, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Renewing the Center: Evangelical Theology in a Post-Theological Era (Hardcover)

This is a well-written and intriguing book that ultimately fails to deliver on its promise to provide a way to renew the theological center. The book's proposals are based on well-worn phrases that caricature nineteenth- and twentieth-century evangelicalism. Grenz is still pushing the old fallacy we saw as far back as the 1970s in books like Theodore Dwight Bozeman's book on Scottish Common Sense and Baconianism. That fallacy is this: intellectual types like the Princetonians were the only ones who believed in the inerrancy of Scripture. Pietists in the Anabaptist and holiness and other anti-Calvinist movements did not buy this Enlightenment line until the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy, when they felt intimidated by the liberals and higher critics into casting their lot with the Fundamentalists, thereby taking shelter in that movement.

The implication of this is that tired old dichotomy that evangelicalism can be divided into doctrinaire and pietist wings. But things are not that uncomplicated and neat. There is an apparently neglected body of research that shows all manner of pietists, Anabaptists, holiness, Arminians, Restorationists, Mormons, etc., etc., who held strong notions of propositional revelation and the inerrancy of the autographs before the the Princetonians had time to have an impact on the intellectual landscape of American Christianity. Grenz's data is very obviously based on secondary sources, and then they are the best known historical works, rather than scholarly articles or monographs that provide counterevidence to the thesis on which his book is based (intellectualism vs. pietism).

I realize that the wisdom he appeals to is quite conventional (e.g., Calvinist Joel Carpenter's assertion that inerrancy is not the kind of category that Wesleyans related to, etc.), yet if he had probed beneath the surface, even reading sermons, periodical articles, and other "non-theological" sources from uneducated pietists in early nineteenth-century American Christianity, he would have found that the dichotomy on which his book is based is a caricature, and he would have had to retool the way he explains the "Princetonian" and "Fundamentalist" reliance on "Enlightenment categories."

One more thing that I found disappointing from a scholar of Grenz's magnitude. In discussing the "Neo-Evangelical movement," he said that "some in the movement" held to the dictation theory of biblical inspiration, yet he didn't go on to cite any sources. This is just irresponsible.

I am sympathetic to some of the proposals Grenz made in the final chapter of his book, particularly about ecclesiology, and I do think we must reckon with postmodernism. Yet, I think we must get our account of just how modernism impacted evangelicalism beyond caricatures and easy dichotomies if we are to understand how to forge a viable evangelical theological witness in a postmodern context.