SoulTsunami [Paperback]

Leonard Sweet (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2001

Leonard Sweet--cultural historian, futurist, preacher, and preeminent thinker--firmly believes we live in a postmodern, pre-Christian society fraught with challenges, dangers, critical choices, and above all, tremendous potential for the church. The outcome will depend on our response to today's flood of change that threatens to sweep us away. SoulTsunami outlines ten cultural changes that are already happening around us and suggests practical ways to communicate God's unchanging truth to our changing world.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Will the tsunami wave of change sweep Christianity away? Or will religious followers be able to ride the cresting tidal wave of cyberterrorism and social malaise that threaten Christian values in the 21st century? Rather than sink into denial or flee to safe bunkers, Sweet suggests that devout Christians "hoist the sails" just as Noah did when faced with a flood. "While the world is rethinking its entire cultural formation, it is time to find new ways of being the church that are true to our postmodern context," writes author Leonard Sweet, vice president of postmodern Christianity at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey. This book is packed with suggestions (framed as "Life Rings") for keeping Christianity a thriving and vital global force. "Life Ring" chapter titles include "Get Glocal--the Global Renaissance," and "Get De-Churched-De-Everything." Although the tsunami metaphor feels overextended, devout Christians appreciate the savvy and passionate vision of this popular author. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

The book's title comes from the Japanese word for a tidal wave that sweeps away all that it encounters; Sweet's thesis is that the present postmodern culture is advancing on churches, as it has on business, education and other areas of life, with comparable great force and speed. Like a French Impressionist painter, SweetAa Methodist minister and dean of the Divinity School of Drew UniversityApresents a canvas filled with numerous small points of light, offering a snapshot of a scene caught in that moment when one time blends into the next. The book presents almost innumerable details. The reader learns that the number of books being sold is increasing, that the average American must learn to operate 20,000 pieces of technology and that Generation X has witnessed (on television and elsewhere) more violence than any previous generation. The resulting information pileup makes the reader feel almost bombarded by hundreds of bites of data; in fact, one of Sweet's principle points is that contemporary culture is generating more and more information. The present human response to this glut of information ranges from a passion to keep up with it allAbuying more computer time, scanning more information sources and buying more booksAto a desire to escape into a private world or inner experience. Furthermore, Sweet argues that this increase in knowledge makes it difficult for present-day folk to reflect on the ultimate meaning of that data. The book's format invites its use by church discussion groups. Each chapter ends with questions, theological snippets and activities (including topics to be researched on the Web) that lead naturally to personal reflection and group conversation. Although Sweet believes that many churches are behind the times, he also notes that the postmodern world offers them new opportunities for mission. In places, these suggestions do little more than urge churches to use the best the culture has to offer; for instance, to construct Web pages, to use contemporary language and idiom in worship and to appeal to the high value that people today place on personal service. Sweet goes beyond such commonplaces and also speaks about the spiritual resources that churches possess. Sweet's insistence that postmoderns need to be reminded of the Christian teaching on original sin and human fragility and his sense of the need for spiritual values, such as humility, to counterbalance consumerism are cases in point.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Zondervan (October 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0310243122
• ISBN-13: 978-0310243120
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,113,663 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Len Sweet (www.leonardsweet.com) was born of a mixed marriage: his mother was a fiery Pilgrim Holiness-ordained preacher from the mountains of West Virginia and his quiet father a Free Methodist lay leader from the Adirondack mountains of upstate New York. After a deconversion at 17, when Len set about less sowing wild oats than planting prairies, he became an atheist intellectual and scholar dedicated to exposing the nincompoopery and poppycockery, if not tomfoolery and skullduggery of all religions. After this seven-year period of liminality, Len came back to the faith of his ancestors, where he has been ever since, exploring the "insterstices" and "semiotics" of religion, culture and history. He uses two words to describe himself: semiotician and interstitial. In other words, he is obsessed with two questions: "Where have you been?" and "Where are you going?"

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

49 of 55 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars SoulTsunami - not such a big wave January 7, 2000

By David Burke

Format:Hardcover

Unlike many books on postmodernism, SoulTsunami gives most time to dealing with ministry implications rather than analysing postmodernism. This practical bent is welcome.

However, Sweet is prone to 'go with the flow' in terms of doing anything to accommodate ministry and church life to the cultural shift. In this sense I found the book too pragmatic in places and with too little obvious theological underpinning.

Another minus: Sweet does not seem to grapple with the issue of overlapping and intersecting cultures. That is, he seems to assume a total postmodern environment rather than recognise that modernism and postmodernism often live alongside one another in the broader culture, in a church (especially intergenerationally)and even within an individual.

So, surprise surprise the book has limits. However, for those struggling to find some starting places in ministry in a postmodern culture the book offers much.

Finally, the 'life-rings' structure for the book and the 'Say What' sections that throw out suggestions, questions, activities etc give the design of the book a thoroughly post-modern feel. Before being irritated by this, readers do well to appreciate that even in this design feature the book is helping them to grapple with the postmodern.

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Getting De-Churched and opening up your mind. August 31, 1999

By A Customer

Format:Audio Cassette

Recently, the staff of the church where I work read through this book in preparation for a two-day brainstorming session on reaching our culture. This book opened up our minds and caused us to think in new directions. One of Sweet's pleas is for Christians to get De-churched. To get outside our normal view and begin to evaluate why we do what we do. The culture today thinks that the church is an unloving, boycotting machine that is out to destroy their way of life. If we are so arrogant to think that we can fit them into the box that we have labeled "church", then we will be swept away by the coming tsunami. I highly recommend this book for anyone in ministry because it acts as such a mind trigger, stimulating your thoughts and ideas and forcing you to be creative about your plans from ministry in the next century. Postmodernism may be a somewhat new concept for many of you in ministry, but it's time to learn. God Bless

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Fresh Winds For the Church's Sails March 22, 2000

By John C. Tittle

Format:Hardcover

Sweet's soulTsunami is brimming full of creative energy for the church. Study and rumination over this book is crucial for any pastor, any Christian, any seeker of truth. Sweet articulates with such wit, quirkiness, and perception what postmoderns have been feeling in their hearts. I found myself in resounding agreement with each page, as well as provoked towards new thinking. The strength in this book lies in the "double-rings" and paradoxes (i.e. p. 89 "the problem with the church today is that it is 'too traditional'; the problem with the church today is that it is not traditional enough.")Sweet hits the nail on the head when he persuades us to remember that the same gospel message must be continually shaped to reach a new way of thinking that pervades our age. This can only happen by knowing and redeeming the culture. Thank you Leonard, for your prophetic inspiration. This book has become a part of me.