Ebook
The Gospel is more than information about the death and resurrection of our Lord. It is an invitation to enter, by way of personal faith, into a relationship with the person referenced by our propositions. Our task as believers is to mediate saving communion with a personal being upon whose will our very existence is contingent. It is precisely this personal aspect of our message, the Gospel-as-Person, that is in conflict with the late-modern notions of the Self and social discourse. Get Real: On Evangelism in the Late Modern World describes how the late-modern phenomena of existential anxiety, social alienation, and epistemic uncertainty have resulted in what some have called “the loss of Self.” It also identifies ways in which that loss obstructs both the presentation of and the reception of the Gospel-as-Person. Finally, it shows how the Gospel-as-Person facilitates the recovery of the Self and social discourse, and how that message can be effectively presented in the late-modern context.
In this ground-breaking book, Fr. Edward Rommen, Ph.D., wisely connects the richness of the Gospel and its embodiments in Christian tradition to contemporary Christianity with an able assessment of opportunities and challenges confronted within the current landscape of late modernity. The study and practice of evangelism, particularly related to serious theological reflection, can be filled with difficult polemics often limited to shallow exchanges and resulting in less than helpful guides. Additionally, a significant number of scholarly projects addressing evangelism ultimately are unable to offer any proposal or guidance for its practice. However, the readers of this latest book from Fr. Rommen will find another richly textured study, building on previous works, drawing from biblical and theological foundations for the understanding and practice of evangelism. Laceye C. Warner, Duke Divinity School