The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World

This collection of essays, articles, and transcripts is a balanced look at post-modernism and the impact of PM on the church. I expected a bit more direct assessment of emerging/emergent, but overall I appreciated the book's tone and presentation.

YOU NEED THIS BOOK!!! Wish I had cases of this book to give away.

This book is edited by John Piper and Justin Taylor and has some topnotch Reformed pastor/theologians contributing: David Wells, Voddie Baucham, D. A. Carson, Tim Keller, Mark Driscoll, and John Piper.It is a great addition to the library of anyone who wants to put Christ above all things in this postmodern world. At the end of the book there are two different discussions lead by Justin Taylor that help even more to flesh out their theology particularly in regards to the emergent church. The book has good insights and though deep it is very readable and not just pie in the sky but gives practical insights into how to transform our culture.

The whole collection of essays could easily be summarized in Voddie Baucham's statement on page 62: "Christ is 'before all things.' Why did you choose your last job? Was it because of the supremacy of Christ in truth as it relates to your purpose for existing? Or was it because it paid you more than the job you had before? Pastor, how did you choose your current church? Was it because of a pursuit of the supremacy of Christ in truth in all things, even as it relates to your pastoral purpose? Or was it because this position is a little more prestigious than your last one? All things were made through him and for him. That means my life, my family, my ministry--everything that makes up who I am--must be characterized by a commitment to the preeminence of Christ." Definitely Baucham's essay was my favorite, but there were excellent viewpoints, from Piper's 10-step process of doctrinally based joy to former Emergent pastor Mark Driscoll's thought-provoking look at "Gospel Theologizing and Contextualizing." This book has a number of quality nuggets to make the reader think, and I think the journey necessitates my highest rating.

Hot on the heels of his much-anticipated scholarly work The Future of Justification: A Response to N.T. Wright, comes this latest John Piper volume, a year in the making following the Desiring God national conference of autumn 2006. Reading like an all-star roster of missional reformed theologians, the table of contents whets the reader's appetite: Piper, D.A. Carson, Tim Keller, Mark Driscoll, Voddie Baucham and David Wells (the theologian, not the pitcher) one by one address the issue of the Church's engagement with postmodernism. Following the text's dedication to the venerable and newly-retired John Stott, Justin Taylor begins by providing a helpful overview of each chapter and releases the reader to plunge into the text at will, unbound by sequential chapter distinctions. Spurred on by Taylor's encouragement, I immediately delved into dangerous territory: the essay entitled "The Church and the Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World" by Mark Driscoll. Only having ever listened to Driscoll for a total of ten seconds once upon a time, and never having cracked a single one of his books, I found myself pleasantly surprised by his writing style and for the most part impressed by his content (I'm not one for gritty, unvarnished sermon illustrations, nor for approbation of Ultimate Fighting from the pulpit). Driscoll begins with a whirlwind tour of incarnational thinking, outlining some of the reasons why the Emergent movement draws so many young Christians into its camp. While he never condones the movement, Driscoll claims the Emergent vision of Christ's humanity is something to learn from. He then balances the deity and humanity of Christ in postmodern outreach: "as Christians enter into their local culture and subcultures, we must also remember that it is Jesus (not us) who is sovereign, and it is Jesus (not the church) who rules over all. We come in the authority of the exalted Jesus, but also in the example of the humble incarnated Jesus...Once we have the incarnation and exaltation clear in our Christology, we are then sufficiently reader to contend for the truth of the gospel and contextualize it rightly for various culture and subcultures of people, as Jesus did and commands us to do." Driscoll then goes on to discuss the ins and outs of contending for certain inalienable gospel truths and contextualizing them - without compromising them - for the culture. Contextualization, Driscoll contends, is a gospel issue. He rounds out his essay in a surprising way by narrating the cross-cultural reality of Calvin's Geneva, which should once and for all lay to rest the assertion that Calvinism is evangelistically bankrupt. Backtracking one chapter, Keller's essay was the next on deck: "The Gospel and the Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World." While trumpeting the same contextualization message as Driscoll, Keller begins by debunking older evangelism methods that more or less fail to bear fruit in the twenty-first century. In postmodern soci