The Story That Chooses Us (Themelios)

The new issue of Themelios is now out – you can download it for free as a pdf or (for a short time) free for Logos. In this issue you will find a lot of engagement with Adam, the Fall, and Original Sin. You will also find reviews of some interesting books like Thomas F. Torrance and the Church Fathers: A Reformed, Evangelical and Ecumenical Reconstruction of the Patristic Tradition and Advancing Trinitarian Theology: Explorations in Constructive Dogmatics and of course my review of George Hunsberger’s The Story that Chooses Us: A Tapestry of Missional Vision.

Here is an excerpt but you can read the rest on the Themelios website:

“The Chinese character for crisis, we are told, is a combination of the characters for ‘danger’ and ‘opportunity’” (p. 118). Many missiologists would agree that the church is currently presented with both. It will have to decide how it will face those dangers and opportunities. Over the last several decades missiologist George Hunsberger has written many essays in order to help the church face this crisis of missional identity and practice. The Story that Chooses Us collects some of these. Covering topics like calling, community, and formation, these essays contain a number of reoccurring themes that weave cohesively into what Hunsberger calls “a tapestry of missional-ecclesial vision” (p. ix). The overall scope of this project is wide and the topics addressed are diverse, yet these reoccurring themes bring a sense of cohesion. Instead of addressing individual chapters in this review, I will cover some of these themes (the current crisis of the church, the current shape of the church, the identity of the church, the mission of the church) and offer some critical thoughts about this collection of essays…..