Joshua Sim's Reviews > Renaissance: The Power of the Gospel However Dark the Times

Certainly, Os Guinness sets this book up as his call for the restoration of the evangelical within Evangelicalism. He is at pains to make the point that he is not making an argument for the superiority of the Western Church; but he is optimistic that a restoration of the evangelical can renew the Western Church, and consequently, the West, if Christians regain their devotion and faithfulness to Jesus Christ. Essentially, the Church needs to be like Augustine's City of God--to be in the world but not of the world--in order for the Church to be effective in living out the gospel, thereby critiquing the City of Man through their deeds, testimony and words. In sum, this is a useful book for evangelicals to have if they would like to read up more on the issue of what it means to have a genuine, gospel-based model of Christian engagement with culture. Readers should not expect deep analysis of history but rather broad-stroke gleanings of the lessons of history in order to make his case about a gospel-based renaissance.