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The Fabric of Theology: A Prolegomenon to Evangelical Theology
By Richard Lints
Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1993. 359 pp. $19.99
Evangelical theology must constructively engage the modern world. So argues Richard Lints, Associate Professor of Theology at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, in this welcome book about a new approach to evangelical theological method. Although evangelicals claim to offer an alternative to modernity, the irony is that they themselves have often made inadvertent accommodations to modern culture. By adopting n approach to theology that too often relies on the cult of personality, makes shallow appeals to biblical proof-texts, and requires unquestioning assent to a narrow set of fundamental beliefs, evangelicals, says Lints, have bypassed the constructive theological reflection the church today so urgently needs.
For Lints, a more adequate method is to attend to the complex fabric into which the essential beliefs of evangelicalism are woven and by which alone they acquire intelligibility. Evangelical theologians have been hampered in this effort because they tend to identify themselves with the trans-confessional and often parachurch movement of evangelicalism rather than with the rich and multifaceted heritage of...