Grasping Truth and Reality: Lesslie Newbigin's Theology of Mission to the Western World [Paperback]

A significant contribution to the literature on the theologian Leslie Newbigin, focussing on his analysis of the spiritual problems of Western culture.

When Lesslie Newbigin returned to Britain in 1974 after years of missionary service, he observed that his homeland was as much a mission field as India, where he had spent the majority of his missionary career. He concluded that the Western world needed a missionary confrontation. Instead of the traditional approach to missions, however, Newbigin realized that the Western world needed to be confronted theologically. From his earliest days at Cambridge University, Newbigin developed the theological convictions that shaped his understanding of the Christian faith, and he used these theological convictions as criteria to evaluate the belief system of Western culture and to provide an answer to its dilemma. The Enlightenment reintroduced humanism and dualism into Western culture, which resulted on the loss of purpose and the rise of scepticism. This book discusses Newbigin's theological convictions and how they factored into both his critique of and his solution to Western culture's spiritual and worldview problems. Donald Le Roy cleverly explains Newbigin's solution to reintroduce the Christian belief system into Western culture in order to restore purpose and truth to Westerners and put them back in contact with true reality through Jesus Christ.GBThe operative assumption of the author's approach is that Newbigin's 'view of revelation and his view of God and reality' constitute the 'two fundamental areas' which 'set the tone for the rest of his theological thinking' (p. 94). The author seeks to demonstrate that thesis as he surveys Newbigin's discussion of 'humanity's need for salvation and the call for radical conversion' (pp. 96ff.), his 'critique of western culture' (pp. 123ff.) and his 'response to western culture's crisis' (pp. 154ff.). There is much useful summarising and analysing here based on brolCa