church renewal, Evangelism 

Benn Johnson faces the deep cultural crisis in which we live, and the church's tricky, complex relation to that cultural crisis. He stresses structural, institutional dimensions of the crisis facing the church. In asking questions about public issues and matter of polity, Johnson joins in the growing awareness that there is no easy "fix" to the life of conventional "mainline" Christianity. Johnson recognizes that this moment in the Western church is not unlike Martin Luther's urgent moment, in that the issues are acute, the risks are very great, and the gospel opportunities are enormously open. He invites reflection that is pertinent to what is "on the ground" in the church and he nows full well that what is now required is not yet more speculative theory, but lived efforts to receive new modes of church life, faith, and witness.