THE NEW CREATION AS METROPOLIS

by Gibson Winter ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

Not long ago Dr. Gibson Winter, who teaches at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago, wrote a stirring and challenging book on The Suburban Captivity of the Churches. This is a sequel which should attract at least as much attention and discussion pro and con. To Dr. Winter, the church in the urban area is to serve God in the world, not to adapt itself to an uncomfortable environment, -- let alone to escape to the suburb and the captivity, where it is likely to waste its substance in pietistic devotion to private values which confuse Christians and non-Christians alike as to the meaning of the Gospel, the nature of the church, and the task of Christianity in the metropolitan area. True piety emerges only in the engagement of the Church with the world. Only as the churches became the servanthead of the laity in the metropolitan areas will a piety emerge which is appropriate to the metropolis. So he develops the role of a servant church in the secular world, with full lay participation, else the pastor will perforce continue to minister in a sanitarium, treating the shock cases but never discovering the enemy who is inflicting the damage. The Churches face the task of secularizing their own institutions. Man must be freed for responsibility. That this will lead to a new theology and new religious structures for responsibility. That this will lead to a new theology and new religious structures is certain and Gibson writes to indicate what he believes this new creation to be. It is a book for all clergy and laity who are not content to spend their restless ease in ""Zion in the Valley"", or on the mountains, or whatever may be the latest retreat from metropolis.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Macmillan

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1963

Categories: NONFICTION