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    Impossible People: Christian Courage and the Struggle for the Soul of Civilization
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    Impossible People: Christian Courage and the Struggle for the Soul of Civilization
    Unavailable
    Impossible People: Christian Courage and the Struggle for the Soul of Civilization
    Ebook315 pages5 hours

    Impossible People: Christian Courage and the Struggle for the Soul of Civilization

    By Os Guinness

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    About this ebook

    • ECPA 2017 Christian Book Award Finalist

    The church in the West is at a critical moment. While the gospel is exploding throughout the global south, Western civilization faces militant assaults from aggressive secularism and radical Islam. Will the church resist the seductive shaping power of advanced modernity? More than ever, Christians must resist the negative cultural forces of our day with fortitude and winsomeness. What is needed is followers of Christ who are willing to face reality without flinching and respond with a faithfulness that is unwavering. Os Guinness describes these Christians as "impossible people," those who have "hearts that can melt with compassion, but with faces like flint and backbones of steel who are unmanipulable, unbribable, undeterrable and unclubbable, without ever losing the gentleness, the mercy, the grace and the compassion of our Lord." Few accounts of the challenge of today are more realistic, and few calls to Christian courage are more timely, resolute—and hopeful. Guinness argues that we must engage secularism and atheism in new ways, confronting competing ideas with discernment and fresh articulation of the faith. Christians are called to be impossible people, full of courage and mercy in challenging times.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherIndependent Publishers Group
    Release dateJun 3, 2016
    ISBN9780830893386
    Author

    Os Guinness

    Os Guinness (DPhil, Oxford) was born in China and educated in England. He is the author or editor of thirty-five books, including The Call, Renaissance, Fool's Talk, Carpe Diem Redeemed, and Last Call for Liberty. He has been a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution and a senior fellow at the EastWest Institute. A frequent speaker and prominent social critic, he has addressed audiences worldwide. A passionate advocate of freedom of religion and conscience for people of all faiths and none, he was the lead drafter for both the Williamsburg Charter and the Global Charter of Conscience. He lives with his wife, Jenny, in the Washington, DC, area.

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    • 4/5
      ReviewImpossible People by Os Guinness argues that we are at a critical moment in history. It's not just a critical moment for the Christian church, but for civilization as a whole. In fact, he subtitles the book "Christian Courage and the Struggle for the Soul of Civilization." Hyperbole, you say? Guinness makes a strong case.Guinness believes we are at a singular critical moment similar to several moments in the early church. Pagan Rome threatened the church with secularism. Later, the Ottoman Empire threatened the church with Islam. However, at those times the West was moving towards Christianity. Today, it seems the threats are moving the world away from Christianity.Impossible People discusses multiple threats, but they seem to stem from or support the main threat: progressive secularism. As western societies try to denounce and turn away from Christian influence; the changes in technology, generationalism, sexual relativism, and terrorism leave us rootless. Guinness writes in response to Nietzsche, "In losing God, the Western world had lost its soul and its center. It had become weightless..." Guinness moves through these challenges logically, point by point.The title comes from the Jewish people, who never lost their identity through many challenges. It also comes from a label given Peter Damian in the eleventh-century. Damian refused to waver in his faithfulness to truth and the gospel when facing corruption in the church. He won the reputation for being "unmanipulable, unbribable, undeterrable, and in George Orwell's later term of approval, unclubbable." Guinness argues that believers today must be courageous, engage society, and have a fearless confidence in the gospel.Some will certainly see Impossible People as alarmist. It's important to remember that Christ says, "In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world." The book is not an easy read, but I think it is well-thought out and insightful. Impossible People is a follow-up book to Renaissance. You can find both books at Amazon and other booksellers.