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Robert Webber has died

Apr 30, 2007 Print This Post

.:mood:. Neutral
.:itunes:. Not Unusual by Tom Jones

Because of the crazy lack of internet I have had for the last week or so, I have been out of the loop. That’s why I was surprised to read on so many sites this morning that Robert Webber has died.
Most of my readers are probably unfamiliar with Webber, but he wrote one of my favorite books:

“The Younger Evangelicals: Facing the Challenges of the New World” (Robert E. Webber)

He was also the editor of this book, which just came out this year:

“Listening to the Beliefs of Emerging Churches: Five Perspectives” (Zondervan Publishing Company)

His opening chapter is worth the price of the book. He details the state of the church and why what is happening now is part of a historical cycle. Here’s an excerpt:

The church started as a missionary movement in Jerusalem.
It moved to Rome and became an institution.
It traveled to Europe and became a culture.
It crossed the Atlantic to American and became a big business.

Because we are in a time of great cultural upheaval from modernity to postmodernity, the twentieth century may be seen as the century of transition. The cycle of evangelicalism within the twentieth century may be interpreted as the last gasp of modernity and the first breath of postmodernity. For example, traditional evangelicalism (1947-1980) is the high point of modern evangelicalism; pragmatic evangelicalism (1980-2000) is the last gasp of evangelicalism in the modern world; and the emerging church is the first gasp of evangelicalism in the postmodern world. As evangelicalism now seeks to thrive in this new cultural context. it faces new challenges that demand new ways to think and speak the Christian message.