{"id":10083,"date":"2016-11-03T11:47:07","date_gmt":"2016-11-03T18:47:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dminlgp.com\/?p=10083"},"modified":"2016-11-03T11:47:07","modified_gmt":"2016-11-03T18:47:07","slug":"understanding-the-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/understanding-the-times\/","title":{"rendered":"Understanding the times…"},"content":{"rendered":"

An introduction to contemporary social theory by Anthony Elliott<\/strong><\/p>\n

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In their book, Untamed<\/em>, Alan and Debra Hirsch ask the question:<\/p>\n

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\u201cIn our day, one is left wondering if it us who are actually being \u201cevangelised\u201d by the prevailing mass culture rather than the other way around.\u201d Their argument is that \u201cthe church has been deeply compromised by aspects of the prevailing culture.\u201d (109)<\/p>\n

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In his book on Preaching<\/em>, Tim Keller speaks of preaching Christ to the culture.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo reach people gospel preachers must challenge the culture\u2019s story at points of confrontation and finally retell the culture\u2019s story, as it were, revealing how its deepest aspirations for good can be fulfilled only in Christ.\u201d (20)<\/p>\n

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The men of Issachar were men \u201cwho understood the times\u201d (1 Chron. 12:32)<\/p>\n

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Elliott\u2019s introduction to contemporary social theory gives us a good overview of \u201cthe times\u201d \u2013 the major cultural movements of the last century and the main thinkers and themes in the realm of sociology. From the Frankfurt School and its emphasis on the psychoanalytical, to the linguistically centred structuralists and post-structuralists, from feminism to globalisation, this book gives a sweeping review of the major themes of the twentieth and twenty-first century.<\/p>\n

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Some of the movements and thinkers are easier to understand than others \u2013 I found myself getting lost in psychobabble\u00a0 land on more than one occasion. But this really is a good book to dig into the culture and society that we live and move in.<\/p>\n

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Whether making disciples, preaching, not conforming to the pattern of the world, living counterculturally, or indeed carrying out research, a clear understanding of culture and society is essential. This book provides a good degree of that information and I found myself wanting to read deeply in parts, and having a few moments where what I was reading resonated deeply with current experiences in my world of church ministry.<\/p>\n

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An introduction to contemporary social theory by Anthony Elliott   In their book, Untamed, Alan and Debra Hirsch ask the question:   \u201cIn our day, one is left wondering if it us who are actually being \u201cevangelised\u201d by the prevailing mass culture rather than the other way around.\u201d Their argument is that \u201cthe church has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":89,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[743,744],"class_list":["post-10083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-anthony-elliott","tag-contemporary-social-theory","cohort-lgp7"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/89"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10083\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}