The Logic of Renewal

In The Logic of Renewal William Abraham helps church leaders and members get their bearings in the renewal debate by analyzing the most salient proposals for church renewal that have surfaced over the last fifty years. In successive chapters he pairs outspoken figures who (in all but one chapter) represent strongly contrasting convictions - James T. Draper and Dennis Bennett, Lesslie Newbigin and John Shelby Spong. Rosemary Radford Ruether and Cardinal Ratzinger, Martin Luther King Jr. and Archbishop Romero, Alexander Schmemann and Gilbert Bilezikian, Don Cupitt and Edward Norman, C. Peter Wagner and R. R. Reno. Abraham gives special attention to the theological assumptions of each proposal, highlights its overall strengths and weaknesses, and develops his own proposals for church renewal through interaction with those under review.

William J. Abraham is Albert Cook Outler Professor of Wesley Studies at Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas.