Prophetic untimeliness : a challenge to the idol of relevance by Os Guinness
Baker Books, 2003 123 pages £ ISBN 978 0 801 065 606
The key to getting the main thrust of Os Guinness’s work is in the subtitle – ‘the idol of relevance’.
The Christian gospel has ever been a challenge to the culture of any time or place since the gospel is inherently (and necessarily) countercultural.
When the church argues for ‘relevance’ there is a real danger of kowtowing to that culture or, at least, of compromising the gospel in some way, adapting to the culture, thus diminishing the essential purity and power of the gospel message.
Os Guinness’s argument that time – the ‘ever rolling stream’ – will witness inevitable changes in culture but the gospel is eternal, never changing.
Chasing ‘relevance’ allows culture a significance that, from the Christian point of view, is undeserved and unhelpful.
Dr Guinness makes the case well with plenty of historical as well as contemporary illustrations.