For all my friends in Alberta, I’m coming to Calgary to present the Downey lectures at Ambrose University College as well as do some other stuff February 16, and 17. Why not come over and join in the discussion with  me?

The two public lectures are largely based on my forthcoming book (it’s coming any day now!) The End of Evangelicalism? Discerning a New Faithfulness for Mission. In the first lecture I will show how traditional evangelical theology shapes the church for a hostile defensive presence in the culture . Our traditional evangelical theology made sense when we (in N America) were comfortably living in Christendom, but now these ways of articulating our beliefs have turned against us in the way they “shape us” as a people for Mission in the culture. So I’m critiquing evangelicalism in the 1st lecture. The 2nd lecture then addresses the reaction to evangelicalism in the last ten years via Emergent, Missional, McLaren, Hirsch, etc. Here I try to show how the instincts were good, and some right moves were made to take us in the right direction. Nonetheless some lurking dangers persist which stand to derail the whole post evangelical renewal taking shape out of these movements. In both lectures, I’m addressing evangelicalism’s drive for a “high view of Scripture,” a “conversionist soteriology” and an “activist evangelical engagement of culture,” affirming each of these emphases but asking how do we articulate them and practice them in a way that shapes us for participation in God’s Mission in a culture which we can no longer assume is Christianized.
I am asking does evangelicalism have a future in N America? and what can evangelicals learn from emergent/missional thinkers that can take us there. I’m looking forward to it! Hope to see you there!!