Robert D. Linder – författare

Although religious unrest had been brewing in Western Europe long before Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, historians view this event as the tipping point that shattered the unity of the Medieval Catholic civilization. Disillusioned by Church bureaucracy and awakened by the rise of Renaissance Humanism, Western Europe was primed for an alternative to the old order. Protestant reformers called for a return to scripture and a focus on individual faith, and the Catholic Church responded with a new focus on spirituality that culminated in the Council of Trent. In modern spiritual revivals, religious debates, and newer Church reforms, we can still see the legacy of the era Linder calls Midwife to the Modern World.

Although religious unrest had been brewing in Western Europe long before Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, historians view this event as the tipping point that shattered the unity of the Medieval Catholic civilization. Disillusioned by Church bureaucracy and awakened by the rise of Renaissance Humanism, Western Europe was primed for an alternative to the old order. Protestant reformers called for a return to scripture and a focus on individual faith, and the Catholic Church responded with a new focus on spirituality that culminated in the Council of Trent. In modern spiritual revivals, religious debates, and newer Church reforms, we can still see the legacy of the era Linder calls Midwife to the Modern World.

American nationalism -- is it synonymous with evangelical Protestantism?Do Christians carry a cross in one hand and wave a flag with the other?The following chapters by young Christian scholars respond to this all-too-frequent identification of evangelicalism with the interests, values, and policies of Americanism. "e;Some of today's most sensitive issues are discussed -- militarism, disarmament, revolution, war, the Israel-Arab tinder-box, ecology, poverty, racism, the radical right, the radical left, and Women's Liberation. "e;Committed to a high view of Scripture, these critical lovers and loving critics of evangelicalism attempt to be Biblical -- socially, economically and politically as well as theologically. They have no hesitancy in attacking a number of sacred cows; they have no hesitancy, either, in advocating positions which their fellow-believers call leftist. Their approach, however, while occasionally sharp and necessarily negative, is objective, dispassionate and peaceful. "e;We are reminded in this courageous book that the political problems inevitably become moral problems, and on moral problems the Bible speaks in a loud voice. The writers plead for some serious thinking and rethinking instead of a closed-minded patriotism which proudly renders to Caesar the things which are God's. -- Vernon GroundsConservative Baptist Theological Seminary