Mike Wittmer:
Center Church truly is exhaustive. Its hefty form reminds me of the Harcourt Brace Jovanovich social studies textbooks I was loaned in high school—you remember, the ones that had the names of previous upper classmen in the inside cover, various scribbles and highlighted pages, and invariably a corner or two that had been chewed by a pet. Center Church has double column pages, lots of sidebars, and tiny endnotes that require me to grope for my reading classes. The only thing it’s missing is a few pictures of U.S. Presidents, and I’d be back in high school.
Center Church promises to bring some much needed clarity to the current controversy between the Kuyperians and the Two Kingdoms School—is the mission of the church only to make disciples or does it also include ministry to the poor? How should the church relate to its surrounding culture? There is a very helpful diagram on p. 231 that explains the balance needed between Kuyperians, Two Kingdoms, Liberal, and Counter-Cultural churches (my only quibble is that the Two Kingdoms quadrant doesn’t list an extreme as do the other quadrants, which seems a bit unfair. If you’re wondering, its extreme would be a sacred-secular dichotomy).
Read the rest.
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