100% Christianity: How the gospel changes
everything
Jago Wynne
IVP £8.99
(978-1-78359-119-0)
Church Times Bookshop £8.10 (Use code
CT597 )
EVANGELICALS are currently engaged in some very public
heart-searching. Can we sing hymns about God's wrath any longer? Is
Christ really unique? Does everybody find God in the end? Does
atonement have to be substitutionary and penal? While the likes of
Dave Tomlinson, Rob Bell, and Brian McLaren are declaring some
traditional Evangelical dogmas no longer fit for purpose, others
are wrestling with how to restate them sensitively in a changing
culture. Against this backdrop, it is unusual to read an
Evangelical presentation of the gospel which appears quite free
from anxiety about contemporary sensitivities.
Jago Wynne has served on the staff of Holy Trinity, Brompton,
and All Souls', Langham Place, and is currently an Associate Rector
in Clapham. He expounds themes in Romans, with a view to showing
how only a fully biblical gospel, rigorously applied, will satisfy
the deepest yearnings of the human spirit. Each chapter includes a
passage from Romans, followed by doctrinal reflections from Wynne,
a personal testimony and prayer, plus questions for discussion.
The author's concern is to underline the timeless relevance of
doctrines such as justification by faith. Christianity makes sense,
he says, only when we are clear that it is the solution to the
problem of God's wrath. But Wynne's doctrine remains strangely
unrooted in real-world concerns. His chapter "Why Christianity is
100% Inclusive", for instance, contains no hint that for most
people today church "inclusivity" is primarily a debate about
sexual orientation.
Wynne's style is breezy and homely, and his children Daisy and
Boaz make regular appearances. The principal readership of this
book is likely to be conservative Evangelical students who share
the author's core assumptions. But I suspect that even they will
wonder why it brackets out so many of the hard questions that
others are asking.
The Revd Mike Starkey is a tutor for the Church Army, and a
freelance writer.