The Power of Servant Leadership

Book Description

"The Power of Servant Leadership" is a collection of Robert Greenleaf's finest and most mature works and an unexpected sequel to his "Servant Leadership." These pieces were designed to stimulate and inspire people in the practice of a more caring leadership and reflect Greenleaf's continual refinement of his servant-as-leader concept, focusing on issues such as spirit, commitment to vision, and seeing things whole.

Customer Reviews:

It's like sitting down with my grandpa & a cup of coffee and talking about life!.......2005-11-23

I appreciated Greenleaf's writing style and the inspiration he offers. While reading most of the essays in this collection I felt like I was sitting down with my grandfather and we were having a conversation over coffee in his den about how to make the world a better place. In the essay "Old Age: The Ultimate Test of Spirit" he referred several times to letters he received from friends and readers about advice they would like and how he responded candidly to them. It made him seem approachable and believable; the style fit well with his content on how to be a servant and make society better. Even in his essays he's coaching younger people! Greenleaf does not write about what he thinks should be done or what might work, but he writes from a long life of experience and reminds us what truly has worked in the past for him and others. It's almost as if he is saying, "Come on, I know you can do it!" The essay "Have You a Dream Deferred?" is actually an address he gave to a group of first-year Ohio Fellows in which he calls the students to take the next three years of their lives at their college or university and use them to make their institution the best it can be, and in turn, they will grow in creativity, distinction, and wisdom, among other noble characteristics. As a recent college graduate I was truly inspired and wished I had heard that speech or read this essay my freshman year. His writings invoke you to action and that shows he truly cares about his work and his message.
I also appreciate Greenleaf's humility and humor. I caught myself laughing out loud many times because of stories and anecdotes he uses to illustrate his points. He keeps his writing as simple as possible, using the same phrasing to describe concepts he truly believes in such as servanthood and leadership. He never uses his expertise, or status, to give his points credibility but rather lets his message, what he believes in, and his many years of work, thought, and broad experience speak for itself.
The essays themselves would be stronger if they had more structure and organization around a succinct argument. In his writings, Greenleaf picks some broad topic, such as seminaries, to write whatever comes to mind. The only attempt at an organization of those thoughts is a subtitle with a word or thought below which he will write a few thoughts in paragraph form and then move on to another thought without attempt to really make connections between his ideas. There are many connections to be made, which are left to the reader, but it would be helpful to know the connections Greenleaf has found. This would not detract from his informal style that I appreciate, but only make it easier to understand his thoughts. Perhaps Spears edited the essays in this manner and gave them even more structure than they had before. In his introduction Spears could draw Greenleaf's unorganized points together; as it is now even in the introduction Spears only lists the main points he finds helpful in these essays without offering much connection between them.
Also, the essay "My Debt to E.B. White" did not fit with the other seven essays whatsoever. In this essay are Greenleaf's thoughts on certain writings by E.B. White that Greenleaf admired and includes long quotations from those texts. For those of us who never knew White, and especially those who rarely read The New Yorker, the essay's point is lost to us. It is much to specific and detailed and the wholeness that Greenleaf is indebted to White for helping him see in White's life is not discussed enough to make the essay so broad to relate easily and connect with the other essays in the collection. It is much better left entirely out of this book.
Overall I found my introduction to Robert Greenleaf, his life, his thoughts, and his style to be engaging, unique, wise, and inspiring. The book was enjoyable to read without dull intellectualizing and what quotes he did use were relevant and very personal to Greenleaf. His years of wisdom are captured in these essays and anyone interested in leadership and how we should organize ourselves to build a better society, especially young leaders full of potential and ripe for service, would do themselves a disservice if they overlook Greenleaf's work.

Highly Recommended!.......2001-03-15

The late Robert K. Greenleaf was widely revered for his profound impact on leadership theory during the last three decades of the 20th century. Eight of his most compelling essays on servant-leadership (a term he coined) are published here in book form for the first time. These essays testify to Greenleaf's legacy and to his important role in the philosophies of leadership and service. Issues of spirit, vision and wholeness are woven through many of these essays, which address individual and institutional leadership in all areas, including government, business, religion, education and philanthropy. We at getAbstract highly recommend this eloquent book to those contemplating or holding leadership positions.

Food for thought for the 21st century leader........1999-08-06

As a Doctoral student writing on servant leadership, I found the newest book put out by The Greenleaf Center to be as interesting and thought-provoking as those published previously. If organizations are to be successful as we enter the 21st century, perhaps this book should become required reading at leadership seminars.

Greenleaf has a style all his own, but the material flows well and is readily understandable by the reader.

Book Description

The Great Platte River Road through Nebraska and Wyoming was the grand corridor of America's westward expansion. A number of famous trails converged in the broad valley of the Platte, forming a kind of primitive superhighway for the great covered wagon migration from 1841 to 1866. From jumping-off places along the Missouri River—notably the Omaha-Council Bluffs, St. Joseph, and Kansas City areas—the emigrant throngs came together at Fort Kearny, Nebraska. Although they continued on to South Pass, Wyoming, and beyond, this book focuses on the feeder mutes and the more than three hundred miles between Fort Kearny and Fort Laramie.

The Great Platte River Road looks at border towns, trail routes, river crossings, stage stations, military posts, and such landmarks as Chimney Rock and Scott's Bluff. It goes far beyond geography and Indian encounters in revealing cultural aspects of the great migration: food, dress, equipment, organization, camping, traffic patterns, sex ratios, morals, manners, religion, crime, accidents, disease, death, and burial customs.

Customer Reviews:

Great!.......2003-04-04

Citing from over 700 journals, diaries and letters, Merrill Mattes' "The Great Platte River Road" is a must read for history enthusiasts of the Oregon Trail. From the five main jumping off points along the Missouri River: Independence, Ft. Leavenworth, St. Joe, Nebraska City and Council Bluffs, we see how all emigrant roads lead to Ft. Kearny. From here the lengthy and laborious journey to the west followed the Platte River. Mattes incorporates the overlander's journals with his own effective style of writing to give vivid, down-to-earth, hard-nosed descriptions of past events in such places as Ft. Kearny, Ash Hollow, Court House Rock, Chimney Rock, Scottsbluff and culminating with Ft. Laramie. He not only communicates the difficulties endured by the emigrants themselves such as river crossings, cholera and survival, but also chronicles accounts of the Pony Express, military, Indians, stage lines, etc. and how they all played a part in Manifest Destiny. Not only was this book a pleasure to read, it was extremely insightful and deep-rooted of our Westward expansion.

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Beebe does the Rio Grande

Rio Grande: mainline of the Rockies,
Lucius Morris Beebe , and Charles Clegg
Manufacturer: Howell-North
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Customer Reviews:

Beebe does the Rio Grande.......2007-01-04

yet another of the Master's works. Even if you have
no interest in trains, his style of writing will capture
you. If you have an interest in railroading, this is
the guy who really started the popular railfan book genre,
and invented the photographic style. No one else before him
did as much - the travelogue of Frimbo maybe (but no
pictures), or "Slow Train to Yesterday" which belongs on the same shelf.

The Megachurch and the Mainline: Remaking Religious Tradition in the Twenty-first Century

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Balanced look at Lutheran megatrends
Fascinating Reflection on Tradition and Innovation
A Testament to Empty Traditionalism

The Megachurch and the Mainline: Remaking Religious Tradition in the Twenty-first Century
Stephen Ellingson
Manufacturer: University Of Chicago Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Beyond Megachurch Myths: What We Can Learn from America's Largest Churches (J-B Leadership Network Series)

ASIN: 0226204901

Book Description

Religious traditions provide the stories and rituals that define the core values of church members. Yet modern life in America can make those customs seem undesirable, even impractical. As a result, many congregations refashion church traditions so they may remain powerful and salient. How do these transformations occur? How do clergy and worshipers negotiate which aspects should be preserved or discarded?

Focusing on the innovations of several mainline Protestant churches in the San Francisco Bay Area, Stephen Ellingson’s The Megachurch and the Mainline provides new understandings of the transformation of spiritual traditions. For Ellingson, these particular congregations typify a new type of Lutheranism—one which combines the evangelical approaches that are embodied in the growing legion of megachurches with American society’s emphasis on pragmatism and consumerism. Here Ellingson provides vivid descriptions of congregations as they sacrifice hymns in favor of rock music and scrap traditional white robes and stoles for Hawaiian shirts, while also making readers aware of the long history of similar attempts to Americanize the Lutheran tradition.

This is an important examination of a religion in flux—one that speaks to the growing popularity of evangelicalism in America.

Customer Reviews:

Balanced look at Lutheran megatrends.......2007-10-01

This is a balanced look at what is happening in many Lutheran churches in today's megachurch environment. The author points out that some - not all - Lutheran churches that are moving away from the traditional worship style and historical liturgy are also moving away from the Lutheran confessions, and the centrality of Christ alone, faith alone, and grace alone. Contrary to what the previous reviewer says, nowhere does the author lament the loss of the traditional service, ethnic homogeneity, or its emphasis on education and intellect. He does point out that these trends are happening, but I can detect nowhere that he says they are good or bad. He does quote others who lament the loss of tradition, but to do otherwise would be to present a one-sided report.

Ellingson does lament the fact that some misguided Lutheran pastors have become more interested in numbers than in the central message of the Gospel, as spelled out in the Augsburg Confession.

Whether or not you agree with the author's conclusions, this is a fascinating look at different approaches to dealing with the decline of traditional mainline churches.

Fascinating Reflection on Tradition and Innovation.......2007-06-05

Written by a sociologist, this book considers the relationship between tradition and innovation. The churches Ellingson describes are not unusual; this process is occurring all around the world. Nor is the process he describes unusual; religious groups have always had to cope with changing social conditions and accomodated themselves in various and unanticipated ways.

The book is framed around the shift from "confessionalism" toward "pietism" by which he means the turn from focus on religious identity based on institutionalized rituals and beliefs to religious identity based more on individual experience and conviction. This in no way summarizes the book, but in the process he argues that contemporary forms of evangelicalism are connecting with the religious desires of many people today such that more mainline churches are using the symbolic resources they've developed. That creates an opportunity to examine how traditions within a particular denomination are negotiated in the face of new, innovative forms of religion emerging out of contemprary societal conditions.

I'm not Lutheran, so I have no particular quibble with the author's approach to Lutheranism. Rather, as an outsider who is fascinated by religion and social change I enjoyed this book. I guess I keep in mind that this book is written by a sociologist trying to understand particular dynamics in our contemporary world, not a pastor or seminary professor who is trying to affirm or justify a particular form of congregation or belief. The concepts and issues he describes are useful and important. And they certainly apply beyond Lutheranism to a whole range of religious groups today.

For more interesting books on social change and the impact of evangelicalism, I also recommend Gerardo Marti's A Mosaic of Believers: Diversity and Innovation in a Multiethnic Church and Donald Miller's Reinventing American Protestantism: Christianity in the New Millennium.

A Testament to Empty Traditionalism.......2007-05-14

Dr. Stephen Ellingson promises to give us some answers as to why some mainline churches are growing in denominations that are in decline. In the midst of trying to answer that question, he gets sidetracked by mourning the fact that these growing churches have not maintained the "tradition" of [American] Lutheranism.

Ellingson consistently misuses two terms in his writing. He uses the word "tradition" when the proper term would be "traditionalism," and he consistently uses the word "pietism" when what he is often describing is "piety." These are not small errors; they lead to completely convoluted conclusions. After wading through 176 pages of a dismissal of American evangelicalism, church growth principles, church consultants, Willow Creek Community Church and Saddleback Community Church (he demonstrates no personal knowledge of nor any direct research of any of these), we get to the fifteen page conclusion where we finally learn:

1) His definition of the Lutheran "tradition" is: its "ethnic exclusivity" (i.e. Scandinavian and German)"; its "complicated liturgical service"; its "use of classical sacred music"; and its "emphasis on education and intellect."

2) That "evangelicalism and nondenominationalism are colonizing mainline Protestantism"; and

3) Pietism is defined by "individualism and experience, consumption and choice, pragmatism and efficiency."

I would directly respond by saying that:

1) Nothing has hampered the vitality of the Lutheran Church in America for the last thirty years like this list of what "Lutheranism" is about;

2) Lutheran Christians are the ones who coined the term "evangelical," and we should not abandon it too quickly;

3) These exact same defintions could be used to describe those who doggedly insist on the church pleasing no one but themsleves by maintaining traditionalism ("the dead faith of the living") over the true Lutheran tradition ("the living faith of those who have gone before us").
What's easier (more "pragmatic and efficient"), to do the same liturgy from the same hymnal week in and week out, or to experiment with new forms and music to keep the faith vital?

Ellingson is correct in saying that some of us have "decentered the Lutheran tradition." We have placed at the center of our churches the person and work of Jesus Christ, the only true center of any "evangelical faith." We have decentered ethnic exclusivity, a complicated liturgical service, our exclusive use of classical music and our emphasis on education and training. We have recentered on Jesus and reaching out to people from all walks of life, church backgrounds (including no church background) and socio-economic classes. We have recentered on the Word and Sacrament. We have recentered our worship to celebrate God's mercy as greater than our failures and God's goodness as greater than our giftedness. This has led us to a livelier worship than Dr. Ellingson remembers from his youth, but it's hardly "rock and roll." We have recentered on equipping and training that leads to a lived faith and a Christ-following discipleship - hearts as well as minds. Guilty as charged.

Dr. Kent Hunter rightly points out the radical difference between those churches who were founded in American or have adapted to an American context rather than insisting on maintaining their "European" orientation, and concludes that this is one of the factors affecting growth or decline today. Dr. Eddie Gibbs has helped us see there are no "mainlines" anymore - only "oldlines" and "newlines." We are pleased be to be numbered among the "newlines." Their writings are helpful; this book is not.

I know some people experience all change as loss and grief. Dr. Ellingson is grieving the changes that are taking place in a church from which he became inactive "during most of my graduate school career" and had become "somewhat alienated from the institutional church." Like many traditionalists, Ellingson has made the crucial error of baptizing his personal tastes and memories, and has created a book that will only serve those final, "faithful" few [traditionalists] who will to narrowly define American Lutheranism with their congregation's final breaths.

Pastor R. Kevin Murphy, D. Min.
Saint Matthew Lutheran Church
Walnut Creek, CA
(aka "Pastor John Lincoln" of "Faith Lutheran Church")

A Mainline Turnaround: Strategies For Congregations And Denominations

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If you care about the future of the mainline congregations and denominations, read this!

A Mainline Turnaround: Strategies For Congregations And Denominations
Lyle E. Schaller
Manufacturer: Abingdon Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Christianity | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 068705401X

Customer Reviews:

If you care about the future of the mainline congregations and denominations, read this!.......2006-08-12

This book is what it says it is: a compendium of strategies and suggestions for local congregations and national denominations to do a "turnaround," to stem the tide of 40 years of decline.

The first chapter offers an insightful historical analysis that suggests that we have successfully faced decline in the past and turned it around. Schaller argues that, in the mid-1920s, vast numbers of aging congregations were facing difficult choices, similar to those that vast numbers of aging congregations are facing today. Thousands of them, he argues, implemented the changes required to reach, attract, serve, nurture, assimilate, and challenge younger generations -- while thousands of others were not able to make that transition.

He argues that our emphasis today needs to be on reaching adults born after 1960, because well-established churches already know how to reach adults born prior to 1960. To engage in a turnaround, we need to be figuring out how to attract people 45 years of age and younger. That is true at the congregational level, as well as at the denominational level. "What worked so well in the context of 1955 may have to be replaced." Schaller offers an insightful analysis of some old models and values that may simply need to be jettisoned.

Schaller also argues (among other things) that mainline denominations need to recover an emphasis on Christ's Great Commission (a theme found in numerous books that I have found myself reading in the past couple years), should be planting "new missions designed to average at least 500 in worship within a year or two following that first public worship service" (an argument that stands in contrast to some other leading thinkers), should be promoting better pastoral matches and longer pastoral relationships, and should shift their priorities from what he calls "intradenominational quarreling" (i.e., infighting within denominations) to new church development.

He includes a chapter in planting new missions (wish suggestions of characteristics that might work today, in contrast to characteristics that might have worked in the past) and a chapter entitled: "How do we pay for it?"

Whatever you may think of Lyle Schaller and all of his lists, he's written here a passionate argument for new church development and denominational transformation.

Mainline to the Future: Congregations for the 21st Century

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Mainline to the Future: Congregations for the 21st Century
Jackson W. Carroll
Manufacturer: Westminster John Knox Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0664222536

The Quiet Hand of God: Faith-Based Activism and the Public Role of Mainline Protestantism

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The Quiet Hand of God: Faith-Based Activism and the Public Role of Mainline Protestantism

Manufacturer: University of California Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books

Activism | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0520233131

Book Description

Robert Wuthnow and John H. Evans bring together a stellar collection of essays that paints a contemporary portrait of American Protestantism--a denomination that has remained quietly, but firmly, influential in the public sphere. Mainline Protestants may have steered clear of the controversial, attention-grabbing tactics of the Religious Right, but they remain culturally influential and continue to impact American society through political action and the provision of social services.
The contributors to this volume address religion's larger role in society and cover such topics as welfare, ecology, family, civil rights, and homosexuality. Pioneering, timely, and meticulously researched, The Quiet Hand of God will be an essential reference to the dynamics of American religion well into the twenty-first century.

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Mainline Farming

Mainline Farming for Century Twenty-One
Dan Skow
Manufacturer: Acres USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Science | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0911311270

Book Description

Mainline Farming for Century 21 is a graduate course in agriculture. It does not settle for tip-toeing beyond the conventional, it takes bold strides — and it answers what the farmer wants to know, all the while demolishing the mythology on which toxic rescue chemistry has been built. Few people have asked and answered the right questions with the total consistency of Dr. Dan Skow. His teacher was the late Dr. Carey Reams, and the lessons Skow learned — and improved upon — were strong meat. They led him to a full appreciation of cause and effect, and the role of precedence in agriculture.

Dan Skow and Charles Walters have taken the complex biological theory of ionization as applied to agriculture and made it accessible to all. But Mainline Farming for Century 21 is more than a book of theory -- it teaches how to measure fertility down to the atomic level and project forward bins and bushels with brix high enough to confer immunity to fungal, bacterial and insect attack—and to ward off weeds. The practical, hands-on advice in this manual will lead growers to increased yields and more fertile acres, all without the use of toxic, synthetic chemicals.

Customer Reviews:

Mainline Farming.......2006-06-13

I find this book very interesting since it gives us the view of people when chemical farming was just starting and the warnings at that time and how things have turned out. It gives a lot of practical advice on balancing the soil so we might produce healthy plants and livestock also.

Turning Around the Mainline: How Renewal Movements Are Changing the Church

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An extended sermon/newspaper article
There is hope for the Church.
A Case Study in Perseverance

Turning Around the Mainline: How Renewal Movements Are Changing the Church
Thomas C. Oden
Manufacturer: Baker Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Christianity | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0801065763
Release Date: 2006-02-01

Book Description

Today's mainline Protestant denominations are more theologically liberal than ever before. So it may come as a surprise that renewal movements are a growing trend, together crossing denominational lines to reshape worship and revitalize evangelicalism. Turning Around the Mainline brings together for the first time an introduction to the issues, themes, and documents of the mainline churches and renewal movements, and a practical case study of the most relevant issue of the day: the property rights of churches. For pastors, church leaders, and anyone wanting a better understanding of the changing dynamics of evangelicalism, this comprehensive study will articulate the worldviews of confessing Christians and survey the workings of the renewal movements to provide clarity, civil discourse, and charity in further dialogue.

Customer Reviews:

An extended sermon/newspaper article.......2007-07-16

This book gives an enthusiastic survey of some (most? all?) of the many renewal and confessional groups that are making waves in the mainline churches. I've enjoyed reading the book which is clearly written, free from jargon, and represents an Evangelical perspective--a perspective I have given up hope could be heard from Mainline churches. Oden convinces me that there are many devout--"classical" for want of a better word--Christian believers within the ranks of the "imploded" (his word) liberal denominations. I am reminded of God telling Elijah that 7,000 have remained faithful.

On the down side. The book is a cross between an extended sermon and a newspaper article. Statements are made without supporting statistics. Oden believes that the United Church in Canada is the most "imploded." By what metric? He does not say. He mentions that the African and Asian Anglican Churches number over half of the entire Anglican Communion, but gives no numbers to give the reader a better feel for what "over half" means. For instance it might have helped put things in perspective if he mentioned that the Nigerian Anglican church numbers some 22 million communicants whereas the US Episcopal Church has less that 3 million active members. I know that the numbering can be a vexed, but a number, such as average Sunday attendance in a few of the larger provinces would have helped. Of course an analysis of the changes in numbers over the past several decades would be expected in such a work--but it was absent.

In addition there is a surprising lack of detailed information about the history of the various groups that comprise his subject matter. We are told what they are doing now, and what they believe, but there is not much context given. It is hard to be convinced of a trajectory by only know where something is and where it is headed, unless I also know where it has been.

There is a more or less useful summary of the confessions of the confessional groups, including the 1934 Barmen Declaration as a sort of "control." The problem is that the various confessions are not complete, in the sense, say, of the Westminster or Philadelphia Confessions. Thus, comparing the confessions is a haphazard matter, and not altogether satisfying. For instance, some have statements about same-sex marriage while others don't. In order to organize the comparisons the author chose various subject headings, then quoted from the relevant documents. But each subject heading had quotes from different groups, so it was difficult to determine whether the renewal/confessional group was silent on the issue, or whether Oden the silence was Oden's choice.

On the whole, I was looking for much more by way of details in history, in facts, in church membership numbers, in financial numbers, etc. to support his case that the various denominations are imploding. The same sort of attention to quantitative analysis would have given me more optimism, to match the author's own apparent optimism that things are going to be OK. After reading the book, for me the jury is still out.

There is hope for the Church........2007-07-13

Oden is right on in his assment of mainline Protestant churches; and it mirrors what is wrong with the USA.

Those that do not believe in the Trinity nor that Jesus is the Son of God,born of the Virgin Mary,crucified on a cross,raised to life on the third day and ascended to Heaven should not be called Christian.

A Case Study in Perseverance.......2006-04-18

Thomas Oden is the driving force behind Paleo-Orthodoxy, the blending of two concepts, right belief rooted in ancient and lasting consensus. For the last few generations, the leadership of mainline denominations has been the opposite of orthodox and has embraced ideas that are anything but ancient or consensual.

Over the last two centuries, there has been a gathering momentum in the mainline to see both scripture and the classical doctrine with a skeptical eye and to revise the teachings of the churches in accordance with modern assumptions. Thus national leaders could profess a "Christianity" that denied the resurrection of Christ, embrace radical political agendas and turn traditional morality completely upside down.

But this trend has been one that primarily affected the clergy, many of whom were educated in the radical sixties and have more recently ascended to denominational leadership. Such leaders have made sweeping decisions regarding doctrine, morality and church policy that have been baffling and often offensive to the orthodox laity and have managed to shut orthodox clergy out of positions of influence.

Thomas Oden sees hope for the mainline as a new generation begins to assert an old orthodoxy. What Oden documents is a number of parallel movements within mainline denominations like the United Methodist, Evangelical Lutheran and Anglican traditions in which laymen and clerics alike are becoming increasingly bold in challenging the leadership of mainline denominations to return to the historic Christian faith. They are slowly having an effect in chipping away at the monolithic control revisionists have held over older Protestant denominations.

In keeping with Oden's earlier works such as The Rebirth of Orthodoxy, he documents a movement that is trans-denominational, intergenerational, cross cultural, and is united by a commitment to reaffirm historic truth, particularly the doctrinal stance of the Nicene Creed and a historical consensus on the interpretation of scripture. Several chapters, tedious to read but necessary for background, amount to little more than selected quotations from orthodox counter movements in mainline churches which affirm belief in Trinitarian theology, biblical authority and traditional morality. And he notes that such "confessional" movements often find support in cooperation with each other across denominational lines.

He makes it clear that organizational unity between groups is not what is sought, for that has been the downfall of the old ecumenical movement which valued structural unity at the expense of truth. True fidelity to Christianity values the truth of doctrine and the unity of the church equally. The true faithful are willing to stay, in even liberal denominations, for the long haul, with the dual goals of spiritual unity and doctrinal truth both in mind, knowing that God is faithful to purify his church.

Such statementsm early in the book, are noble, but raise questions. One wonders, in reading his words, whether he would really recommend parents remain in a church where their small children are being indoctrinated by heretical teachers whose sexual practices fly in the face of two millennia of Christian morality. One wonders as well, if it is never permissible to "leave" a denomination, if Oden might be in danger of repudiating the Reformation itself.

But Oden does not say it is never permissible to leave a church tradition overrun with heresy. Rather, he suggests the ideal scenario is for the faithful to make it as easy as possible for the revisionists to leave. Heresy, he points out, means to "go one's own way". So the faithful should have as their goal to remain faithful and steadfast. It is the faithful who should gently show the innovators the way to the door.

The best chapters deal with the meaning of "confession", which includes confession of central tenets of faith and confession of our sins and failings. True Christians confess with the rest of the church of history, not as individuals or independent groups. So for Oden, the path forward does not lie with political negotiations or compromise. Rather it rests on confession of the same faith that has remained central to the vast majority of Christians since the first century. One need not seek perfect organizational unity to form orthodox alliances centered on the great creeds, the scriptures and the testimony of the early church.

In the end, his book is both a documentation of existing movements to reclaim denominations which have fallen far from the historic faith and a call to have the same courage displayed by Christians of earlier eras, where faithfulness to scripture and historic consensus cost many their blood. He is not naive, exposing the word games and obfuscation current revisionist leaders use to keep critics at bay. The faithful must be wise as serpents and gentle as doves.

The book may not seem to have much relevance to those not embroiled in mainline controversies. But such an assumption would be a mistake. Evangelicals in newer and more independent denominations face similar battles based in similar thought patterns. Those who value the best of the Protestant heritage should recognize the allies they have in older traditions and should take heed of the prophetic warning of what could easily happen to their own leadership.

Still, Oden's book points to hopeful possibilities, not rehearsal of negative setbacks. Christ will, in the end, purify his church. The faithful primarily need to remain faithful.

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