Belief and Evangelism

The church’s witness to the world falters in an age of doctrinal uncertainty, emerging experiments of life forms and behavior norms, and consequent cultural pressures. Against the disturbing influences that result, two questions demand response as the church’s relation to conflicting intellectual fashions is brought under scrutiny. First, on the level of belief foundations, what is to be understood as the deposit of truth that has been entrusted to the church in the gospel it has historically been set to declare? Second, on the level of actual testimony and procedure, to what extent is the doctrinal foundations it professes reflected in the statements the church inserts into the competing complex of explanatory systems. What, it is to be asked, is the place, office, function, and authority of the church in the cultural nexus into which the divine mandate that defines the church has placed it?In Belief and Evangelism Douglas Vickers addresses insightfully many of the relationships that result from the bearing of those questions on the integrity of the church in its professed belief and evangelism. Numerous questions that arise from those relationships demand expanded consideration in a full-orbed statement of the gospel.''In this book, Vickers has masterfully unfolded God’s redemptive purposes in the person and work of Jesus Christ, and in so doing has placed himself in that long line of the many who have attested to the precision in which God in his Word has revealed himself and his will. Further, Vickers challenges God’s people not only to be precise in what they believe and in the way they follow Christ, but to be precise in their proclamation of what God has disclosed. It is man’s utter reliance and dependence upon God and what he has made known which is, as Vickers puts it, ’the glory of the gospel of salvation.’ I am honored and pleased to commend this volume.''--Paul N. Wanamaker, Pastor, The Evangelical Congregational Church of Easton, Massachusetts''In Belief and Evangelism Douglas Vickers carries on the great service that reformers have rendered to the church of Jesus Christ since its earliest days. The maxim, semper reformanda (’always reforming’) has been the call for this needful ministry since the days of the Reformation. Vickers has applied this work to the content and proclamation of the gospel through which God brings salvation to his people. . . . What is so helpful and valuable about this work is his inculcating a full range of arguments for the gospel, including the biblical basis for knowing (epistemology) and being (ontology), even as he calls upon the historic testimony of sound minds and noble souls of the past to strengthen his case. I highly commend this work for your benefit and for the strengthening of the church of Jesus Christ.'' --Lars Larson, Chairman, New England Reformed Fellowship, Leominster, MassachusettsDouglas Vickers is Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Massachusetts. Among his recent titles in theology are Discovering the Christian Mind, The Divine Purchase, The Cross, and The Immediacy of God.