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Regent College Publishing (2009)

Authentic Spirituality

Finding God Without Losing Your Mind

excerpt

"I had been working in Central Asia for some time, and had immersed myself in the culture and challenges of the local area. When I returned to England I got something of a shock. I was in a university bar with some others taking part in an evangelistic question-and-answer session organized by a campus ministry. Things weren't going very well. We had a PA system, but still we could hardly be heard above the din of laughing and talking. And when we made ourselves heard no one seemed very interested.

Suddenly a woman stormed to the front, grabbed the microphone, stared me in the face and said, "You believe in one God, right?"

I thought, well, at least we'd managed to get something across this evening, so I replied rather wearily, "Right."

"So," she paused to think over the implications of this, "that means that you think that all the other gods are wrong, right?"

There were a whole host of things I would have liked to have said about that with a little more theological precision, but, given the circumstances, she'd basically got the point, so I said, "right." Her face went purple. She was livid. "How can you be so arrogant?"

The shock I received was not because the evening was difficult. Telling people about God is seldom easy (though it can be very rewarding); doing it in a bar is incongruous. In a way I expected a rough ride. The shock I got came from what was difficult. Things had changed! When we told them that we had good evidence for believing in God no one challenged us or even seemed remotely interested. Even when we told our testimonies of how we knew God no one was surprised. But when it became clear that we believed there was only one God the response was electric. How can you be so arrogant!

Today the one thing that must not be said about your own religion or your own "spirituality" is that it is exclusively right. You are allowed to believe what you like about God as long as you are willing to accept that what someone else believes about God is right as well, even if it contradicts what you believe. When you do not accept that you hit an iceberg of social horror: "how can you be so arrogant!"

What has dawned on me since that evening is that the charge of arrogance leveled at Christianity does not come because Christianity has been tried and found wanting. It comes from a basic presupposition that our society has towards religion. When someone says that Christianity sounds arrogant they are saying more about our society than about Christianity.

I have also begun to realize that this presupposition about Christianity is unfounded. To help you get a feel for what I mean, we need to find out more about the world that we live in. Consider, then, the "map" of the present world in the next chapter."

what others are saying about it...

  • "...A breath of fresh air..."
    -- D. A. Carson, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

Regent College Publishing (2007)

The God-Centered Life

Insights from Jonathan Edwards for Today

excerpt

"I have taken the time to write this book because the great message of the Bible is one that is God-centered, not us-centered or me-center. This makes all the difference. God always comes first. He is always at the heart of life. He influences and invades all of reality. He is, and there is no other. Why does this make all the difference? Because then my happiness is not dependent on my personal experience, but on God's grace and love for me."

what others are saying about it...

  • "Tremendous. Extremely well-written. It will be a blessing for many....I heartily commend this work as a timely and valuable resource....."
    —David S. Dockery, Union University
  • "I recommend this book most highly, praying that Josh Moody's labors will encourage the kinds of  'Edwards influenced' lives and congregations that our world so desperately needs...."
    —Douglas A Sweeney, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
  • "At last, someone who stands in the tradition of Edwards as a pastor-scholar, interpreting and applying the lessons from Jonathan Edwards for today"
    —David Cook, Wheaton College
  • "Potent, thoughtful, and constructive..."—R. Albert Mohler, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

University Press of America (2005)

Jonathan Edwards and the Enlightenment

Knowing the Presence of God

excerpt

"It is well said that Edwards, 'was not a storehouse of Truth but a dynamic force that is not yet spent.' To our age he offers again his rejoinder to the Enlightenment, that was to hold together rational and spiritual, and so study, write and preach as to convince men and women that the God of the Bible was present. The communication of the presence of God in response to the Enlightenment is the axis around which Edwards' globe spins. Miss that and we miss everything."

what others are saying about it...

  • "Fascinating and provocative...This work adds significantly to our understanding of Jonathan Edwards and the Enlightenment. By situating his subject in current discourse on post-modernism, the author presents an Edwards as relevant to the 21st century as he was to his own times. The writing, moreover, is lucid and accessible. A must read for anyone interested in a usable Edwards for our time."
    —Harry S. Stout, Yale University
  • "In spite of the universally acknowledged brilliance of his philosophical writings, Jonathan Edwards has never been incorporated into the canon of modern philosophy. One of the reasons for this is the difficulty of situating Edwards' work within the larger philosophical currents. In this study, Moody does an excellent job of beginning to redress the neglect, by both locating Edwards' thought and identifying his particular contribution to the philosophical tradition."
    —Nicholas Wolterstorff, Yale University
  • "Josh Moody offers a stimulating new understanding of Jonathan Edwards' relationship to the Enlightenment. He shows how Edwards engaged the Enlightenment's emphasis on reason, and creatively reinterpreted it in the light of revelation. Edwards still have much to offer the contemporary world where reason is once again under attack."
    —David M. Thompson, University of Cambridge
  • "In this learned and lively contribution to Edwards scholarship, Josh Moody seeks to account for the 'spark' in Edwards' career and to flesh out the 'organizing principle' of Edwards' ministery...This book goes a long way toward explaining why so many thinkers in our time continue to find the Edwards corpus so appealing." —Douglas A Sweeney, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

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