The Great Giveaway

Book Review

Fitch, David E. The Great Giveaway. Reclaiming the mission of the church from- modern maladies. Baker Books, 2005.

D.F.- pastor of Life on the Vine Christian Community of the C.& M.A. in Long Grove, Illinois.

Comment. Henry
The specific maladies that the church needs to reclaim its mission from are big business, parachurch organizations, psychotherapy, and consumer capitalism. David focuses on other specifics in the church that he feels require attention because of how they have been impacted by modernity and its way of arriving at truth. His views are postmodern and his recommendations are radical.

Evangelism’s “complicity with modernity” (13) is where the giveaways are happening. Modernity is “the veneration of modern science, the obsession with controlled factual truth, and the unabashed confidence in objective reason as located in the mind of each individual”. (14) Is the church really doing what the church was meant to do from its inception? That is the issue. The author explains how he is using certain terms such as ‘postmodern, liberalism, evangelical, etc.

A very strong, critical assessment is made of the megachurch. When there is a focus on counting numbers and seeking to meet the felt needs of people a church has strayed from its biblical mandate. “Use qualitative measures of community” (44) to measure success.

“The basis for a compelling Christian account of salvation in postmodernity is a changed life among a living community of Christ.” (59) The salvation message must be seen before it will be heard. “Church planting is the ultimate form of postmodern evangelism.” (68)

Church leadership is in trouble because it adheres to the principles of business. Such principles isolate a leader from community.

Regarding worship, it is suggested that it needs to be immersed in a liturgical form. “Liturgical worship invites the worshiper into a worship that was going before the worshiper arrived and that will continue after he or she is gone.” (107)

Expository preaching is criticized because so much of it is private interpretation. “It requires a community to interpret the Word.” 135 Narative-based preaching is recommended.

The local church needs to have a greater involvement in social justice. It begins with justice in the church. Neither democracy nor capitalism produces this kind of justice. “We must locate our justice in the work of Jesus Christ among people called out to be his church.” (163)

The topics of spiritual formation and moral education are examined. In his conclusion the author does some vision casting in terms of how the church could accomplish what it was formed for.