What Lies Ahead for Christians around the World?
If you follow the works of bestselling authors Malcolm Gladwell, Faith Popcorn, Daniel Pink, and other trend forecasters, you’ll appreciate learning about over 25 rings of fire that lie ahead for Christians around the world.
Len Sweet once again maps the future for the church in this sweeping survey of the twenty-first century. In the face of eruptive and disruptive culture changes from economics and communications to bioethics and beyond, how do we fight fire with fire, not only catching up to our culture but leading our friends and neighbors toward the feet of Christ? No one has done more to startle the church from its slumber than Len Sweet, and no one has equipped the church as effectively. This is a benchmark book from a seminal leader of the modern evangelical movement.
Mark Chironna provides incisive questions to stimulate creative thinking for individual or group study and an afterword that ties Len’s expansive work together and sets us on the right course for decades to come.
If you follow the works of bestselling authors Malcolm Gladwell, Faith Popcorn, Daniel Pink, and other trend forecasters, you’ll appreciate learning about over 25 rings of fire that lie ahead for Christians around the world.
Len Sweet once again maps the future for the church in this sweeping survey of the twenty-first century. In the face of eruptive and disruptive culture changes from economics and communications to bioethics and beyond, how do we fight fire with fire, not only catching up to our culture but leading our friends and neighbors toward the feet of Christ? No one has done more to startle the church from its slumber than Len Sweet, and no one has equipped the church as effectively. This is a benchmark book from a seminal leader of the modern evangelical movement.
Mark Chironna provides incisive questions to stimulate creative thinking for individual or group study and an afterword that ties Len’s expansive work together and sets us on the right course for decades to come.
Table of Contents:
Part One: Hot Zones
- Hostile Culture
Hot Take: Pedagogical and Andropological Revolutions - Devolution Revolutions and the Collapse of Nation-States
Hot Take: Global Refugees and Migrants - Chinafication
- World Religions, Especially Islam
- The Public Square
Hot Take: Acid Baths of Irony - The Disuniting States of America
- Part Two: Hot Topics - Tolerance of Diversity, Touting of Unity
Hot Take: Identity Crises Galore and Galloping - Sexularism
- Genders and Gendering
- Suicide Culture
Hot Take: Prenatal Screening and “Wrongful Life”
Hot Take: Hot Springs Incapacitations - Race Relations
- Steamy Incarcerations
- Ecological Extinctions and Hothouse Home
- Solutionism, Dataism, Scientism (SDS)
- Genetic Engineering, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Information Technology, Nanotechnology (GRAIN)
- Generations and the Silver Rush
- Rapidification
- Part Three: Hot Church - Reproduction Crisis
Hot Take: The Decline and Fall of Seminaries - Sacralization and Idols
- Hell, Heaven, Afterlife
- #ChurchToo
- Political Religion
- Paradox: Purgatory or Paradise?
Hot Take: Salt, Light, and the Simplex Church - Conscience
- Numbers and Narratives
- Conclusion: Wild Cards, Black Swans, and Game-Changing Super Volcanoes
- Afterword, by Mark Chiron
ENDORSEMENTS:
Twenty years ago, I read SoulTsunami, and my soul was saturated by Len
Sweet’s inspiring vision of a future church that could swim in the fluid
culture of the twenty-first century. Now, Rings of Fire has set my brain
ablaze as he describes the spiritual hot zones that await twenty-second century Christ followers. If you’re ready to learn how to fight fire with
the Spirit’s fire, read this powerful book by my favorite holy arsonist.
TIM LUCAS, founder and lead pastor of Liquid Church
