By David Hilborn
Hodder & Stoughton. 322 pages
ISBN 0 340 67899 2
Although this is a good book, interesting and well written, I found it profoundly disappointing. The title caught my attention immediately; it seemed to identify where those of us who call ourselves evangelicals find ourselves today: in pieces. It also echoed the opening line of Carl Trueman's recent article in EN: 'The evangelical church stands on the brink of a real crisis'.
Coming from a Council Member of the Evangelical Alliance, and one of its theological advisers to boot, one hoped for a stabilising and re-forming challenge in the midst of the confusion: 'reforming' in the literal sense, because something broken has to be put together again as the title indicates. But therein lay the disappointment, for although it undoubtedly constitutes a restraining influence - and is designed as such - it is unable to re-form because it omits the only glue powerful enough to reunite the shattered pieces.
