Calling all published-author Pyro readers (shameless plea + sneak peek)

by Dan Phillips

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FIRST: brothers and sisters, let's remember to pray for Phil Johnson's back surgery today, and for his blessed and rapid recovery.

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World-Tilting Gospel: Embracing a Biblical Worldview & Hanging on Tight is to be my maiden voyage into legit publishing. We have reached the point of sending out galley manuscripts for endorsements. "Endorsements" have been explained to me as short, favorable quotes from well-known authors, ministry leaders, pastors, and businesspeople.

Some generous folks are already lined up, but more are needed. I have been told that there are many leaders and author-types who read, but simply (and understandably) don't comment. So I'm talking to you, now. Yes, yes: you. Don't look around.

Kregel is printing a limited number of galley manuscripts of my book, and they're asking me for names. If you fit the description above and you'd consider carving some time out of your busy schedule to help me out with my firstborn, I'd be indebted to you forever... if I'm not already. Email me and give me a mailing address, and let me know you're interested. My email is filops, @, yahoo.com — without the commas and spaces.

(Next phase will involve a somewhat broader mailing to "influencers." More on that when the time comes.)

Now, a first: a peek at the book (A) in case it helps in the decision-making process and (B) so that everyone else can hopefully get something out of this post as well.

The Founders Conference in 2007 in Tulsa was marked by two great things for me. It was my first opportunity to meet Phil and Frank in person, with their great wives, Frank's terrific kids, and Phil's wonderful parents. I'll never forget it.

Second, something brilliant that David Wells said in one of the sessions struck me, stuck with me, and came to inspire the larger vision of The World-Tilting Gospel.  Here is how my notes from that conference, written as fast as I could type, have it. Wells said:

Our task today is to tell people — who no longer know what sin is, no longer have the categories to understand it, no longer see themselves as sinners, and no longer have room for these categories in their non-moral universe — that Christ died for sins of which they do not think they’re guilty.

Then Wells observed that this is why the Bible does not begin with John 3:16, but with Genesis 1.

It was this last statement that got all my synapses firing. Wells was exactly right: coming into moderns' spheres with the news that God loves them and Jesus died for them gets translated into something utterly at loggerheads with the truth, and utterly un-redemptive. Why? Because the good news is sprinkled into an uninformed, unchallenged, and unconverted hostile worldview. So it's mangled and puréed and conformed to the worldview the hearer already had — and thus conveys no converting or saving or sanctifying power.

Which is why we have churches full of (and, too often, pastored by) unconverted "Christians" who are tilted by the world, instead of tilting it themselves.

My book, World-Tilting Gospel: Embracing a Biblical Worldview & Hanging on Tight, is my prayerful pedal-to-the-metal, full-bore attempt to address that need. The "voice" is similar to my posts, so I hope broadly accessible. I start, indeed, with Genesis 1, and work my way forward. In the course of the book, one will find himself introduced Biblically to the framing worldview of the Gospel, the Gospel itself, and an array of immediate implications of the Gospel. As a special (but, to my mind, necessary) bonus, we also will Biblically address sarkicophobia, muzzy mysticism, crisis-upgraders, and the gutless grace error.

So if you're a published author willing to give it a read and help me out, drop me a line.

Everyone else, I'm deeply grateful for and humbled by your interest and prayers. The projected publication date is August.

Thanks, all.

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