Earthly Good

Why are so many churches today stepping to a worldly drumbeat, telling members how to pursue a "good" life here and now? In this hard-hitting book Kenneth Hamilton maintains that churches everywhere are making the mistake of commending the gospel primarily on the grounds of the personal and social good it can bring about on this earth, and he shows how and why this is the case.

Interestingly enough, Hamilton's thesis is that abstract utopian theories and Gnostic ideals have infiltrated and infected the modern church, undermining its effectiveness. In embracing such watchwords as libera-tion and humanization and creative spiritual potential, Christians are idolizing the human spirit and falling prey to ancient ideas that actually despise the world God has made and redeemed.

Traditional Christian faith, however, proclaims an earthy gospel that does not allow us escape from this world. Instead of affirming the power of the human spirit to transform the world into some sort of utopia. Christians n