Unriddling Our Times: Reflections on the Gathering Cultural Crisis

by Os Guinness (Editor)

Events in Washington over the past year alone make it difficult for thinking Christians to deny that there is a crisis of truth in our nation. Character has become unimportant. Personality has taken its place. How can the people of God resist being swept under by the mounting waves of relativism? Unriddling Our Reflections on the Gathering Cultural Crisis, edited by Os Guinness, reaches to the heart of the problem by presenting short selections that illustrate the need to listen to the voices of prophets who warn of our impending moral drowning. An excerpt from a German novel portrays a brave sixteenth-century Spanish monk who challenges his king. An intimate portrait of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn shows how he became a twentieth-century apostle of truth. A chilling 1948 short story and contemporary reflections on it point vividly to the danger of amorality facing our nation. Anyone concerned about the erosion of truth in our culture will find insight and courage from these prophetic voices from the past.

141 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1999

About the author

Os Guinness (D.Phil., Oxford) is the author or editor of more than twenty-five books, including The American Hour, Time for Truth and The Case for Civility. A frequent speaker and prominent social critic, he was the founder of the Trinity Forum and has been a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution and a guest scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Studies. He lives near Washington, D.C.

Reviews

[Shannon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not surprisingly, the introductory essays by Os Guinness were the best part of this book.

[Andy Hickman · Rating 4 out of 5]

So many great stories.

E.g. “Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, not between classes, nor between political parties either – but right through every human heart – and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years.” - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

David Aikman, “One Word of Truth: A Portrait of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn”, in Os Guinness (ed.), Unriddling Our Times: Reflections on the Gathering Cultural Crisis (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1999), 90.