The Dawn Mistaken for Dusk: If God So Loved the World, Why Can't We?

by Leonard Sweet

In his first book conceived and acquired specifically to be delivered electronically, Leonard Sweet contends that the church is blind to the changes that are dragging us into the future. Therefore, it is losing its influence as an agent of change and grace in the world. "There are now some companies who absolutely want to change the world more than the church," writes Sweet. He sees the church at a crossroads. It will either see the future as a new dawn and therefore embrace it as opportunity. Or, it will see the future as dusk and therefore hide from the darkness of the world. Sweet believes that God will be in the future, with or without us, and that an "Acts 27" movement is afoot. This book serves as a "naturalization manual" to help Christians achieve full citizenship in the new, postmodern world. It will teach them how to go from being immigrants to natives. From foreigners in a strange land to people of God, confident and at home in a rapidly changing world.

Kindle Edition

First published October 25, 2000

About the author

Leonard I. Sweet is an author, preacher, scholar, and ordained United Methodist clergyman currently serving as the E. Stanley Jones Professor of Evangelism at Drew Theological School, in Madison, New Jersey; and a Visiting Distinguished Professor at George Fox University in Portland, Oregon.

Reviews

[Christopher Cole · Rating 5 out of 5]

The world is quickly changing, and that is leaving many lagging behind. Instead of incremental change, it seems as though there is an exponential explosion of technology that makes us more connected to information, yet seemingly disconnected from one another. Leonard Sweet doesn't really give answers in "Dawn Mistaken for Dusk" as much as he does insight into how "immigrants" to this new wave of information technology can better grasp how it's understood, and how it's implemented, by "natives" who seem to take to technology like fish do to water. But the "immigrant" ideas about truth, or community, are not pushed away completely. What Leonard Sweet does is emphasize that the way "immigrants" communicate these needs to be reevaluated. Truth doesn't change with technology, but the way it's communicated and understood by "natives" has to change.

At the same time, Sweet doesn't dismiss the things that the digital "natives" care about, and goes to great lengths to emphasize that the values they have aren't really that far removed from the gospel. It matters though how we communicate that.

This is definitely a book is recommend.