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In a society increasingly marked by failed leadership and abuses of power at every level, author Mark Meynell in A Wilderness of Mirrors charts not just the sources and harm of this cultural malaise but also the Gospel antidote to it.
List of contents
ONCE BITTEN, TWICE SHY: Trusting Again after a Century of Lies and Abuses
Mark Meynell
PROPOSED OUTLINE OF THE BOOK
Part 1: BROKEN TRUST: The World We Live In
1) Rulers Have Failed Us: Disillusioned by States and Corporations
2) Informers Have Failed Us: Disoriented by Educators, Experts, and the Media
3) Carers Have Failed Us: Damaged by Families, Social Workers, and Churches
4) The Social Cost of Mistrust: Discord and Paranoia
5) The Personal Cost of Mistrust: Alienation and Loneliness
PART 2: REDISCOVERING TRUST: Hope for a Broken World
6) Sin: The Bible’s Hermeneutic of Suspicion
7) Christ: Power in Safe Hands
8) The Church: Community with integrity
9) The Christian: Honesty, Humility and Truth
10) The Story: Relishing a True Ending
About the author
MARK MEYNELL is a pastor, writer and teacher. Between 2014 and 2024, he was the director (European and Caribbean) for Langham Preaching, and now is involved in supporting the work in a freelance capacity. He has previously served on the senior ministry team at All Souls, Langham Place, UK, and as a workplace chaplain in two UK government departments. He also served as academic dean and acting principal of a seminary in Uganda, and has been involved in university student ministry in the UK. He is married to Rachel and they have two grown-up children.
Summary
Despite our material and technological advances, Western society is experiencing a deep malaise caused by a breakdown of trust. We’ve been misled by authorities and institutions, by businesses and politicians, and even by those who were supposed to care for us. The very cohesion of society seems tenuous at times.
The church is not immune from these trends. Historically, it has a dubious record when it has wielded power; personally, many of its members are as afflicted by our culture’s breakdown as anyone.
In A Wilderness of Mirrors author Mark Meynell explores the roots of the discord and alienation that mark our society, but he also outlines a gospel-based reason for hope. An astute social observer with a pastor’s spiritual sensitivity, Meynell grounds his antidote on four bedrocks of the Christian faith: human nature, Jesus, the church, and the story of God's action in the world.
Ultimately hopeful, A Wilderness of Mirrors calls Christians to rediscover the radical implications of Jesus’s life and message for a disillusioned world, a world more than ever in need of his trustworthy goodness.
