(Part 1)

JBTM Book Reviews
144
Convictional Civility: Engaging the Culture in the 21st Century, Essays in Honor of David S.
Dockery. Edited by C. Ben Mitchell, Carla D. Sanderson, and Gregory Alan Thornbury.
Nashville: B&H, 2015. 208 pages. Hardcover, $29.99.
Convictional Civility: Engaging the Culture in the 21st Century is a collection of 12 short
tributes and 10 significant essays written in honor of David S. Dockery, a prominent figure
both in Baptist life and in Christian higher education. After 18 years as president of Union
University in Jackson, Tennessee, Dockery is now president of Trinity International University
in Deerfield, Illinois. The work was edited by C. Ben Mitchell, provost, vice president for
Academic Affairs, and Graves Professor of Moral Philosophy at Union University; Carla
D. Sanderson, provost emeritus of Union University, now vice president for Institutional
Effectiveness and Professional Regulation at Chamberlain College of Nursing; and Gregory
A. Thornbury, president of The King's College. Contributors include well-known figures,
such as Timothy George, James Leo Garrett Jr., Millard J. Erickson, and R. Albert Mohler.
Although a relatively short 186 pages, the book's scope is very broad, ranging from the Bible
to leadership and health care. In order to provide the prospective reader an idea of its depth,
this review of the book will focus on two of the several fine essays.
The book ably accomplishes two tasks. First, the text leaves the reader with a deeper
knowledge and appreciation of Dockery's life and ministries. Even more significantly,
the book provides the reader an opportunity to reflect on a question that is essential for
the Church's effectiveness in the twenty-first century: how can we hope to faithfully and
effectively proclaim the gospel in a culture that is already very polarized and increasingly
more secularized? Although, at some level, each of the essays is an attempt to answer this
question, two essays stand out in particular. Each certainly has a different focus, but together
they form a comprehensive attempt to identify the problem and point the way to a solution.
In his essay “Convictional Clarity,” Albert Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist
Theological Seminary, argues that the problem facing the church is the shifting worldview
of the broader culture, brought on by the increasing secularization of western society. The
consequences of this shift, Mohler states, are momentous; rejecting the Christian worldview
leads to an attitude of skepticism concerning “final truth” and the denial of ultimate authority.
This, in turn, results in a cognitive barrier that prevents any return to God (37).
Mohler makes several thought-provoking claims about correlations. Secularization could
not have developed outside the context of modernism, and theological liberalism would not
have developed but for secularization (39). This may lead one to believe that the enemy is
modernism. But since correlation is not causation, this conclusion is too simplistic. The shift
from medieval thought to early modern thought resulted in a conceptual framework that
made the Reformation possible, and a certain kind of secularization, the secular state, was
necessary for religious liberty, arguably a necessary condition for the flourishing of religious
belief. This prompts us to move beyond simple categories, such as pre-modern, modern, and