Journal of European Baptist Studies, Volume 7, No. 3, 2007

today’s society - including social action (promoting justice, social welfare, healing, education and peace in the world) - as well as evangelism. In this divinely given task the church as community seeks to transcend barriers of gender, language, race, class, age and culture. In an excellent article that addresses the effects of post-modernism on the church, the Australian, Peter Corney says that we need first to show that Christianity meets the deepest and most profound needs of people. Because people are less linear in their approach to communication and knowledge than the previous generation, they are more interested in our personal narratives - in our story. Connected with this is the importance that this generation places on relationships. Presenting the Gospel in relational terms, and in the context of relationships, will be helpful. Authentic Christian community will be crucial. People need to see and experience the Gospel lived. When all ideologies are suspect, and when family and 51 S.J. Grenz, Created for Community: Connecting Christian Belief with Christian Living (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker, 1998), p. 224, emphasis added. 32 D.J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in the Theology of Mission (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis, 1991), p. 9. 53 Ibid., p. 519. See also, W.A. Dyrness, Let the Earth Rejoice! (Pasadena: Fuller Seminary Press, 1991), p. 190. 34 Hayden, English Baptist History and Heritage, p. 268. An understanding of covenanted church 15 community have broken down, Christian communities which are loving, caring and open will be profoundly attractive. 55 The characteristics and the values of such a community people derive from the life of Christ and the empowering of the Holy Spirit and the Father’s love and will be worked out within the church and in the wider circles of the denomination and the world - a world which needs to see the love and grace of God in concrete terms: at once prophetic, inclusive, sacrificial and missional, centred on true worship of the living God. Dr Michael Parsons was, until recently, lecturer at Murdoch University, Perth, Western Australia, and is now living in England. 55 P. Corney, ‘Have you got the right address? Post-Modernism and the Gospel’, GRID (1995), pp. 1-3. The article’s title is derived from a comment by Helmut Thielicke, ‘The Gospel must be constantly forwarded to a new address, because the recipient is repeatedly changing place of residence’. 16 Journal of European Baptist Studies Theologies of John B. Cobb and Wacfaw Hryniewicz Points of convergence The purpose of this article is to present the points of convergence between process theology, as specifically expounded by John B. Cobb, and the theology of Waclaw Hryniewicz. In Poland, the analysis of process philosophy and theology has been carried out for years by a group of scholars affiliated with the Catholic University of Lublin, Papal Theological Aca