A Credible Witness: Reflections on Power, Evangelism and Race by Brenda Salter McNeil

“The good news brings us to God,” writes Brenda Salter McNeil, in her new book, “and it also brings life and healing to a broken, dying and divided world. Anything less is not the gospel.”

In A Credible Witness, McNeil presents an adaptation and elaboration of her popular sermon “My Friend Sam.” Sam is the Samaritan woman at the well and, in McNeil’s vision, her interaction with Jesus is a sterling image of gospel reconciliation.

Using the narrative of John 4, McNeil explains why our evangelism can’t just introduce people to Jesus and hope they hit it off. It has to be a force that can overcome barriers of gender, race and social status. These themes should be central to evangelism today, she argues, not the secure-a-better-afterlife themes of yesterday.

You can order A Credible Witness or get more information at www.ivpress.com. Brenda Salter McNeil’s dynamic address at InterVarsity’s Urbana 06 Student Missions Convention can be viewed at www.urbana.org.