A new crop of leaders is emerging within the evangelical wing of the American church. These leaders are clearly moving away from the pragmatism of the last thirty years of the evangelical movement to recover roots, depth, symbol, story, mystery and mission. David Fitch is one of those younger evangelicals who will be taken seriously. The Great Giveaway cuts a clear path into the future, a path that is now being taken by many.

Robert Webber, author of The Younger Evangelicals, Myers Professor of Ministry, Northern Seminary, Lombard IL.

David Fitch has written a book that has been waiting to be written, and he has written it about as well as it can be done. Evangelicals often fail to see how their concern with “a personal relationship with Jesus” can be co-opted by the worst of contemporary American life. In a wonderful way Fitch names how this captivity happens, and what is more, he points the way to a better practice. Hopefully The Great Giveaway will be widely read. Hopefully, even more importantly, this book will provide an alternative to the failure of imagination on the part of many Christians in our society.

Stanley Hauerwas, Duke Divinity School

In the growing stack of books dealing with gospel, church, and postmodernity, many are popular and pragmatic. Others are esoteric and abstruse. A few are scholarly, penetrating, and full of rich, practical implications. David Fitch's 'THE GREAT GIVEAWAY' is in that rare category. Drawing from Lindbeck, MacIntyre, Hauerwas, Radical Orthodoxy, and his own extensive experience and scholarship, Dr. Fitch offers an important work for evangelicals who seek hope for the church beyond pragmatics and culture wars.

Brian McLaren, pastor, author (anewkindofchristian.com)

David Fitch's THE GREAT GIVEAWAY offers a stern but truthful diagnosis of the state of evangelicalism's captivity to America. He clearly outlines the ways in which modernity has enticed evangelicalism into perilous waters. At the same time however, he never turns his back on his evangelical roots. His solution, offered in clear compelling prose, charts a path that is filled with hope and imagination on the one hand, and a deep appreciation for the Church's traditional practices on the other.

Stephen Fowl Professor of Theology, Loyola College of Maryland, author of Engaging Scripture

The question of finding our way to the hearts of seekers after truth without forsaking the Gospel is one which every generation of pastors faces. In the Great Giveaway, David Fitch deeply engages this question as an evangelical, a scholar and a pastor. Amidst the questions of modernity and postmodernity, he seeks to identify practices in evangelical church life which may impede, and correct orientations which may harm, so that the church may once again bring the truth and grace of Jesus Christ to our world today.

Franklin Pyles, President of The Christian and Missionary Alliance of Canada