This is a book which no one person could write. The forces whit which it deals are all too complex and the message attempts to state is too great to be individual expression. Naturally those of us who have collaborated in the writing of the book hold divergent views on some of the matters considered. At certain basic points, however, we have found ourselves standing together on common ground.... There is a timelessness in the Christian gospel, but the timeless gospel has to be proclaimed to an age that has its own dominating forms of thought and life. We therefore examine, first, some of the most crucial aspects of the world as we see it today - a world of men whose high hopes have been chilled into disillusionment, a world in which powerful new forces like nationalism and Communism are claiming the allegiance of millions, a world in which the economic order is shaken as by an earthquake, a world in which age-old social structures are breaking up. Facing such a world with the common conviction we hold and drawn together by a common devotion to the world mission of Christianity in this age of universal change and transformation, we have endeavored to set forth a message rooted in imperishable truth of Christ and relevant to the problems of today and tomorrow. - From the foreword
