The usual modern assumption is that Christians are supposed to leave explicitly Christian convictions and practices behind when they engage public affairs and popular culture. In this fascinating book, Rodney Clapp rejects that assumption and trespasses onto secular territory–from global corporations to Winnie-the-Pooh, from family values to The X-Files, from consumerism to Hank Williams and John Coltrane.

In a culture that thrives on cookie-cutter creativity and social fragmentation, Rodney Clapp is the most dangerous of people–a writer with a long reach, a first-rate intellect and an uncanny ability to discern patterns and connections across the categories and chaos. With his feet planted firmly in the kind of Christianity that troubles the various Caesars of our day, Clapp dances across and through topics and controversies that all too rarely experience the bright light of the gospel. Equally at home in the arid landscape of academic philosophy as he is in the popular culture realms of country music, jazz and Winnie-the-Pooh, Clapp is perhaps the most perceptive contemporary Christian commentator on the intersection of society, culture and the church. His latest work, Border Crossings, delivers what it promises — it sandblasts the divides between scholarship and popular discussion, public and private, church and world, and many more. Readers need not be afraid to accompany Clapp on these exercises in literary trespass — his writing style makes difficult things understandable, and dull subjects interesting. This book is essential for scholars, pastors, lay Christians, and anyone else trying to make sense of faith, power, and discipleship in our strange times.–Michael Budde, DePaul University

Rodney Clapp is a major player in the Evangelical transition into the postmodern world. Border Crossings is his most outstanding contribution to this journey. Clapp, who has already left his mark on the Evangelical community and the larger church, does it again!–Robert E. Webber, Northern Baptist Theological Seminary