Over the years I’ve noticed that people make three basic mistakes in introducing Os Guinness.  The most common is their trying so hard to sound as smart, educated, articulate, well-read, urbane, witty and provocative as Os that they badly overshoot the mark and end up sounding like their remarks were prepared by a graduate student eager to please the professor.  The second trap is spending so much time on Os’s achievements, honors, awards, publications, speeches and groundbreaking work in social thought that they use up the time that Os has to speak.  The third is they always bring up the question “So..are you the same Guinness family as Guinness beer?” I’m not making any of those mistakes this morning.  I’ll just say that Os Guinness is perhaps the most civil, literate, gracious, understated, encouraging and courageous genius I have ever known.  He speaks the truth in love and in turn is loved by those he calls to account.  He measures wisdom out with a ladle and criticism with a spoon.  He can warm a room, cool a dispute, fire the imagination and heap hot coals with the turn of a phrase and a line of thought.  He is pride’s sworn enemy and humility’s faithful ally.  Somehow he has learned the art of rebuking, reproving and exhorting without becoming angry or losing his love for the very church he holds to a higher standard than it sometimes chooses for itself.  He’s the best kind of tutor – derived from the Latin for watcher.  In the English education system this was the senior boy who was appointed to watch over the junior boy.  Os is America’s tutor in a sense.  He’s our watcher and our loving critic.  In his latest book, I think his 28th, The Case for Civility, Os calls for our resolving our deepest differences and “The place at which we must begin to search for answers is the United States. Not because the problem is worse here than elsewhere—on the contrary—but because America has the best cultural resources, and therefore the greatest responsibility to point the way forward in answering the deepest questions.”

Os was born in China as the child of medical missionary parents.  He graduated with honors from the University of London and received his Doctorate of Philosophy at Oxford University.  He spent many years with Francis and Edith Schaeffer at L’Abri in Switzerland began his writing career in 1973 with the publication of The Dust of Death and has published twenty eight books and countless articles and papers.  In 1991, Guinness founded the Trinity Forum, an organization that hosts forums for senior leaders in business and politics. He served as a senior fellow at The Trinity Forum from 1991-2004. He and his family live in the Washington, DC area. Os doesn’t do homilies so I wouldn’t suggest relaxing your mind this Sunday morning.  I would instead invite you to lean forward in your seats and pay very close attention.  Please join me in welcoming our great friend, Os Guinness, back to The Gathering.