Congregation in a Secular Age (Ministry in a Secular Age Book #3)

Andrew Root

Description

Churches often realize they need to change. But if they're not careful, the way they change can hurt more than help.In this culmination of his well-received Ministry in a Secular Age trilogy, leading practical theologian Andrew Root offers a new paradigm for understanding the congregation in contemporary ministry. He articulates why it is so hard for congregations to change and encourages an approach that doesn't fall into the negative traps of our secular age.Living in late modernity means our lives are constantly accelerated, and calls for change in the church often support this call to speed up. Root asserts that the recent push toward innovation in churches has led to an acceleration of congregational life that strips the sacred out of time. Many congregations are simply unable to keep up, which leads to burnout and depression. When things move too fast, we feel alienated from life and the voice of a living God.The Congregation in a Secular Age calls congregations to reimagine what change is and how to live into this future, helping them move from relevance to resonance.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Christian theology

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 19 janvier 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781493429721
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Cover
Endorsements
“Andrew Root is one of our leading practical theologians. Over the years he has carved out a space within which solid theological reflection and philosophical inquiry are merged into practical strategies that are illuminating and often fascinating. In this new book he continues his ongoing dialogue with Charles Taylor, providing us with a fascinating and timely exploration of time, church, and culture. Time is something we tend to take for granted. But it is a crucial dimension of social and ecclesial life. In this book Root clearly lays out the implications of thinking about time and speed and the ways in which we build communities, think about theology, and ultimately become more faithful disciples. This is a book well worth reading.”
— John Swinton , University of Aberdeen
“Root serves as a guide for current congregations often lost in the time and space of the wilderness of high modernity. He deftly leads his readers on an adventure through historical, philosophical, and theological perspectives, providing an eternal compass of resonance toward our True North. The experience of reading this book is what I imagined it was like to witness Moses parting the Red Sea. Just as Moses created a passage for Israel from Egypt, Root shows us how to suspend the relentless rush of time and points the church toward a path from our present captivity in the rat race of modernity to the life-giving vitality of the love of God. This book is required reading for the next generation of Christian leaders. Root provides a clear and resounding perspective on why and how the church matters in a secular age.”
— Pamela Ebstyne King , Thrive Center for Human Development, Fuller Theological Seminary
“On a secular view of the world, we are thrown into an existence in which our time is running out. The pressure is on to accomplish as much as we can, as quickly as we can, which generates a constant anxiety that fuels depression. Not only does this pressure terrorize the secular world, it also menaces the many congregations that are fighting for survival in the so-called secular age. In response to this situation, Andrew Root offers a fierce remedy. As someone to whom this book really speaks, I could feel a weight being lifted off my shoulders, page by page. Why? Because this book offers a fresh, timely, and powerful reminder of the hope of all hopes––the one true hope––to which the gospel witnesses. As such, it made me a happier person, authentically so!”
— Andrew Torrance , University of St. Andrews
“Root is an expert reader of contemporary church life. He deftly distills complex philosophical, historical, and sociological scholarship and delivers what his readers need to know. And Root’s constructive proposals challenge churches and individuals to rethink their relationship to time and busyness. The Congregation in a Secular Age will leave many readers wondering just how Root knows them and their congregations so well. This book is a valuable resource to anyone who has the nagging feeling that there’s never enough time.”
— Ryan McAnnally-Linz , Yale Center for Faith and Culture
Half Title Page
Series Page
M INISTRY IN A S ECULAR A GE PREVIOUS TITLES :
Volume 1: Faith Formation in a Secular Age: Responding to the Church’s Obsession with Youthfulness
Volume 2: The Pastor in a Secular Age: Ministry to People Who No Longer Need a God
Title Page
Copyright Page
© 2021 by Andrew Root
Published by Baker Academic
a division of Baker Publishing Group
PO Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.bakeracademic.com
Ebook edition created 2021
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN 978-1-4934-2972-1
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
The characters in this book are fictional, but they are based on real people and interactions, trimmed and adjusted to fit this context. Some names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of the individuals involved.
Dedication
To Maisy Root A person of resonance, a true delight
C ontents
Cover i
Endorsements ii
Half Title Page iii
Series Page iv
Title Page v
Copyright Page vi
Dedication vii
Preface xi
Part 1: Depressed Congregations 1
1. The Church and the Depressing Speed of Change 3
2. Speeding to the Good Life, Crashing into Guilt: Why $1.6 Billion Isn’t as Good as You Think 19
3. Fullness as Busyness: Why Busy Churches Attract and Then Lose Busy People 31
4. The Strip Show: When Sacred Time Is No Longer the Time We Keep 45
Part 2: Examining Congregational Despondency; Our Issue Is Time 57
5. When Time Isn’t What It Used to Be: What’s Speeding Up Time? 59
6. When Brains Explode 63
Dimension One: Technological Acceleration
7. Minding the Time: Why the Church Feels Socially Behind 71
Dimension Two: Acceleration of Social Life (Part One)
8. Why The Office Can’t Be Rebooted: The Decay Rate of Social Change 81
Dimension Two: Acceleration of Social Life (Part Two)
9. When Sex and Work Are in a Fast Present: The Church and the Decay Rate of Our Social Structures 89
Dimension Two: Acceleration of Social Life (Part Three)
10. Why Email Sucks, and Social Media Even More: Reach and Acceleration 123
Dimension Three: Acceleration of the Pace of Life (Part One)
11. Reach and the Seculars 139
Dimension Three: Acceleration of the Pace of Life (Part Two)
Part 3: Moving from Relevance to Resonance 149
12. Time-Famine and Resource Obsession: Another Step into Alienation 151
13. Why the Slow Church Can’t Work: Stabilization, Alienation, and Loss of the Congregational Will to Be 171
14. Alienation’s Other: Resonance 191
15. When Bonhoeffer Time Travels: Resonance as Carrying the Child 215
16. To Become a Child: Matthew 18 and the Congregation That Is Carried 231
17. Ending with a Little Erotic Ecstasy 243
Index 263
Back Cover 269
Preface
While in the middle of writing this book I had a return flight from Amsterdam to Minneapolis. I’ve taken this Delta flight many times. Usually, around hour six of eight it becomes painfully too long. I just want it to end. Those last two hours are the worst. When this occurs, I’m usually on movie four and my body aches and thirsts to climb out of the metal tube I’m stuck in going 600 miles an hour.
Yet this particular day I decided to do something outside my nature. I decided to pass on TV. I made the choice to format footnotes in this manuscript instead of watching The Avengers . As you’ll notice from paging through this book, there are a lot of footnotes. Too many—I apologize for that! I’m a little bit addicted to footnotes. But that’s not my point. This isn’t a call for a footnote intervention. My editor has already initiated those procedures.
My point is this: for the first time, my experience of flying between Amsterdam and Minneapolis was quick. It felt nothing like eight hours. If asked to guess (and unable to see the moving flight map in front of me), I would’ve assumed it took us only two or three hours to get home. I would have believed it if the pilot had said over the intercom, “Folks, bad news and good news. The bad first: it appears we slid into a wormhole (we have no idea what this will do to your being long-term). But good news: it just so happens that this wormhole got us to Minneapolis in a scant two hours and forty-five minutes.” It was honestly the best international flight of my life (because the wormhole was only in my imagination).
It was best because I experienced time in a very different way. The hours seemed to melt away. I even found myself wishing for more time, as I poured myself into this project of creative love. (Okay, I understand that footnote formatting is not the height of creativity, but needing to reread and rewrite sections as I placed notes met some threshold of creativity for me, at least on this day, impacting my experience of time.)
Ironically or not, the question that has driven all three of these volumes revolves around time. In the preface to volume 1, I started with a story about the change in time through the adoption of the Gregorian Calendar. Each of these volumes has asked, What time are we in?
We’ve answered, following Charles Taylor, that our time is a secular one. But to call it secular is to say something complicated. I’ve tried in each of the volumes to turn Taylor’s brilliant interpretation lose on particular issues confronting Protestantism—specifically, faith formation and pastoral identity. I’ve tried to respond to this dialogue with my own theological construction.
In this final volume I’ll do the same, but now giving even more attention to time itself. The driving question in this volume will be, What time are local congregations in? How is our secular age impacting them? What will be unique about this volume is that I’ll explore this time but focus on time itself . To assert that we’re in a secular age is to assert that time itself has been reimagined. Like on my flight, our cultural experiences impact our feel of time. Then, in this work, I’ll continue my conversation with Charles Taylor. But I’ll also, as seems appropriate in this final volume, step beyond him. I’ll turn to one of his best and most constructive interpreters, German social theorist Hartmut Rosa.
Rosa is no simple commentator on Taylor. He is a world-class scholar, constructively developing his own unique and rich project. Inspired by Taylor’s thought and building on parts of it, Rosa has offered a stunning articulatio