Community Engagement after Christendom

Community Engagement after Christendom PDF Author: Douglas G. Hynd
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1725257378
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 285

Get Book Here

Book Description
The post-Christendom era in the English-speaking world has seen a significant reduction in access to political power by the churches, a slow loss of their social and cultural influence, and a shredding of their moral standing from abuse scandals and other public failings. Community Engagement after Christendom directly addresses these challenges, proposing a different approach to the relationship between church and society. Church agencies today are often entangled in contracting with the state and its private partners to deliver government policy and services. This means they can be increasingly vulnerable to external pressure. So what resources can they and their agencies draw upon to reshape community engagement in a difficult, unsettling context? Community Engagement after Christendom proposes a multifaceted approach. It begins by reading Scripture afresh through questions shaped by the present situation. Douglas Hynd then explores the story of Anabaptist public servant Pilgram Marpeck, identifying how his critique of Christendom can help reshape our understanding today. Finally, he looks at the current experience of church-related agencies and Christian advocacy, suggesting fresh, imaginative ways forward.

Community Engagement after Christendom

Community Engagement after Christendom PDF Author: Douglas G. Hynd
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1725257378
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 285

Get Book Here

Book Description
The post-Christendom era in the English-speaking world has seen a significant reduction in access to political power by the churches, a slow loss of their social and cultural influence, and a shredding of their moral standing from abuse scandals and other public failings. Community Engagement after Christendom directly addresses these challenges, proposing a different approach to the relationship between church and society. Church agencies today are often entangled in contracting with the state and its private partners to deliver government policy and services. This means they can be increasingly vulnerable to external pressure. So what resources can they and their agencies draw upon to reshape community engagement in a difficult, unsettling context? Community Engagement after Christendom proposes a multifaceted approach. It begins by reading Scripture afresh through questions shaped by the present situation. Douglas Hynd then explores the story of Anabaptist public servant Pilgram Marpeck, identifying how his critique of Christendom can help reshape our understanding today. Finally, he looks at the current experience of church-related agencies and Christian advocacy, suggesting fresh, imaginative ways forward.

Community Engagement after Christendom

Community Engagement after Christendom PDF Author: Douglas G. Hynd
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1725257394
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 255

Get Book Here

Book Description
The post-Christendom era in the English-speaking world has seen a significant reduction in access to political power by the churches, a slow loss of their social and cultural influence, and a shredding of their moral standing from abuse scandals and other public failings. Community Engagement after Christendom directly addresses these challenges, proposing a different approach to the relationship between church and society. Church agencies today are often entangled in contracting with the state and its private partners to deliver government policy and services. This means they can be increasingly vulnerable to external pressure. So what resources can they and their agencies draw upon to reshape community engagement in a difficult, unsettling context? Community Engagement after Christendom proposes a multifaceted approach. It begins by reading Scripture afresh through questions shaped by the present situation. Douglas Hynd then explores the story of Anabaptist public servant Pilgram Marpeck, identifying how his critique of Christendom can help reshape our understanding today. Finally, he looks at the current experience of church-related agencies and Christian advocacy, suggesting fresh, imaginative ways forward.

Church After Christendom

Church After Christendom PDF Author: Williams Stuart Murray
Publisher: Authentic Media Inc
ISBN: 1780784015
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 225

Get Book Here

Book Description
How will the western church negotiate the demise of Christendom? Can it rediscover its primary calling, recover its authentic ethos and regain its nerve? If churches are to thrive--or even survive--disturbing questions need to be confronted and answered. In conversation with Christians who have left the church and with those who are experimenting with fresh expressions of church, Stuart Murray explores both the emerging and inherited church scenes and makes proposals for the development of a way of being church suitable for a postdenominational, postcommitment and post-Christendom era. With chapters on mission, community and worship, Church After Christendom offers a vision of church life that is healthy, sustainable, liberating, peaceful and missional.

Politics after Christendom

Politics after Christendom PDF Author: David VanDrunen
Publisher: Zondervan Academic
ISBN: 0310108853
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 401

Get Book Here

Book Description
For more than a millennium, beginning in the early Middle Ages, most Western Christians lived in societies that sought to be comprehensively Christian--ecclesiastically, economically, legally, and politically. That is to say, most Western Christians lived in Christendom. But in a gradual process beginning a few hundred years ago, Christendom weakened and finally crumbled. Today, most Christians in the world live in pluralistic political communities. And Christians themselves have very different opinions about what to make of the demise of Christendom and how to understand their status and responsibilities in a post-Christendom world. Politics After Christendom argues that Scripture leaves Christians well-equipped for living in a world such as this. Scripture gives no indication that Christians should strive to establish some version of Christendom. Instead, it prepares them to live in societies that are indifferent or hostile to Christianity, societies in which believers must live faithful lives as sojourners and exiles. Politics After Christendom explains what Scripture teaches about political community and about Christians' responsibilities within their own communities. As it pursues this task, Politics After Christendom makes use of several important theological ideas that Christian thinkers have developed over the centuries. These ideas include Augustine's Two-Cities concept, the Reformation Two-Kingdoms category, natural law, and a theology of the biblical covenants. Politics After Christendom brings these ideas together in a distinctive way to present a model for Christian political engagement. In doing so, it interacts with many important thinkers, including older theologians (e.g., Augustine, Aquinas, and Calvin), recent secular political theorists (e.g., Rawls, Hayek, and Dworkin), contemporary political-theologians (e.g., Hauerwas, O'Donovan, and Wolterstorff), and contemporary Christian cultural commentators (e.g., MacIntyre, Hunter, and Dreher). Part 1 presents a political theology through a careful study of the biblical story, giving special attention to the covenants God has established with his creation and how these covenants inform a proper view of political community. Part 1 argues that civil governments are legitimate but penultimate, and common but not neutral. It concludes that Christians should understand themselves as sojourners and exiles in their political communities. They ought to pursue justice, peace, and excellence in these communities, but remember that these communities are temporary and thus not confuse them with the everlasting kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christians' ultimate citizenship is in this new-creation kingdom. Part 2 reflects on how the political theology developed in Part 1 provides Christians with a framework for thinking about perennial issues of political and legal theory. Part 2 does not set out a detailed public policy or promote a particular political ideology. Rather, it suggests how Christians might think about important social issues in a wise and theologically sound way, so that they might be better equipped to respond well to the specific controversies they face today. These issues include race, religious liberty, family, economics, justice, rights, authority, and civil resistance. After considering these matters, Part 2 concludes by reflecting on the classical liberal and conservative traditions, as well as recent challenges to them by nationalist and progressivist movements.

Hospitality and Community After Christendom

Hospitality and Community After Christendom PDF Author: Andrew Francis
Publisher: Authentic Media Inc
ISBN: 1780780524
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 159

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book aims to show how nurturing hospitality in the "discipleship community" leads to growth. It seeks to re-examine the challenge, biblically and in radical Christian movements, presented by the pre-Christendom church in its patterns of hospitality and community to so 're-work' these to be more effective in mission, personally and corporately, after Christendom. The book re-examines Jesus' intentions, the wider biblical material, and congregational practices of sharing Communion as well as drawing on radical church history to demonstrate that despite increasing marginalization, hospitality and community are essential to the church's nature, well-being and mission. It goes on to use many practical examples, as well as leadership strategies to enable congregations to restore hospitality and community to its necessary place. It also provides an accessible theology as well as some original liturgies to underpin Christian life as we move forward after Christendom.

The New Anabaptists

The New Anabaptists PDF Author: Stuart Murray
Publisher: MennoMedia, Inc.
ISBN: 1513813005
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 293

Get Book Here

Book Description
What does it look like to be an Anabaptist community in the modern world? And why does it matter? A new incarnation of Anabaptism is emerging, but not where we might expect. In the United Kingdom—a post-Christendom context with little historical Anabaptist presence—Christian communities are embodying fresh expressions of Anabaptist faith and practice. In this companion to The Naked Anabaptist, author Stuart Murray identifies 12 common practices of such churches and communities that are shaped by an Anabaptist vision. Murray explores how these practices—which include encouraging economic radicalism in the face of rampant consumerism, truth-telling in a “post-truth” society, and accountability in an individualistic culture that knows little about the Christian story—might shape emerging Christian communities and inspire those seeking fresh expressions as cultural changes accelerate. The book concludes with three one-the-ground reports from ministry leaders pursuing this Anabaptist vision in their own post-Christendom contexts. ​ The New Anabaptists provides foundational resources for followers of Jesus in many different settings as they rise to the challenge of faithful and radical discipleship in local communities.

Civility

Civility PDF Author: Philip Sheldrake
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019267644X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 177

Get Book Here

Book Description
Civility offers a thoughtful response to one of the most significant social challenges and public problems that we face in contemporary society, particularly in the Western world. The book identifies and discusses the critical public-social values and virtues that we need to focus upon and actively to promote to counter these problems and, overall, to develop a healthy human society. To achieve an effective, inclusive, and just society we must, first, reframe how we understand 'politics.' What does 'politics' mean and how should it be practiced? 'Politics' in its true sense does not mean something ideological but rather it involves the service of the 'polis'--that is, the human community. We also need to recover a robust sense of public virtues. The book describes some of the critical virtues and suggests how they may be cultivated. The overall argument is that in a healthy society it is vitally important to concentrate more effectively on public virtues and values rather than simply to focus on encouraging material success or on creating efficient social and political systems as the main goals that we seek to develop in our societies. The volume focuses particularly on the public virtues of civility, having a sense of 'place', building community, solidarity and responsibility, respect and compassion, and cultivating discernment (that is, the art of how to choose well). The book concludes by offering reflections on the particular role of education, especially school education, and of public leadership as two central elements in reshaping a healthy society based on clear societal values.

Beloved Community

Beloved Community PDF Author: Paul R. Hinlicky
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN: 1467443034
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 960

Get Book Here

Book Description
In this scholarly work Paul Hinlicky transcends the impasse between dogmatic and systematic theology as he presents an original, comprehensive system of theology especially apropos to the post-Christendom North American context. Deploying an unusual Spirit-Son-Father trinitarian scheme, Hinlicky carefully develops his system of theology through expansive, wide-ranging argumentation. He engages with other theologians throughout the book and concludes each major section by discussing an alternate perspective on the subject.

God After Christendom?

God After Christendom? PDF Author: Brian Haymes
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1532616635
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 185

Get Book Here

Book Description
In the face of what appears to be a widespread questioning of the practical usefulness of serious theological reflection on the nature and purposes of God, the authors of this intriguing book argue that a return to the sources of the Christian tradition represents nothing less than a rich trove of resources for Christian living. By revisiting the story of speech about God in scripture and in the living tradition of the church, the authors argue that we are thereby enabled to confront the contemporary temptations that too often unwittingly remake God in our own image. In this way the authors provocatively suggest that at least part of what Christian discipleship involves today is bound up with the task of unlearning some of the ways of speaking of God that have become so familiar to us. By learning to reread the texts of the Christian tradition, particularly in its most vital and creative moments, the authors suggest that we might become better equipped to faithfully read the signs of our own times.

Missional Discipleship After Christendom

Missional Discipleship After Christendom PDF Author: Andrew R. Hardy
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 153261893X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 255

Get Book Here

Book Description
It is not a changing culture, reduced resources, or a rescinding Christian memory that creates the greatest challenges for the church in the West. It is the lack of a clear commitment to the intentional, authentic, and contextual expressions of missional disciple-making, which will shape current and future generations of followers of Jesus to express the values of the Kingdom today. This book offers stimulating historical, biblical, and theological reflections on discipleship and considers some of the possibilities and opportunities afforded to us by our post-Christian context. Missional discipleship allows the missio Dei to shape us in our engagement our practices and sustain us in the lifelong journey of becoming and developing disciples that follow Jesus today.