Reimagining Christendom

With its expanding legal system and its burgeoning throngs of lawyers, legates, and documents, the papacy of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries has often been credited with spearheading a governmental revolution that molded the high medieval church into an increasingly disciplined, uniform, and machine-like institution. Reimagining Christendom offers a fresh appraisal of these developments from a surprising and distinctive vantage point. Tracing the web of textual ties that connected the northern fringes of Europe to the Roman see, Joel D. Anderson explores the ways in which Norse writers recruited, refashioned, and repurposed the legal principles and official documents of the Roman church for their own ends. Drawing on little-known vernacular sagas, Reimagining Christendom is populated with tales of married bishops, fictitious and forged papal bulls, and imagined canon law proceedings. These narratives, Anderson argues, demonstrate how Norse writers adapted and reconfigured the institutional power of the church in order to legitimize some of the thoroughly abnormal practices of their native bishops. In the process, Icelandic clerics constructed their own visions of ecclesiastical order--visions that underscore the thoroughly malleable character of the Roman church's text-based government and that articulate diverse ways of belonging to the far-flung imagined community of high medieval Christendom.

Author Frank Viola gives readers language for all they knew was missing in their modern church experience. He believes that many of today's congregations have shifted from God's original intent for the church. As a prominent leader of the house church movement, Frank is at the forefront of a revolution sweeping through the body of Christ. A change that is challenging the spiritual status quo and redefining the very nature of church. A movement inspired by the divine design for authenticity community. A fresh concept rooted in ancient history and in God Himself. Join Frank as he shares God's original intent for the church, where the body of Christ is an organic, living, breathing organism. A church that is free of convention, formed by spiritual intimacy, and unbound by four walls.

Western societies are experiencing a series of disorientating culture shifts. Uncertain where we are heading, observers use “post” words to signal that familiar landmarks are disappearing, but we cannot yet discern the shape of what is emerging. One of the most significant shifts, “post-Christendom,” raises many questions about the mission and role of the church in this strange new world. What does it mean to be one of many minorities in a culture that the church no longer dominates? How do followers of Jesus engage in mission from the margins? What do we bring with us as precious resources from the fading Christendom era, and what do we lay down as baggage that will weigh us down on our journey into post-Christendom? Post-Christendom identifies the challenges and opportunities of this unsettling but exciting time. Stuart Murray presents an overview of the formation and development of the Christendom system, examines the legacies this has left, and highlights the questions that the Christian community needs to consider in this period of cultural transition.

The Church is currently experiencing a transition in the way it understands and practises both mission and ministry. It is to be outward-looking, engaging with the wider community, involving all its members in mission and clergy are to play the role of enablers and equippers of the ministry of the whole church. However, ministerial formation in colleges and courses throughout the country lags behind this emerging consensus. ‘Theological education’ is still largely based on academic models. Reimagining Ministerial Formation offers a new way forward, where ‘ministry’ comes to be about the whole church, and ministerial formation is about collaboration between clergy and laity. It argues strongly for a shift away from ‘front-loaded’ training, to a new focus on formation as a life-long process.

What comes after the end of Christendom? Christianity has ceased to function as the dominant force in society and yet the Christian faith continues. How are we to understand Christianity in this 'after'? Bringing into conversation seven unorthodox or 'heretical' continental philosophers, including Jan Patocka, Jean-Luc Nancy, Gianni Vattimo and John D. Caputo, Martin Koci re-centres the debates around philosophy's so-called return to religion to address the current 'not-Christian, but not yet non-Christian' culture. In the modern context of increasing secularization and pluralization, Christianity after Christendom boldly proposes that Christians must embrace the demise of Christianity as a meta-narrative and see their faith as an existential mode of being-in-the-world. Whilst not denying the religion's history, this 'after' of Christianity emancipates the discourse from the socio-historical focus on Christendom and introduces new perspectives on Christianity as an embodied religious tradition, as a way of being, even as a faithfulness to the world. In dialogue with a broad range of philosophical movements, including deconstruction, phenomenology, hermeneutics and postmodern critiques of religion, this is a timely examination of the present and future of post-Christendom Christianity.

How might one live the Christian faith within a culture that idealizes and privileges Christianity while also relativizing it, rendering it redundant and innocuous? Arguing for a reconceptualization of the theology of the cross and radical communal practices, this book brings together two clusters of critics of Christian acculturation and accommodation: (1) Lutherans such as Kierkegaard and Bonhoeffer who lift up radical discipleship against the propensity toward “cheap grace,” and (2) various “Anti-Constantinians,” including neo-monastic communities, who resists the church’s collusion with power politics, symbolized by the conversion of Constantine in the early fourth century. Drawing on these diverse resources, author Jason Mahn explores some pervasive dangers of America’s new Christendom: its accommodation to an exploitative economy that cheapens the meaning of grace; its endorsement of political liberalism, within which the church becomes another special interest group; its justification of war and other forms of “necessary” violence; and its self-defeating lip-service to religious inclusivity. Mahn provocatively imagines alternatives to conventional Christianity—ones whereby the church embodies an alternative politic, where it commits to cruciform non-violence, appreciates gifts by giving them away, and knows its boundaries well enough to learn from those on the other side.

Worship is a dynamic, living encounter that should never be static. In the Church of England, although Common Worship provides texts for every season and occasion, the church constantly needs to refresh its worship, just as it reshapes its presence in local communities. In this comprehensive volume, a wide range of experienced liturgists, musicians and pastoral practitioners consider the principles that will determine the character and quality, as well as the content, of our worship in the future. It explores how new forms can meet new needs while remaining faithful to the church’s essential understanding of worship. Over twenty chapters consider how emerging forms of worship can be: - Relational, accessible and inclusive - Rooted in Scripture, the Creeds, and Spirit-filled - Sacramental, symbolic and multi-sensory - Transformative, pastoral and prophetic The contributors are all members of the Group for the Renewal of Worship, a broadly evangelical group within the Church of England and including senior clergy, musicians, theological college tutors in liturgy and former members of the Liturgical Commission.

Following an encounter with an African bishop - who believed all who lived in his diocese (and not only congregations and clergy) should be loved and cared for - Robert Cotton became convinced that Christian disciples in this country need to be assured that they have something vital to communicate to the well-being of their local communities. We are all, to some extent, 'vicars' - vicarious disciples who cannot help but influence those around us. Indeed, it may be beneficial to think of ourselves as public actors for the faith, housed in a theatre of meaning, the Church, and putting on a divine play for which there is an eager audience. The audience may consist of people of other faiths or none: the author encourages us to have confidence in a theology that does not limit salvation to those inside the Church; he believes that we can come close to the presence of God in active engagement with people of goodwill. And, of course, as Christians it behoves us to respond to others' agendas and concerns with generosity and grace. This gentle, beautifully written volume packs quite a punch. Taken seriously, it will revitalize our personal and corporate vision of Christian living as, inspired by the Holy Spirit, we seek to bring light and joy to the cities, towns and villages in which we live.