The Pastor in a Secular Age: Ministry to People Who No Longer Need a God

by Andrew Root

Overview

Academy of Parish Clergy 2020 Top Ten Book for Parish Ministry

In Faith Formation in a Secular Age, the first book in his Ministry in a Secular Age trilogy, Andrew Root offered an alternative take on the issue of youth drifting away from the church and articulated how faith can be formed in our secular age. In The Pastor in a Secular Age, Root explores how this secular age has impacted the identity and practice of the pastor, obscuring his or her core vocation: to call and assist others into the experience of ministry.

Using examples of pastors throughout history—from Augustine and Jonathan Edwards to Martin Luther King Jr. and Nadia Bolz-Weber—Root shows how pastors have both perpetuated and responded to our secular age. Root turns to Old Testament texts and to the theology of Robert Jenson to explain how pastors can regain the important role of attending to people's experiences of divine action, offering a new vision for pastoral ministry today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801098475
Publisher:	Baker Publishing Group
Publication date:	06/18/2019
Series:	Ministry in a Secular Age , #2
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	836,445
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Andrew Root (PhD, Princeton Theological Seminary) is Carrie Olson Baalson Professor of Youth and Family Ministry at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota. He is the author of numerous books, including Faith Formation in a Secular Age, Bonhoeffer as Youth Worker, The Children of Divorce, Revisiting Relational Youth Ministry, and Relationships Unfiltered, and the coauthor (with Kenda Creasy Dean) of The Theological Turn in Youth Ministry.

Table of Contents

Contents

Introduction
Part 1: Welcome to the Pastoral Malaise
1. A Historical Map of the Pastor in Our Secular Age
2. The Lifting Fog of Enchantment: Thomas Becket and Pastoring in a Disenchanted Age
3. Keeping Enchantment from Flaring Up: Pastoring to Private People
4. The Force Field of the Buffer: Augustine and Pastoring to Selves
5. When Ordinary Life Becomes So Much More Than Ordinary: Jonathan Edwards and Pastoring to Those Who Don't Care
6. When a Pastor Was America's Greatest Celebrity: Henry Ward Beecher and Pastoring by Personality
7. The Pastor as Chaplain of a Secular Age: Harry Emerson Fosdick and Pastoring at the End of the Denomination
8. When Purpose Becomes Mine and Authenticity Becomes King: Rick Warren and Pastoring in a Post-Durkheimian Age
Bridge: Winter Lectures in Paris
9. Foucault and the Rise of Pastoral Power
Part 2: The God Who Is a Ministering Pastor
10. The Weird God of Israel Who Arrives
11. Encountering a Speaking God Who Identifies with Events
12. A Run into the Wild: Meeting the Ministering God Who Sees
13. Say My Name, Say My Name: The God of Exodus
14. When Dry Bones Live Again: The God of Resurrection
15. Invisible Gorillas and the Practice of Prayer
Index

Editorial Reviews

05/06/2019

In the fantastic second volume of his Ministry in a Secular Age trilogy, Luther Seminary professor Root (Faith Formation in a Secular Age) analyzes the “vocational identity crisis” faced by many contemporary pastors. Root, drawing on the work of theologian Charles Taylor, writes that “the very idea that there could be a personal God who orders and acts in the cosmos has become unbelievable” and then presents ways in which pastors have effectively reached their congregations despite this societal movement toward individual conceptions of truth. Root offers a historical overview of six pastors who serve as archetypes for their era: Augustine, 12th-century Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket, 19th-century American revivalist Jonathan Edwards, congregationalist Henry Ward Beecher, liberal 20th-century minister Harry Emerson Fosdick, and contemporary Evangelical pastor Rick Warren. Examining how the clerical role has changed, coinciding with changing perceptions of the supernatural, Root traces the pastoral identity across the centuries and provides a composite template for how a pastor can navigate modern concerns. Highlights include Becket’s insistence that priests’ sacramental actions can protect believers from evil spirits, Edwards’s belief that faithful living depends not on “what you do, but how you do it,” and Warren’s conviction that the pastor’s role is to provide resources to help individuals discern their life purpose. Identifying many challenges facing clergy today, Root offers a persuasive vision for how pastors can effectively reach their audience. (July)

Publishers Weekly