IN RECENT years, Andrew Root has been a prolific writer. A professor of youth and family ministry at a Lutheran seminary in Minnesota, he is the author of the Ministry in a Secular Age series, a popular-level conversation with the Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor on what it means to live in a secular culture. Taylor’s magisterial A Secular Age (2007) provides a framework for Root’s own books.
By secularism, Root means not so much a decline in religious affiliation or political influence as a shift in what people find believable. In particular, secularism means loss of belief in a transcendent God who acts in the world.
Root explores the impact of this in areas such as faith formation, pastoral ministry, and church growth. In the present book, he teams up with the Malawi-based theologian Blair D. Bertrand to distil real-world implications for church leaders navigating ministry in challenging times. This book seeks to be a practical and accessible coda to the series, but can also be read in isolation.
The reason that church is not working, the authors say, is that church leaders have absorbed a “secular logic of acceleration” — an addiction to more, bigger, newer, busier. The proposed antidote is an intentional cultivation of slowness, humility, gratitude, and waiting. Our hope should lie not in innovations and activities, but in God. This central point is well made, and will resonate with many readers — including those who regret the arrival of a culture of funding bids, targets, and outputs within the Church of England.
I have two main caveats. One is that the book’s language and points of reference are distinctively American, as are its assumptions about the secular imagination that its readers have imbibed. The opening chapter tells readers that their church “has a problem, but it isn’t what they think”. It assumes that the reader’s image of success is a megachurch with myriad ministries, and that the book’s counsel to slow down will be unexpected. In reality, I suspect, most Church Times readers will find this book says precisely what they already think, but in an American accent.
A second question mark concerns the use of the word “secular” to mean obstacles to believing in a transcendent God who acts in the world. This usage is explained early on. But. in everyday English, secular simply means “not religious”, with overtones of “reason, not faith”.
The eclipse of Christianity has not left a vacuum. Paganisms, magic, paranormal fascination, wellness rituals, and transhumanist utopias proliferate. Some identity-politics activists are reinventing Puritanism, complete with witch hunts and new classes of heretic. As spiritualities and new religious movements abound, wild conspiracy theories go viral, and rationality itself is vilified, defining the culture as secular feels a little odd.
The Revd Mike Starkey is a London-based freelance writer, and former Head of Church Growth for Manchester diocese.
When Church Stops Working: A future for your congregation beyond more money, programs and innovation
Andrew Root and Blair D. Bertrand
Brazos Press £18.99
(978-1-58743-578-2)
Church Times Bookshop £17.10