Post-Christendom: Church and Mission in a Strange New World – Stuart Murray.

“…Emerging churches need the theological and historical insights, accumulated wisdom and traditions of inherited churches.

Inherited churches need the stimulus, provocation, pioneering and creative cultural engagement of emerging churches…”

While in Melbourne I dipped into one of Darren’s books on his bookshelf – Post-Christendom: Church and Mission in a Strange New World – specifically the chapters: Post-Christendom Mission, and Post-Christendom: Church. Written by Stuart Murray and published by Paternoster in 2004 it is an excellent book. In fact, if I was going to recommend one book which gave a non-technical overview of how church (particularly in the West) has got to where it has today, and what church and mission in “a strange new world” (i.e. tomorrow) might look like, it would be this book. I strongly recommend it.

“The end of Christendom, where the Christian story was known and the church was central, invites Christians in western culture to embrace marginality and discover fresh ways of being church and engaging in mission. This book is an introduction: a journey into the past, an interpretation of the present and an invitation to ask what following Jesus might mean in the strange new world of post-Christendom…”

“Post-Christendom explores this strange new world and urges creative and courageous engagement with the challenges of post-Christendom. Drawing on insights from the early Christians, dissident movements and the world church, it analyses the Christendom era and its troublesome legacy, challenges conventional ways of thinking and offers resources for Christians who will dare to imagine new ways of following Jesus on the margins and telling his story in a world they can no longer control…”

Chapters are titled:

The End of Christendom.

The Coming of Christendom.

The Expansion of Christendom.

The Christendom Shift.

The Disintegration of Christendom.

The Christendom Legacy.

Post-Christendom: Mission.

Post-Christendom: Church.

Post-Christendom: Resources.

A good overview of each chapter can be found here on the Tribal Generation website

A reflection by Stuart Murray, Emerging Churches in Post-Christendom can be found here on the EmergingChurch.info site. Another one, A Decade of Experimentation? Church for Post-Christendom published by the Bible Society in their publication Transmission.