Metamorphosis: Preaching After Christendom

Post-Christendom Christian leaders and preachers in North America struggle to respond to anxiety and despair about the future of the church. Declining participation fewer resources decreased influence and confusion about pastoral and ecclesial identity lead to fear for the survival of the institutional church. Preaching must speak to the despair and confusion faced by congregations today as well as cast a hopeful vision for an uncertain future. This book argues that preachers can change the narrative of the church post-Christendom by urging an exit from Christendom ecclesiology and promoting the construction of an identity that embraces vulnerability and incarnation instead of power and permanence. Counterintuitively failure decrease and marginalization constitute good news for the church. Through wide-ranging conversation partners including postcolonial theory and theology social science systematic theology and homiletic literature this book engages preachers and scholars who seek to reimagine both gospel and ecclesial identity in order to bring new life to communities in despair. Preachers participate in a process of metamorphosis in which the churchs self-understanding is transformed into a vulnerable incarnate community that leaves behind the character of Christendom.