Wisdom from Babylon: Leadership for the Church in a Secular Age
Overview
What does it mean to provide leadership for the church in an increasingly secular context? When religion is privatized and secularism reigns in the public square, Christians are often drawn toward either individualist escapism or constant cultural warfare. But might this context instead offer a fresh invitation for the church to adapt and thrive?
Gordon Smith is passionate about the need for capable, mature leaders to navigate and respond to a changing society. In this book, he draws on his extensive experience as a university president, pastor, and international speaker to open a multidisciplinary conversation about the competencies and capacities essential for today’s leaders.
After analyzing the phenomenon of secularization in the West and charting common Christian responses, Smith introduces four sources of wisdom to help guide us through this new terrain: the people and prophets of Judah during the Babylonian exile, the early church in its pagan environment, contemporary churches across the Global South, and Christian thinkers in post-Christian Europe. From these resources he identifies practices and strategies—from liturgy and catechesis to mission and hospitality—that can give shape to faithful, alternate communities in such a time as this.
In cultures fraught with fear and division, Smith calls for leaders who can effect change from the margins, promote unity and maturity among Christians, and provide a non-anxious presence grounded in the presence of Christ. Educators, church leaders, and anyone seeking to understand the times will find this book to be an indispensable resource for cultivating distinctively Christian leadership.
- Introduces four sources of wisdom to help guide us through this new terrain
- Analyzes the phenomenon of secularization in the West
- Provides a multidisciplinary conversation about the competencies and capacities essential for today’s leaders
Part I: Reading and Understanding the Times
- Secularity: An Interdisciplinary Consideration
- Four Contemporary Responses to Secularity, Part 1
- Wisdom from Babylon: Attending to the Exilic and Postexilic Prophets
- Perspective and Wisdom from the Early Church
- Learning from Historic Minority Churches
- Christian Voices from Secular Europe
- Responding to Secularity, Part 2 (The Four Responses Re-Considered)
Part II: Forming the Alternate Community: Competencies and Dispositions
- Cultivating the Capacity for Liturgical Leadership
- Cultivating the Capacity for Catechetical Leadership
- Cultivating the Capacity for Missional Leadership
- Ecumenism in a Secular Age: A Theological Conviction, a Practical Necessity
- Cultivating Interiority: Spiritual Practice in a Secular Age
- Conclusion: Hospitality and the Gospel
- An Essential Reading List for Leading the Church in a Secular Age
Top Highlights
“Anyone attending to the wisdom of the ancient church needs to read books 1–9 of the Confessions, but it is books 10–13 that locate Augustine’s experience in the context of the work of God in creation. We must hear the call of Augustine to a trinitarian interiority that is focused on the incarnate, crucified, and ascended Lord.” (Page 60)
“First, Does this response to secularity foster the capacity of the church and individual Christians to foster a distinctive identity—one that is thoroughly and deeply Christian and consistent with the call of the Scriptures to be what it means to be the people of God?” (Page 98)
“becoming more vibrant teaching-learning communities.” (Page 55)
“Might the witness of the prophets suggest that what defines the church in such a time as this is a deep commitment to social justice, works of mercy, and advocacy for those at the margins of our society?” (Page 108)
“by transcendence; secularity and secularism cannot ultimately squelch the longing for more than mere materiality.” (Page 18)
- Title: Wisdom from Babylon: Leadership for the Church in a Secular Age
- Author: Gordon T. Smith
- Publisher: IVP Academic
- Print Publication Date: 2020
- Logos Release Date: 2020
- Pages: 191
- Era: era:contemporary
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subjects: Christian leadership; Secularization; Christianity and culture
- ISBNs: 9780830853274, 9780830853267, 0830853278, 083085326X
- Resource ID: LLS:WSDMBBYLNLSCLRG
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2023-04-12T19:17:45Z
Gordon T. Smith (PhD, Loyola School of Theology, Ateneo de Manila University) is the president of Ambrose University and Seminary in Calgary, Alberta, where he also serves as professor of systematic and spiritual theology. He is an ordained minister with the Christian and Missionary Alliance and a teaching fellow at Regent College, Vancouver, British Columbia. He is the author of many books, including Institutional Intelligence, Courage and Calling, Called to Be Saints, and Evangelical, Sacramental, and Pentecostal.
