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

by Andrew Root

Publisher:

Baker

, 2019

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.

This is the second book in Root’s Ministry in a Secular Age series.

Contents

• Part 1: Welcome to the Pastoral Malaise
• Part 2: The God Who Is a Ministering Pastor

Praise for the Print Edition

We are embedded in and pervaded by what Charles Taylor called a ‘secular age.’ The implications of Taylor’s analysis of secularity are enormous, but few have taken up the challenge to look through Taylor at ministry in our world. Andrew Root has, and he has done so successfully and spectacularly. We need to take up the challenge with Root, listen to him, and extend his insights into our local churches.

—Scot McKnight, professor of New Testament, Northern Seminary

This book is a must-read for anyone preparing for pastoral ministry or currently in ministry. Highly readable, it seeks to reclaim a pastoral identity that is rooted in the divine action of a ministering God. Building on the work of Charles Taylor, Root first lays out the historical evolution of the current hollowing out of pastoral identity through an excellent exploration of six pastors from Augustine to Rick Warren. Then, turning to Foucault, Jenson, and Old Testament texts, Root boldly asserts the identity of God as one who ministers to his people. Root encourages pastors to reclaim an identity based on their participation in God’s acts of ministry. It is in these very acts of ministry that a window is opened to the transcendent and ministering God in a secular age.

—Annette Brownlee, chaplain and professor of pastoral theology, Wycliffe College, University of Toronto

Product Details

• Title: The Pastor in a Secular Age: Ministry to People Who No Longer Need a God
• Author: Andrew Root
• Series: Ministry in a Secular Age
• Volume: 2
• Publisher: Baker
• Print Publication Date: 2019
• Logos Release Date: 2019
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
• Subjects: Christianity and culture; Christianity › 21st century; Non-church-affiliated people; Pastoral theology
• ISBNs: 9781493424283, 9781493418220, 9780801098475, 1493424289, 149341822X, 0801098475
• Resource ID: LLS:9781493418220
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2024-03-06T21:05:00Z

About Andrew Root

Andrew Root (PhD, Princeton Theological Seminary) is Carrie Olson Baalson Professor of Youth and Family Ministry at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, and has written extensively about youth ministry. He is the author of numerous books, including Faith Formation in a Secular Age, The Pastor 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.