The Pastor in a Secular Age

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.

Contents

Introduction
Part 1: Welcome to the Pastoral Malaise
1. A Historical Map of the Pastor in Our Secular Age
2. The Lifting Fog of Enchantment: Thomas Becket and Pastoring in a Disenchanted Age
3. Keeping Enchantment from Flaring Up: Pastoring to Private People
4. The Force Field of the Buffer: Augustine and Pastoring to Selves
5. When Ordinary Life Becomes So Much More Than Ordinary: Jonathan Edwards and Pastoring to Those Who Don't Care
6. When a Pastor Was America's Greatest Celebrity: Henry Ward Beecher and Pastoring by Personality
7. The Pastor as Chaplain of a Secular Age: Harry Emerson Fosdick and Pastoring at the End of the Denomination
8. When Purpose Becomes Mine and Authenticity Becomes King: Rick Warren and Pastoring in a Post-Durkheimian Age
Bridge: Winter Lectures in Paris
9. Foucault and the Rise of Pastoral Power
Part 2: The God Who Is a Ministering Pastor
10. The Weird God of Israel Who Arrives
11. Encountering a Speaking God Who Identifies with Events
12. A Run into the Wild: Meeting the Ministering God Who Sees
13. Say My Name, Say My Name: The God of Exodus
14. When Dry Bones Live Again: The God of Resurrection
15. Invisible Gorillas and the Practice of Prayer
Index

320 pages.

View excerpt here.