Book Review: The Congregation in a Secular Age: Keeping Sacred Time Against the Speed of Modern Life: Ministry in a Secular Age Series, Volume Three

Andrew Root continues his ministry in a secular age series with this devastating critique of contemporary church culture. Initially, this volume was meant to be the third and final part of the series, but the series has expanded and will now have six books. Volume 1: Faith Formational in a Secular Age: Responding to the Church’s Obsession with Youthfulness (2017) and Volume 2: The Pastor in a Secular Age: Ministry to People Who No Longer Need a God (2019). Volume 4: Churches and the Crisis of Decline: A Hopeful, Practical Ecclesiology for a Secular Age (2022), Volume 5: The Church after Innovation: Questioning Our Obsession with Work, Creativity, and Entrepreneurship (2022), and Volume Six: The Church in an Age of Secular Mysticisms: Why Spiritualities without God Fail to Transform Us, due in October 2023.[1] The sub-titles of each volume are helpful indicators of the work’s central thesis. Root’s style mixes pastoral realities and well-thought-out engagement with scholarship, particularly seeking out dialogue partners with whom he engages deeply rather than in quick sound bites. The series’ first three volumes heavily feature Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age as one such partner.

Part One: Depressed Congregations (four chapters) describes the common morose feelings about the current state of church life. While this analysis is conducted within a North American context, the secular post-Christian culture will resonant with the New Zealand situation. In this section, Root discusses the conversations, phone calls, and emails he has had with numerous church pastors about the reality of church life. The situations outlined in this section are with people in little churches that are struggling and with larger churches that, on the surface, would seem to have all the resources and programs that the first group would desire. The pressure to innovate is unceasing, coupled with the realisation that a congregation cannot keep up with this social pressure. One of the dialogue partners for this section is Alain Ehrenberg, (The Weariness of the Self; Diagnosing the History of Depression in the Contemporary Age, 2016), a French sociologist who discusses the internal reaction to this failure to keep up as “the fatigue of being yourself” (La fatigue d’être soi).

Part Two: Examining Congregational Despondency; Our Issue Is Time (seven chapters). This explores not only the causes of depression outlined in Part One but what are the various factors that underpin contemporary culture, and how they do so. Root frames this struggle as Three Dimensions of Congregational Despondency: Technological Acceleration, Acceleration of Social Life, and Acceleration of the Pace of Life. The key point in this part of the book is that if the church attempts to require more resources, (people, buildings, programs, etc.), this is a pointless attempt to compete with society. The pressure to innovate and compete is taking place within a culture where time is becoming an even more precious commodity. Christians have also accepted how time is used and no longer operates within its timings and space.

Part Three: Moving from Relevance to Resonance (six chapters). Root outlines his solution for the issues raised in this volume. At this juncture of the book, the reader might assume the answer might be a variation of slow down or make time. However, Root outlines how simply slowing down or stopping will not provide the solution. The book assumes churches are caught in a futile cycle of seeking relevance by the latest cultural demand. “Resonance, on the other hand, is a journey of seeking a narrative of connection to the world and those in the world who call out to us” (216)–bringing together the transcendent and the everyday. Recognising what God is already doing and the people you are already connected with. One of the examples of this section is a church that started praying for people they were associated with, not to be relevant to them, but to pray for them–and new connection opportunities arose. As with the first two parts of the volume, this part of the book offers a robust theological reflection on churches’ solutions stemming from decline. Root outlines the almost frantic search for relevance that numerous groups have pursued.

Root lives outside the US “Bible Belt”–which is why this work connects with the NZ church situation. This work is not against mega-churches, nor does it hold up small churches in some romantic/nostalgic manner. Rather, it is an honest reflection on the contemporary church; in particular, the empty pursuit of being relevant. While Root is pastoral in his framework in places, there is an expectation that you, the reader, are conversant with multiple serious theologians and their ideas, which some might find intimidating. As Christianity continues the numerical decline within Western nations, the temptation to gather more resources to be relevant is going to become stronger. To make a difference, this text (and the others in the series), needs to be discussed so that a study guide would be a helpful addition. That being said, this is a worthwhile book to work over together as a church.

Leon O’Flynnisa New Zealand Army Reserve chaplain and adjunct faculty at Sydney College of Divinity and South Pacific Bible College (NZ), focusing on Biblical Studies and Chaplaincy.

[1] Publication outline confirmed with reviewer by private email with the author.