#post-christendom

Review: The Church in Exile

The Church in Exile, Lee Beach. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2015.

Summary: Accepting the premise that we are in a post-Christendom world, the book explores how the biblical theme of exile can be helpful for how the church conceives of its life and presence in the world.

Lee Beach contends that we live in a post-Christendom world, one in which the church is not in a position of power with…

The coming of post-Christendom, however, offers the churches an opportunity to repent of these associations and to recover our calling to follow Jesus in becoming good news to the poor, powerless, and persecuted. Some of the transitions we identified earlier in this chapter can help us on this journey.

From the center to the margins. A marginal church can return to its roots in the story of a God who so often works through the poor and the powerless. Rather than the top-down strategies of Christendom, Scripture reveals the bottom-up approach that characterizes God’s mission. The post-Christendom church can choose to adopt such strategies and to associate with others on the margins.

From majority to minority. A minority church can recover its prophetic mandate. In the Christendom era, the church had so much invested in the status quo it was hard to be prophetic or to differentiate between a supposedly Christian society and the coming kingdom of God. The post-Christendom church can rediscover hope— a vision of what society will be like when the kingdom is fully present— and advocate on behalf of those who are oppressed by the current system.

From settlers to sojourners. A church in exile, a pilgrim church, can see more clearly than a church that is settled and secure. Peter addressed early Christians as paroikoi (resident aliens; see 1 Peter 2: 11) scattered through the empire, members of various towns, cities, and provinces, but whose primary loyalty was toward the kingdom of God. In the Christendom era, the paroikoi became parishioners, oblivious to the persistent tension between gospel and culture. The post-Christendom church can develop counter-cultural reflexes on issues where we have compromised and colluded.

From privilege to plurality. A church without privileges can better appreciate how the poor, powerless, and persecuted feel and can pursue justice for all, instead of serving its own self-interest. Rather than hankering after the lost status of Christendom or desperately trying to protect any remaining privileges that are unjust in a plural society and a hindrance to mission, the post-Christendom church can revel in its freedom from associating with status, wealth, and force and can welcome this plural environment as a much healthier context in which to share faith and work for peace and justice.

From control to witness. A church that knows it can no longer control how history will turn out, what people believe, or how they behave can revert to its original calling to bear witness to the gospel. In the Christendom era, the church invested enormous energy in exercising social and religious control, persecuting dissidents, and imposing its will on the poor and the powerless. Recognizing that these days are gone and renouncing such oppressive policies, the post-Christendom church can instead invest all its energies in living out the gospel in ways that really are good news to the poor and inviting others to follow the One who inspires such ways of living.