The book that has really got me thinking and reflecting at the moment is “Evangelism after Christendom” by Bryan Stone. Here's just one on the quotes I have been chewing on:
“Where
“apostolic” evangelism is right, of course, is its insistence that the
strangeness of Christianity should not be the strangeness of Bach in a
hip-hop culture. But the presumption that one can remove the “culture
barrier” between the church and secular people without challenging the
intrinsically individualist, consumerist, and ultimately violent
presumptions of secular culture represents a blindness to the
subversive, cultural and corporately embodied dimensions of Christian
faith itself.” (Stone, 2007,150)
What Bryan is alluding to here, though in somewhat different language, is the crucial distinction between contextualized Christianity and syncretistic Christianity.
And you know what, I am finding it deeply challenging because the
deeper my awareness becomes the more I realize how truly insidious
these idols of individualism, consumerism and secularism are. Yet
because of the resurrection I know their time is limited, they will not
have the last word.
