After Christendom - Bogserien

Christendom was a historical era, a geographical region, a political arrangement, a sacral culture, and an ideology. For many centuries, Europeans have lived in a society that was nominally Christian. Church and state have been the pillars of a remarkable civilization that can be traced back to the decision of the emperor Constantine I early in the fourth century to replace paganism with Christianity as the imperial religion.

Christendom, a brilliant but brutal culture, flourished in the Middle Ages, fragmented in the Reformation of the sixteenth century, but persisted despite the onslaught of modernity. While exporting its values and practices to other parts of the world, however, it has been slowly declining during the past three centuries. In the twenty-first century, Christendom is unravelling.

What will emerge from the demise of Christendom is not yet clear, but we can now describe much of Western culture as "post-Christendom."

Post-Christendom is the culture that emerges as the Christian faith loses coherence within a society that has been definitively shaped by the Christian story and as the institutions that have been developed to express Christian convictions decline in influence.

This definition, proposed and unpacked in Post-Christendom, the first book in the After Christendom series, has gained widespread acceptance. Post-Christendom investigated the Christendom legacy and raised numerous issues that are explored in the rest of the series. The authors of this series, who write from within the Anabaptist tradition or in sympathy with it, see the current challenges facing the church not as the loss of a golden age but as opportunities to recover a more biblical and more Christian way of being God's people in God's world.

This extensive series addresses a wide range of issues, including theology, social and political engagement, how we read Scripture, youth work, mission, worship, relationships, and the shape and ethos of the church after Christendom.

Seventeen books have previously been published (and more are coming):

Stuart Murray: Post-Christendom

Stuart Murray: Church after Christendom

Jonathan Bartley: Faith and Politics after Christendom

Jo and Nigel Pimlott: Youth Work after Christendom

Alan and Eleanor Kreider: Worship and Mission after Christendom

Lloyd Pietersen: Reading the Bible after Christendom

Andrew Francis: Hospitality and Community after Christendom

Fran Porter: Women and Men after Christendom

Simon Perry: Atheism after Christendom

Brian Haymes and Kyle Gingerich Hiebert: God after Christendom?

Jeremy Thomson: Relationships and Emotions after Christendom

Dan Yarnell and Andy Hardy: Missional Discipleship after Christendom

Joshua Searle: Theology after Christendom

Andrew Francis and Janet Sutton: Sacraments after Christendom

Lina Toth: Singleness and Marriage after Christendom

Jeremy Thomson: Interpreting the Old Testament after Christendom

Douglas Hund: Community Engagement after Christendom

These books are not intended to be the last word on the subjects they address, but an invitation to discussion and further exploration. Additional material, including extracts from published books and articles on related topics, can be found at https://amnetwork.uk/resources/.

Series Editor:

Stuart Murray