The de-churched

Skye Jethani has written a second post on the subject of Who are the de-churched? In it he explores a couple of kinds of de-churched people (that is, those who have been churchgoers, but have dropped out for various reasons), in particular those who have left the church because they had received a false gospel, and those who have left because they’ve encountered the true gospel.

The first group have heard a gospel that says if we do the right things everything will go okay - God has to act 'properly.' His second group are people who've found that the institution has become more important than the people (and he quotes a relevant paragraph from a review on the book, The Trellis and the Vine, by Colin Marshall and Tony Payne). These people feel stifled, unloved; they're only 'wanted' because of what they can contribute to the institution.

He offers two ways of dealing with these issues, with the warning: Taking either approach seriously may result in fewer de-churched Christians…or your head on a platter.

God is Back (!)

God is Back: how the global revival of faith is changing the world, by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge.

These two authors, both journalists for The Economist, (one is a Catholic and one an atheist) have written several books together about trends on the global level. This latest one focuses on the (surprising) increase and revival of religion in the world, at a time when it was widely believed that secularism would predominate. And the intriguing thing is that the people who are embracing religion are not just the poor and uneducated, but the ‘technologically sophisticated, upwardly mobile, urban, well-educated, middle class – in a word, thoroughly modern – people.’
While the authors focus extensively on the way in which the American First Amendment ‘simultaneously forbids the state to manipulate religion for its own ends by creating an established church while guaranteeing citizens the right to participate in public life on the basis of their religious convictions’ and thus creates a vitality that Europe lacks, they by no means focus exclusively on Western religions. Islam of course receives due attention, but so does the uprise of religion in many third world countries, as well as Africa and South America.
The book is well-researched, written in an often witty and lively style, and essential reading for anyone who wants to get a global perspective. A much more extensive review (by New Zealander Chris Marshall - pictured at right) can be found in the June 2009 On the Road Journal.