The Pastor in a Secular Age

Ministry to People Who No Longer Need a God

By: Andrew Root

Narrated by: Mike Lenz

In Faith Formation in a Secular Age, the first book in his Ministry in a Secular Age trilogy, Andrew Root offered an alternative take on the issue of youth drifting away from the church and articulated how faith can be formed in our secular age. In The Pastor in a Secular Age, Root explores how this secular age has impacted the identity and practice of the pastor, obscuring his or her core vocation: to call and assist others into the experience of ministry.

Using examples of pastors throughout history—from Augustine and Jonathan Edwards to Martin Luther King Jr. and Nadia Bolz-Weber—Root shows how pastors have both perpetuated and responded to our secular age. Root turns to Old Testament texts and to the theology of Robert Jenson to explain how pastors can regain the important role of attending to people's experiences of divine action, offering a new vision for pastoral ministry today.

©2019 Andrew Root (P)2023 Tantor

Too important not to read

This whole series is a desperately needed journey into our secular age with the God who is present and active still.

With its focus on pastors in this book, we see the development of the role of pastor and how the historical flow and process brought us to the crisis of pastoral ministry today. Read, sit with and let God move you pastors not towards easy programs or solutions but through a renewed paradigm for divine presence and action in our world today.

The last chapter was worth the entire book

The last chapter was worth the entire book. While the back half can get bogged down in the weeds he leads you out of it well. This should be required reading.