God at Ground Level : Reappraising Church Decline in the UK Through the Experience of Grass Roots Communities and Situations

Die Reihe "Studien zur interkulturellen Geschichte des Christentums" veröffentlicht Arbeiten aus den Bereichen Missions- und Religionswissenschaft, Ökumenik und Interkulturelle Theologie. In historischer, sozialwissenschaftlicher und theoretischer Erforschung verfolgt sie die Frage der Identität des lokalen und globalen Christentums. Sie tut dies in Anerkennung grundlegender Transformationen, der Bezugnahme auf Andersdenkende und Andersglaubende und im Blick auf die Zukunft der Menschheit.

This book is a collection of essays offering analysis of the experience of contemporary Christianity in the UK ‘from below’, from the perspectives of real situations and people. The authors come from a range of traditions, ‘evangelical’ to ‘liberal’ to Catholic, but all from within the practise and discipline of missiology/anthropology. God at Ground Level aims to discern new insights into the contemporary missiological, theological and ecclesiological debate of today’s church. The crisis of contemporary Christianity is certainly recognised, for it is experienced deeply by many of the contributors to this project. But, each contributor also reveals signs of adaptation to the demands laid on contemporary Christianity that challenge the dominant narrative about church decline. This gives way to a lively, thoughtful and, sometimes, controversial series of perspectives on God and contemporary church that gives us another route into the debates of Christianity, Western culture and Mission.