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Written by Christopher Franklin
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Monday, 30 April 2007 |
 David Hendra looks at Jonathan Bartley’s latest book - ‘Faith and Politics after Christendom – the Church as a Movement for Anarchy’.
Bartley gives a clear and systematic account of the Church & Christians in Christendom supported by many sources; including fellow authors in a series of books from Paternoster exploring the implications of the progressive marginalisation of the Christian Church in the West. (These can be accessed via the website www.Ekklesia.co.uk together with many other interesting references). This provides the context for an equally intensive and extensive survey of the ways in which the Church may respond in our present era.
Bartley supports those whose particular readings of Scripture defines Christ’s teachings as both political and anarchic (carefully defined). Thus was the way to the Cross. Thus there is no doubt in his mind that a ‘separation of the secular and the spiritual’ is not realistic for the modern, thinking Christian. But how to get involved?
He explores, cogently and at length, both what he terms the “New Deal” based on a re-emphasis upon “trust” and working with government (risking being corrupted) and the more anarchic ideas which would be implicit in a stance as a “movement” taking “radical stands for justice, taking risks, admitting mistakes and going it alone”. I think it is fair to conclude from the thrust of his summations that he favours the latter but, within that context, he is aware that Christians might well find themselves in a position of relative ‘persecution’ as they question the status quo and turn from the ‘idols’ of the day.
The bullet-point summaries at appropriate intervals make it easy to refer back and forward, and most readers will want to re-read sections as they decide where they stand, and how they behave, in Post-Christendom.
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