Andrew Root

Part of the author's series regarding how Christianity can look and work in our secular age; in this work he focuses on the emphasis on "innovation" and "entrepreneurship."

Throughout the book the author explains his connections in a denominational organization with various characters, all of whom want to move forward in ministry and be effective, but with varying commitments to "innovation." One guy is reactionary against such things; one seems to be a potent evangelist for it; another is a show more higher level official who is trying to leverage the spirit of the age to advance the mission.

Yet the author throughout has his misgivings about the entire impetus toward "innovation." He does so not from a Luddite or reactionary posture but instead considers the recent history of how we have reached the place where creativity, entrepreneurship, and innovation are prized above all other things. Part of this story is the greater insecurity but "freedom" granted ever since the collapse of the bureaucratized workplace of the 1940s to the 1970s; a lot of the story is how capitalism manifests all kinds of internal contradictions regarding consumption and creativity and thus questions using what works for business as a model for what should work for Christians and churches. He speaks of the exhaustion brought by the constant pursuit of continual innovation, the over-valuation of the self when creativity is honored above all, and how attempting to foster creativity and innovation can many times backfire.

The story does not turn out as expected; the innovation evangelist leaves ministry; a dynamic small group looking to creatively innovate implodes and hinders the faith development of many of the young people working in it. The author looks toward the path of the mystics to help us find a way beyond innovation and creativity and the boxes they force us into in late capitalism.

A lot to chew on. Good critique of the continual attempts to use business insights to direct the way forward for Christians and churches. Definitely worth consideration.

**--galley received as part of early review program show less

The image of unicorns gets tossed on its head as a special unicorn steps in to save the day.

All unicorns prance on rainbows and do happy, glittery, unicorn things. All of them except Fern. She loves to calculate, create, build and calibrate...and she's a super helpful unicorn. But no matter how kind she is, the other unicorns still poke fun at her. When enough is enough, she closes her door and stays in her lab, refusing to help those nasty unicorns...until they knock on her door.

The idea of show more a Nerdycorn won me over immediately. Add the cover with a blowtorch and experiments bubbling in the background, and this unicorn had to be a creature after my own heart. This book is definitely original and is one that will capture unicorn fans' attention as well as anti-unicorn peeps, who actually would kind of love to love unicorns...if each one didn't fart rainbows and such.

Let's start with the text, shall we? The story is well written and adds humorous as well as original sparks. The main text tells the tale, while little added words in the illustrations bring thoughts and humor to life. The vocabulary is, in general, very age appropriate, but this author goes further and allows terminology from the mechanical, science, and engineering world to dribble in. I couldn't help but smile as computer coding, multimeters and arc welders mixed right in with pure imaginative items like zero-gravity ice-cream experiments.

The illustrations are brightly colored, pulse with energy and hold so many amazing, quirky details to add gazing enjoyment. But then, this is about unicorns and science, experiment-loving ones.

And there's a message. Now, if anything, it was this part which left me just a tiny bit less enthusiastic. While the idea of bullying and not fitting in fits to the age group and is an important message, Fern's sour attitude and sudden (out of nowhere) desire to change it hit strange. But that is really only a slight stutter and doesn't really effect the rest of the sparkle and shine...or, in this case, calibrating and grind. This is a read young listeners are sure to enjoy as a read-aloud or simply gaze at on their own.

I received a complimentary copy and found this to be a wonderful, unicorn twist. show less

How do we form faith in a secular age? Drawing upon the Catholic Canadian Charles Taylor’s insights, Andrew Root attempts to answer this question. Root challenges popular faith formation programmes - faith is more than assent to some variables of belief or going to church.

What is refreshing that he exposes the idolatry of youth culture within the contemporary church - this is particularly telling as it comes from someone who is a Chair of Youth and Family Ministry at Luther Seminary in show more St. Paul, Minnesota!

The first half of the book looks at where we have come from. How the search for authenticity and the rise of youthfulness has come about. He highlights a number of factors these include consumerism, the influence of Keynesian economics and Freudian theory seen in the ‘glorifying youthfulness as the pursuit of the id’s desires’. These have all contributed to a separation and segmentation between the youth and adults and a loss of transcendence which in turn have all contributed to MTD: moralistic (the need to be a good person), therapeutic (God is there to help me feel good about myself), deism (God as a concept but not as someone acting in the world). Consumerism post world-war arose from a response from fear; the fear of communism - the idea in the States was that they could consume their way to prosperity and thus keep the red devil of communism from the door. Fear is also prevalent in the contemporary church: we have a fear of being irrelevant, or, worse, being inauthentic. Buzzwords such as ‘the nones’, ‘spiritual not religious’, have all been coined to feed that fear. Post-war consumerism was connected with duty. As Root puts it: ‘Conformity to the mass society became the call to duty; keeping up with your neighbor’s buying became your national obligation.’
A clear indication that idolatries are at work is that the worst insult you could pay someone is to say they are inauthentic or that they have lost their youthfulness. The link between youthfulness and authenticity is ably examined by Root. As he suggests Bonhoeffer would say: ‘ you’ve become obsessed with the youthful spirit, and you actually imagine that youth will save the church. It is no wonder you feel like you’re struggling with faith and its formation; you’ve given your attention to the cultural benefits of an age group over concern for the working of the Holy Spirit who is the very giver of that which you seek’.

Youthfulness, then, is a spirituality without transcendence or divine action (the deistic element of MTD), with an anthropology of self-pursuit (the therapeutic) and an ethic for individualism (the moralistic).

For me, the sociological analysis in the first part of the book was its strength. The second part is more theological. Here Root examines the nature of faith and faith formation. He rightly wants to avoid the notion of faith formation as being ‘doomed to serve the master of youthfulness’. In this part he draws upon the three notions of secular that Taylor has developed secular 1,2,3). For example:

Where Secular 1 sees transcendence in different planes of existence and Secular 2 relegates transcendence to a spatial division between the religious and the a-religious, Secular 3 ultimately finds transcendence and divine action unbelievable.

Root develops the idea of faith and faith formation as embracing the negation and wants to connect it with divine action while avoiding hyper-pragmatism. To do this he draws upon case studies in the apostle Paul and, less predictably, Phineas, the grandson of Aaron (Num 25). He develops a refreshing Christocentric rather than an anthropocentric view of faith formation. It is a negation of self, but an embracing of unity with Christ; being ‘in Christ’. This with the help of Philippians 2 he sees faith formation as taking the form of a ‘kenotic chorus “although [x] not [y] but [z]” to structure your life, calling you to be a minister in the world’. I wasn’t fully clear how this kenotic thesis could form faith formation. But this book is the first volume of what promises to be a trilogy. I look forward to reading how these ideas can be developed. show less

Andrew Root’s whole “Ministry in a Secular Age” series is a must read for Christians who want to get a handle on what time it is and significant reconsiderations of who we are, what we are about, and what we are doing. This concluding volume, The Church in an Age of Secular Mysticisms: Why Spiritualities Without God Fail to Transform Us, does not disappoint.

I always find it challenging to review works by Root in this series because there’s so much going on and it’s nearly show more impossible for me to keep it all straight. But here goes.

Root interlaces his experiences over the past few years, concluding in a gut-wrenching way, and in the process explains his interest in and consideration of what he deems “secular mysticisms.” In this he recognizes how modern Western society remains God- and spirituality-haunted, and the “secular mysticisms” are the ways in which many in society end up exploring spirituality in a secular age.

There are three main streams of mystical thought in this age: a “humanist” strand, a “counter-enlightenment” strand, and the “Beyonder” strand, according to his framework. He explains all three: the “humanist” one prevalent in liberalism and the pursuit of social justice; the "counter-enlightenment” as the one prevalent in conservatism in its current expressions; and the way he will advocate, the way of the “beyonder.”

He does well at showing how despite all their differences, the “humanist” and the “coutner-enlightenment” forms of secular mysticism all end up making it about the self and the development of the self, and in this he finds their great failings. He spends much time in the thought of Bul, Luther, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, Rosenzweig, and others in expressing these limitations and encouraging cultivation of the “Beyonder” type of mysticism.

The “Beyonder” perceives a God greater than he or she and thus looks beyond him or herself in this kind of mysticism. In the end, the mystical path of the “Beyonder” is a kind of holy resignation, a submission to that which is beyond them and anything they could imagine. It’s a confession the self can only imagine, improve, and do so much.

As with all the books in the “Ministry in a Secular Age” series, it’s nearly impossible to do it any kind of justice in a short review. There’s a lot to process and consider here, and much that is profitable. show less