Church in a Secular Age: Exploring Andrew Root’s Ecclesiology and Its Implications

Andrew Root’s recently completed “Ministry in a Secular Age” series offers a significant new contribution into the contemporary conversation about parish ministry after Christendom. Across these six volumes, Root uses the work of the philosopher Charles Taylor to construct an ecclesiological frame that re-centers divine action in the life of the church, exploring in turn various themes across Christian life and practice for a secular age. This paper examines his six-book series with the goal of offering the first in-depth critical engagement of his overall project, alongside a reflection on this series’ import for Anglican audiences. I do so by exploring his theological method and surveying his creative use of genre across the series, drawing out themes from across the six volumes, and assessing the ways in which his works do and do not scaffold as a whole.