The pastor in a secular age by Andrew Root - A reflection

I haven't blogged in a while but when Facebooking about reading The pastor in a secular age: Ministry to People who No Longer Need a God by Andrew Root somebody asked me my thoughts. It was recommended by on FB by somebody I respect, but the questioner was concerned it would be too American.

Well, first off I have to say it was a book that I enjoyed up until the point it started making me swear, in the last third, because of the way it spoke about Hagar. Now, people who know me know that for me Hagar is an important figure. The early posts on this blog explain my take on her....but back to that bit later. Actually, some of his reading of Augustine gave me the same feeling. It was like - ok, very different reading to some of the feminist readings of these people. Still - at least Root touches on some of the issues rather than totally making them invisible. Mind you it is also a very white book, not exclusively, (but clearly written for a white audience in USA, Canada, UK, Europe, Australia and New Zealand). So to be honest like most theology books and certainly most that are dealing with the impact of secularisation.

I'm married to a "professional pastor" (Methodist Minister) and as I was reading through the bits talking about the situation the modern pastor finds themself in I was reading quotes and he was nodding his head. I love the way Root says it as it is.

The second part of the book takes us through the changing world view and position of the professional male pastor. A point which is acknowledged by the author, and which it's easy to explain away , particularly with the centrality of the work of Charles Taylor in this book. However, back to Hagar and the feeling that if he had done what in the last part of the book had been followed through, in terms of ministers who didn't aren't ordained, the story of tradition would have looked a little different. 

It takes you on a journey through the place of religion in the society and lives of Augustine; Thomas Becket; Jonathan Edwards, (the preacher rather than the long jumper); Henry Ward Beecher; Harry Emerson Fosdick and Rick Warren. This may be why that initial question on FB, is it too American? Well no, but to understand where it fits in to Britain it may be useful to read Reinventing English Evangelicalism 1996-2001 by Rob Warner. (Note not a cheap book but one that's probably sitting in a lot of uni libraries). This book is important because it will explain how the influences that Root is talking about have filtered in. 

In terms of Britain well, besides reading Warner I think this book should also be read alongside the British Sociologists of Religion Linda Woodhead and Grace Davie. Reading Davie's 2015 version of Religion in Britain: a persistent paradox would be particularly helpful for people wanting to think through the whole picture of change and where the pastor fits in. It would also help critique Taylor. 

So that's the first part of the book or really the first two thirds that took me on a romp over some familiar territory, but with some new stuff mixed in.

Then you get to the next part and the Hagar thing. Now first off he calls the way in which Hagar was abused by Sarah "slut shaming"...um now that suggests Hagar was a slut not somebody who was being abused and then further shamed. Still I have to say he gave the first part of the story a fair discussion. The first bit I find difficult is the way in which he talks about God's first encounter with Hagar when she has run away from the abusive situation God calling her by name and telling her to go back and minister to Sarah. Now, I always struggle with that passage and I think the reasons God sent her back were more practical. If Root had gone on to tell the whole story it might not have jarred so much. I do believe that Hagar was a minister of a kind and she has certainly acted as a character who has ministered to many survivors and slaves down the years, in the Christian tradition. 

For myself it is the fact that Hagar is the first recorded single mum in the bible which has ministered to me and at times encouraged me as a local preacher and home missioner. The fact that God met her after Sarah had got worried about her inheritance and got Abraham, with God's blessing, to send her away again. Hagar encounters God a second time as she is suffering from what we today would call reactive depression and then rebuilds her life to be able to find Ishmael a bride. Thus, showing how single parents and their children can thrive. In his telling Root misses out talking of Abraham as the absent father with the two families.

For me is is these missing points I have found so useful in my ministry in a secular age. I have been able to show that the bible does contain the stories reflecting what real people go through now. That the context may change but essentially God has been journeying with these people from the beginning. 

I agree with Root about the importance of the bible and the way that people are now concerned so much with identity. However, I believe the bible speaks into those identities and offers something authentic to speak into our situation. This is what we need to re-find and re-share. Liberation theologies were based on this type of base reading of the bible. It was some of the liberal west, I would argue, that sought to take the liberation without the base community understandings of the bible. 

The fact that this book got me shouting at it, shows it is a book worth reading because it gave me stuff to shout at, not just neutral space. It also opened my eyes to how as a home missioner, (but with a different job title) what he is talking about is sort of at the centre of my way of working and I now understand a little more how I got here. 

For me working with young adults, who have different levels of biblical literacy, my job as I see it is to get them reading the bible. To get them seeing that it is more than they may have heard it is. To see how it connects with them. To see that it is a mixture of books and there is debate over whether Moses existed for example, but to make clear I believe he did because of what his imperfections as much as his great deeds teach us. I've really found the book So What's the Story important in doing this. We've given it to our young adults to read over the year and then are dipping into bits of what it says to help them connect with faith and share their own faith journeys. It gave us a way to look at the bible which allowed for the fact that many of them weren't particularly literate with the text or it's organisation (which even 20 years ago would have been kind of unthinkable) and to get them to engage with it. Last month we were talking about testimony but focusing on the Exodus story and who Moses was, including the murder, the speech impediment and the rest of it. 

Anyway as ever on this blog I am going down a different path. The book is readable and does make you think, but it is clearly written from a place of cis, het, white, male privilege - which the writer does recognise to be fair. That said it still jars when you read what is implicitly being said about certain things linked to identity and you think..."um, hum", "I guess it does seem like that if it's not your identity that is being invalidated or questioned". Note I see identity as very different to life style choices, which isn't a distinction that Root seems to make. 

The other thing it left me thinking is are we in another place of change? I'm conscious that  Saddleback was founded by Rick Warren 40 years ago, and that many of the "new white churches" are now aging and moving on a generation in their leadership.Is this book exploring the last generation not the one which is now emerging into leadership?  In their excellent book Leading the Millennial Way Simon Harris and Rachel Luetchford have talked about the value change going on and I am interested about how this is feeding in to ministry.

 The church I work for have been giving out this book at our recent employability conference and to all sorts of other people we believe it would be useful for. I think in church contexts it is also useful material, and if we're interested in how pastors roles are changing now, this might help us too. 

So would I say read this book as if you're English? Well, yes....but probably alongside some other stuff too.