Leaving Christendom for Good: Church-World Dialogue in a Secular Age [Hardcover]

Leaving Christendom for Good argues that the solution to some of the most troubling tensions in the life of the Catholic Church since Vatican II can be found in the councils document Gaudium et spes. This texts view of the churchs mission and social relationships as dialogical has the capacity to liberate. Part One studies the contemporary place of religionwith particular reference to Charles Taylors groundbreaking work, A Secular Ageand examines Gaudium et spess dialogical view of the church-world relationship. Part Two explores what true dialogue entails and how it is best understood theologically, engaging critically with Joseph Ratzingers view of the church-world relationship. The books final chapter considers two practical implications of its argument: how evangelization can be best understood today, and how the church can best approach issues in the public sphere.James Gerard McEvoy is senior lecturer in the Faculty of Theology and Philosophy at Australian Catholic University.

James McEvoy presents a timely and interesting look at the stance of the contemporary Roman Catholic Church towards the modern world. . . .The work could appeal to a wide audience: Catholics and other laypeople disenchanted with the unhelpful dead-end of the modern liberal-conservative dichotomy (which McEvoy criticizes); Christian clergy interested in the ecclesiological ebb-and-flow of Christianitys largest body; and those interested in the discussions around the work of Charles Taylor. . . .Leaving Christendom for Good is a helpful work that engages several important currents of thought and their representative thinkers, and ends with a reasonable diagnosis for a way forward that could appeal to wide sections of the modern Catholic Church and many sympathetic onlookers, Christian and secular. . . .[O]ne of McEvoys chief strengths is a deft ability to summarize and synthesize vast amounts of scholarship, while threading through his commentary and expounding a clear thesisls/