In this episode Al Roxburgh and Jenny Sinclair talk with Rodney Clapp about the state of Christian life in a time of profound change. Exploring what it means for Christians to live as witnesses to the Gospel in a radically changing world, Rodney looks at the recent history of the Evangelical Church in America, and the longing for a Christian nationalism that reasserts control over the cultural narrative. Rodney offers a radically different set of proposals, of humble practices rooted in a Biblical imagination, that eschew power and the need for control. Rodney is driven by a passion to call churches to rediscover their life and mission by learning to live without power and control. He believes that it is by living out of control that we discern the ways of God and live in anticipation of a new creation - of a healed earth and of a healed people.
Rodney Clapp is an author, editor and social commentator. He was a former columnist for The Christian Century as well as a longtime associate editor for Christianity Today. Until 1999 he was the senior editor for academic and general books at InterVarsity Press. He was also an editor with Brazos Press and is currently an editor with Wipf and Stock. His latest book is Living Out of Control, an extended proposal for how, in a post Christian context, Christian life ought to be shaped amidst declining empire and in an age of profound change.
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Links
For Rodney Clapp:
https://wipfandstock.com/author/rodney-clapp/
https://wipfandstock.com/contact-information/
Books
Families at the Crossroads (1993)
A Peculiar People (1996)
The Consuming Passion (1998)
Border Crossings (2000)
The People of the Truth with Robert E. Webber (2001)
Tortured Wonders (2006)
Johnny Cash and the Great American Contradiction (2008)
Naming Neoliberalism: Exposing the Spirit of Our Age (2021)
Living Out of Control: Political & Personal Faith in Waning Christendom (2025)
For Alan J Roxburgh:
https://www.themissionalnetwork.com/author/alan-roxburgh/
https://journalofmissionalpractice.com/alan-roxburgh
Twitter: https://twitter.com/alanjroxburgh?lang=en
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alan.roxburgh.127/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thecommonsnetwork
Books
Joining God in the Great Unraveling
Leadership, God’s Agency and Disruptions
Joining God, Remaking Church, Changing the World: The New Shape of the Church in Our Time
For Jenny Sinclair:
Website: https://togetherforthecommongood.co.uk/from-jenny-sinclair
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenny-sinclair-0589783b/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/T4CG
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TogetherForTheCommonGoodUK
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/t4cg_insta/
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