Alan Kreider

On the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, this issue of Plough Quarterly explores the reformation the church needs today. This year’s five-hundredth anniversary of the Reformation comes just as Christianity is undergoing what may prove to be its biggest recalibration since the fourth century. Christendom, the system in which Christianity shaped Western laws and society as the majority religion, has been shaky since the Enlightenment. Now it’s in its death throes, felled by secularization, consumerism, and the sexual revolution. For better or worse, Christians must learn to be a minority. There’s no better time than now to recall Karl Barth’s dictum: the church must always be reformed. What is the re-formed church we need now? In this issue, George Weigel and Eberhard Arnold call the church to turn back to its sources and to seek renewal in the example of the first Christians, for whom Christianity was not just a Sunday religion or a private affair. It meant belonging to the fellowship of disciples, whose way of life was countercultural to that of the surrounding pagan society, as Rowan Williams points out. Today, Christians of all traditions are realizing that we are again called, in the words of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, to form a creative minority. Pastors Jin Kim and Claudio Oliver explore how to practice communal Christianity in different contexts, and Andreas Knapp and Cécile Massie document the vibrancy of the persecuted church in Syria and Turkey. Editor Peter Mommsen explores the legacy and triumph of the Radical Reformation. Also in this issue: Reviews of Ben Sasse’s The Vanishing American Adult, Alan Kreider’s The Patient Ferment of the Early Church, Tobias Jones’s A Place of Refuge, and Andrzej Franaszek’s Milosz Poetry by Mary M. Brown Insights from early church leaders Ignatius, Hermas, and Polycarp An excerpt from Renegade, Plough’s graphic novel on Martin Luther’s life Art and photography by Daniel Bonnell, Jason Landsel, Randall M. Hasson, Rachel Wright, Arthur Brouthers, Andrea Grosso Ciponte, Olivia Clifton-Bligh, Malcolm Coils, Cécile Massie, Jader Gneiting, and Dean Mitchell Plough Quarterly features stories, ideas, and culture for people eager to put their faith into action. Each issue brings you in-depth articles, interviews, poetry, book reviews, and art to help you put Jesus’ message into practice and find common cause with others.

How and why did the early church grow in the first four hundred years despite disincentives, harassment, and occasional persecution? In this unique historical study, veteran scholar Alan Kreider delivers the fruit of a lifetime of study as he tells the amazing story of the spread of Christianity in the Roman Empire. Challenging traditional understandings, Kreider contends the church grew because the virtue of patience was of central importance in the life and witness of the early Christians. They wrote about patience, not evangelism, and reflected on prayer, catechesis, and worship, yet the church grew--not by specific strategies but by patient ferment.

Today, as Christendom weakens, worship and mission are poised to reunite after centuries of separation. But this requires the church to rethink both "mission" and "worship." In post-Christendom mission, God is the main actor and God calls all Christians to participate. In post-Christendom worship, the church tells and celebrates the story of God, enabling members to live in hope and attract outsiders to its many tables of hospitality. In this passionate and thoughtful study, Alan Kreider and Eleanor Kreider draw upon missiology, liturgiology, biblical studies, church history, and the vast experience of today's global Christian church-to say nothing of their long tenure as teachers and writers in contemporary England and the United States. Academically responsible but also practical and accessible, Worship and Mission After Christendom is a much-needed guide for people who take seriously God's call to be the church in a world where institutional religion is no longer taken for granted. 324 Pages.

Rarely does one find a book on the topic of holiness with such depth as well as breadth. Kreider takes us on a journey deep into biblical territory and back again into the lives of nations, churches, families and individuals. In this journey the reader is convicted and drawn by the beauty of holiness. We Pentecostals need this word. --Cheryl Bridges Johns, Church of God Theological Seminary Kreider's Social Holiness surprises While holiness indeed owns the otherness of God and the call to be God's separated people, it does much more. Holiness unleashes in history a living force, a dynamism that envisions the sanctification of God's entire creation. Holiness is positive, the 'heartbeat' of Missio Dei. I highly recommend this book for its life-changing potential, both personally and for the church as God's new nation. --Willard M. Swartley, Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary Alan Kreider writes a masterful narrative about social holiness from which Pentecostals can learn much as they reaffirm and recover this important dimension of their heritage. Its familiar terrain serves not only as a timely reminder of a way of life Pentecostals still cherish, but also as a challenge to reconsider crucial features of that way of life long forgotten. --Dale M. Coulter, Regent University Alan Kreider has gifted us with an inspiring, hopeful, and transformative invitation to follow Jesus on the journey toward personal and social holiness. His prophetic call to participate in Jesus' transnational renewal movement challenges families, congregations, students, and all Christians with practical ideas emerging from the biblical story of God's kingship and our citizenship in the holy nation. I appreciate his emphasis on moral zeal, experience, liberating action, storytelling, praise, and the risk of repentance and trust, and think] this book can be a great resource for helping the church with our public witness to Christ's shalom in a broken world. --Paul Alexander, Azusa Pacific University Kreider's Social Holiness breaks new ground and makes new connections, both in his overview of biblical history and in his application of social holiness to the contemporary church. I hope this book will help many believers today - Wesleyans, Anabaptists, and those from other traditions - become more fully and authentically a part of God's 'holy nation' in the world today. --Howard A. Snyder, Asbury Theological Seminary Ours is the age of bombast, exaggeration, hyper-activism and self-importance--all of which leaves us feeling empty. We have lost the capacity for reverence, awe, and experience of the transcendent. Alan Kreider has the audacity to call us back to the transforming presence of God so that we become God-like. This book's message can help set us free from the bondage of our self-centeredness and liberate us to participate in the mission of God. --Wilbert R. Shenk, Fuller Theological Seminary Lively, gutsy . . . Holiness is about practical social matters--such as economic relationships, making peace, working for justice . . . Kreider takes us through the Bible to show how deeply these themes are embedded in the text and how persistent has been the failure of the community of faith to be true to them . . . A must for serious-minded Christians today. --Rt. Rev. John Gladwin, Bishop of Chelmsford, in Third Way Alan Kreider is Associate Professor of Church History and Mission, Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, and author of English Chantries: The Road to Dissolution and The Change of Conversion and the Origin of Christendom. Dale M. Coulter is Associate Professor of Historical Theology, Regent University, and author of Per Visibilia ad Invisibilia: Theological Method in Richard of St Victor (d 1173) and Holiness: The Beauty of Perfection

First-class insight into the life and mission of the Christian church in the first four centuries, based on solid scholarship and a clear sense of mission. --Samuel Escobar, Palmer Theological Seminary Written in a lively and clear manner, this small volume makes many connections between different aspects of early Christian history and practice. I have learned from reading it and recommend it to both scholars and beginners. --Paul Bradshaw, University of Notre Dame Kreider traces the changing nature of the process of conversion across some four centuries. I know of no better treatment of religious initiation undergone by the most seriously committed Christians of this period. --Ramsay MacMullen, Yale University I recommend this book highly to anyone interested not only in the history and theology of Christian initiation, but in the relationship of Christianity and culture throughout the ages. - Maxwell E. Johnson, University of Notre Dame, in 'Worship' Alan Kreider is Associate Professor of Church History and Mission at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, Elkhart, Indiana.

Part of an expanding and academically acclaimed series, this is a genuine trans-denominational work on Nonconformity.