An argument for the centrality of the Eucharistic church in an increasingly tribal world.
An argument for the centrality of the Eucharistic church in an increasingly tribal world.
As Western culture has secularized, the church has increasingly become marginalized and is seen as providing support and optional resources, rather than indispensable to the Christian life. In this volume, theologian Scott Cowdell argues for a recovery of the church as the proper context for Christian faith, life, and mission. In Why Church? Cowdell considers how we have arrived at this moment, examining how perceptions of the church have changed in response to increasing individualism and institutional failings. Suggesting that the Eucharistic Church embodies Christ’s desire to draw humankind to him, Cowdell shows how the Christian life depends on Christian community.
Written with adult formation in mind and from a perspective of generous orthodoxy, Why Church? makes a provocative case for the centrality of the church to Christian life. Discussion questions at the conclusion of each chapter offer provocative conversation starters for any adult education group.
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"Too often the faithful sacramental Christian life has been dismissed as inherited Church. Scott Cowdell helps us to see the Church freshly, as if for the first time, and shows its central importance as the steady heartbeat of our life in God. He compares trying to embody Gods love without it as trying to surf without a surfboard. We ignore his vision at our peril." * Alison Milbank, professor of Theology and Literature at Nottingham University * "Writing with wit and wisdom Cowdell helps us recover the significance of the obvious, namely, that Christianity is unintelligible without the church. Drawing on the work of Charles Taylor his account of how the church can survive and flourish in modernity is as imaginative as it is hopeful. This is a book in theology that is at once constructive and a delight to read." * Stanley Hauerwas, Gilbert T. Rowe Professor Emeritus of Divinity and Law at the Divinity School at Duke University, and author of A Community of Character: Toward a Constructive Christian Social Ethic * This book a is a welcome example of theology at its most accessible with potential to engage a wide readership and to used for group discussion as well as personal challenge and edification. * Journal of Anglican Studies *
Scott Cowdell is Research Professor in Theology at Charles Sturt University, Canberra. In 2024, after 36 years of Anglican ministry in Australian parishes, seminaries, and universities, he was received into the Catholic Church with a view to becoming a priest there. He is the author of eleven booksmost recently René Girard and the Nonviolent God and Mimetic Theory and its Shadow: Girard, Milbank, and Ontological Violence. With Joel Hodge and Chris Fleming he co-edits Bloomsbury Academics Violence, Desire, and the Sacred series. In 2023, Cowdell was Deans Scholar at the Virginia Theological Seminary. He lives in Canberra, Australia.
