Simon Barrow on Advent hope

In post-Christendom* the inbuilt captivity of the wider social order to received Christian ideas is being steadily eroded, and the answer is not to reassert control (the Gospel is about gracious possibility, which is destroyed by compulsion), but to ask whether it is really much better in the church.

Practices of hopeful waiting - spiritual, intellectual and subversively political - need to be rediscovered in such a way that they really can be seen to 'make a difference' in public life.

It is the quality of compassionate living which communicates Advent hope, not rhetoric buttressed by guilt or divorced from costly engagement. By contrast, complaining about the loss of a 'Christian country' is the easy option: at best a distraction, at worst a trip in the wrong direction.

(Simon's links, but my highlighting in mauve)

Read the whole post here

* 'Post-Christendom' is our modern society, where going to church is no longer part of the general culture and something we need to do in order to be an accepted member of society.