Evangelism in an Age of Despair

A Book Review

Andrew Root has been doing important work concerning the Church in the secular age. He has multiple books centered on helping the Church understand the secular age and how the Church can thrive within a culture that is apathetic at best to the Church. He distilled many of these ideas in the accessible When the Church Stops Working, which I highly recommend as an introduction to Root’s work on secularization. Root’s latest book builds upon his work by entering into a story of evangelism.

I cal this a story because, unlike the majority of books on evangelism, this is not a book about methods, frameworks, or styles. Instead, this is a book about the posture of the Church toward human beings. Root’s own words show this approach;

"That might lead you to think that this book is primarily about evangelism, giving you a model for its shape and place in the church.

If that’s what you’re reading for, you’ll probably be disappointed. There are no models, or discussions of other models, in this book (though I do give you a picture of a church that is living out evangelism). I’m not dissecting evangelism as a practice or theology in this book. Rather, I’m exploring consolation as" (Andrew Root, Evangelism in an Age of Despair)"

Root invites us into a story. To go deeper, Root invites us into THE story of how the Church enters the sorrow of human beings. This story is the grad story in which we all still find ourselves. Much like Frodo and Sam in the Lord of the Rings, we are a part of the story Root tells. Root tells us this story through the fictional Mary Ann and the people whose sorrow she enters as one entered her sorrow. But Root also connects this to Macrina the Younger and her brothers Basil the Great and Gregory of Nyssa from the fourth century; Pascal, Luther, and many others. As a Wesleyan-Holiness I also see the connections to Wesley’s belief in ministry to the entire human being.

More importantly, Root criticizes the pursuit of happiness as the greatest good of humanity and shows how it fails us. It is not in the happiness of living that we find the moments of invitation to know who God is; rather, it is in the moments of sorrow and living that we find that invitation. Evangelism is living with one another in the sorrow of life, but it leads to a joy not marred by the pursuit of happiness. There are moments as I read that tears formed and fell from my eyes. Why? Because Root tells the stories of sorrow and how those stories illuminated the truth of human flourishing. No evangelistic program can match the authenticity of entering sorrow. The Church wastes money and time trying to create reproducible methods rather than forming disciples willing to enter the sorrow of others.

Root gives the ultimate thesis of this amazing book, “Evangelism in these sad times is ultimately the confession that God meets us in our human sorrow and through our sorrow takes our person into Jesus’s own person This is good news! Through the art of shared sorrow we participate in the being of God and bring the good news to the world.” (Andrew Root, Evangelism in an Age of Despair)" In that thesis we can find the truth that invites others to transforming relationships with God and human beings.