In the Ruins of the Church

Sustaining Faith in an Age of Diminished Christianity

Our modernist heritage and postmodern sophistication have trained us well. We take care of ourselves, virtuously avoiding pain, rewarding ourselves with pleasure. Thanks to this thorough cultural training, we often approach the church with the same self-protective posture. Faced with the failures, hypocrisies, and faithlessness in the church, we fall back on the modern strategy we’ve learned so well: we simply keep our distance. R. R. Reno, however, warns against this aloof ecclesiology. In the Ruins of the Church argues that the postmodern Western church is indeed in ruins and that to be in the church is to embrace a “broken way of life.” Reno’s passionate call for Christians to “suffer divine things” also provides a message of hope: through intimate loyalty to the church, daily prayer, and serious reengagement with Scripture, we can dwell in and with the living Christ. We can abandon the “temptations of distance” and embrace the “imperatives of intimacy.” Reno’s bold exhortation will have enormous appeal for critical thinkers and Christians who are disillusioned with the church yet still desire to pursue a life of discipleship. The erudite yet impassioned tone of the book will appeal to clergy, lay leaders, and those interested in modern ecclesiology, as well as biblical and historical theology.