Non-religion beyond Christendom

Responding to the initial success of the 'atheist bus campaign' and the debate around Richard Dawkins anti-religion polemics, the religion and society think-tank Ekklesia says that this is more evidence of the shift beyond historic 'Christendom' in Britain.

Ekklesia co-director Simon Barrow commented: "We no longer live in a society where institutional churches embody most people's convictions, if we ever did. We live in a multi-conviction society. The real issue is whether people on different paths of understanding can learn to talk together, cooperate and share the best of what they have to offer, or whether they will try to out-advertise each other and impose their ideological moulds on others. This applies to religious and non-religious people alike."

"In post-Christendom, the era beyond formal church power, Christians need to witness to a path which is about the power of love not the love of power - in the way they live, as well as what they say," Barrow suggested. "This would represent both a contemporary return to the subversive origins of Christianity in the Jesus movement, and an investment in the shared search for justice and peace."

See also:

Godless "happy bus to nowhere" proves an instant hit - http://ekklesia.co.uk/node/7814
Atheist evangelising, by Simon Barrow, on Guardian CIF: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/oct/21/religion-advertising....
Atheism evangelism campaign wants to take people for a God-free ride - http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/7809
Methodists welcome Dawkins initiative to get God on London buses - http://ekklesia.co.uk/node/7811/edit

More thought about God from Ekklesia:

The God elusion - http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/6962
What difference does God make today? - http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/4921
Three ways to make sense of one God - http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/5312