House Where God Lives

In large parts of the Western world, institutional Christianity is becoming a thing of the past. Yet most contemporary theological discussion on the church still deals with technique and process. Gary Badcock here moves beyond that how-to approach to address the much more fundamental question of why there should exist a church at all.

The House Where God Lives makes the case for a constructive and explicitly theological understanding of the church as a problem of doctrine. Ecclesiology, Badcock argues, should keep company with the great creedal themes of the triune God and of human salvation. He begins by considering the place of ecclesiology in theology in general, and deals with the church as a mystery of faith. Surprising insights emerge both from the scriptures and from the Christian theological traditions on each of these accounts. He further examines the themes of community, proclamation, and sacrament.

Badcock’s conclusion is that, in order for the church in the West to be renewed in our time, it must escape the narrow confines of individualism that currently surround it, instead becoming reacquainted with the staggering claim that its fellowship, its teaching, its worship – indeed, its very roots – reach deep into God.