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A Peculiar People: The Church as Culture in a Post-Christian Society
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Voted one of Christianity Today's 1997 Books of the YearChristians feel increasingly useless, argues Rodney Clapp, not because we have nothing to offer a post-Christian society, but because we are trying to serve as "sponsoring chaplains" to a civilization that no longer sees Christianity as necessary to its existence. In our individualistic, technologically oriented, cons
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Paperback, 251 pages
Published
November 12th 1996
by IVP Academic
(first published November 1996)
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While Clapp is not an academy-sponsored theologian, his effort here is in large part a theological one. Simply put, he desires to remind or inform us (the Church) of where we’ve come from, make us aware of where and what we are now, and propose an idea about who and what we should be becoming.
Clapp’s two important contextual points: to inform us of the historical reality of Constantinian Christianity (since Constantine declared Christianity the official religion of the empire, Christians have b ...more
Clapp’s two important contextual points: to inform us of the historical reality of Constantinian Christianity (since Constantine declared Christianity the official religion of the empire, Christians have b ...more

Rodney Clapp in his book A Peculiar People brought to the forefront of my mind the reality that the church is more than a mere spiritual, ethereal, individual entity, but more a corporate, physical, and political culture of its own. He essentially made me aware of the cultural spectacles through which I had been unconsciously viewing what I thought the church was in total. The author did a good job at pulling from the historical context through which the books of the Bible were written, and extr
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My hat is off to Rodney Clapp! This book is an important resource for helping Christians learn how much the wholesome gospel has been corrupted by unholy ways of thinking and doing that are standard operating procedures in modern Western cultures. The alternative is to embrace a life patterned after Jesus and early Christians. Then, we should hope, the world and the church will see more clearly what it means to be a "follower of Jesus." This book has the ability to help the church BE the church.
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This treatment has so many good things going for it. It makes a wonderful, mature case for the centrality of the church, working through all the important questions attached to it. Clapp speaks of treating the church as a culture and, toward the end, church as a way of life. His prose is engaging and full of life. This would be a great book for a church study group. If someone wanted a basic, very accessible text on the topic of ecclesiocentrism I'd give them this.
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i'd give this 3.5 stars if i could. a lot of solid things to say regarding the christian community as culture, but 1. it starts of arrogant and snarky. 2. it was written 15 years ago and it is noticable. seems like this book is a response to the yuppie culture of the '80s. the church is dealing with different issues, now.
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