Becoming a Christian In Christendom: Radical Discipleship and the Way of the Cross in America's "Christian" Culture

How might one live the Christian faith within a culture that idealizes and privileges Christianity while also relativizing it and making it redundant? Arguing for a reconceptualization of the theology of the cross and radical communal practices, the author explores some pervasive dangers of Americas new Christendom and provocatively imagines alternatives to conventional Christianityones whereby the church embodies an alternative politic, where it commits to cruciform non-violence, appreciates gifts by giving them away, and knows its boundaries well enough to learn from those on the other side.

Jason A. Mahn is the Conrad Bergendoff Chair in the Humanities and the director of the Presidential Center for Faith and Learning at Augustana College (Illinois). After completing his PhD at Emory University, Mahn taught writing and religion at Duke University before coming to Augustana, where he teaches courses in theology and contemporary religious belief. He is the author of Fortunate Fallibility: Kierkegaard and the Power of Sin (2011) and Becoming a Christian in Christendom (2016).