Beyond Four Walls: Explorations in Being the Church (Australian College of Theology Monograph Series)

The church today is in many places “on the nose.” For many people, it stinks. It has passed its “use-by” date and should be relegated to the dustbins of history, and the sooner, the better. Nevertheless, the contributors to this volume believe that the church, in spite of its somewhat checkered history and its many present failures, remains an integral part of God’s redemptive purposes being worked out in the world, and that God’s call to the church is now what it has always been: to be the faithful people of God, bearing joy-filled witness to the resurrection of Jesus Christ in word, worship, and work, in its corporate life, and in the lives of each of its members. Each chapter in this book explores an aspect of what it means to be the church, both with respect to its own life, and with an eye to its presence and mission in the world.

Michael D. O'Neil teaches Christian thought and history and is director of postgraduate studies at Vose Seminary in Western Australia. He is the author of Church as Moral Community: Karl Barth's Vision of Christian Life, 1915-1922 (2013).

Peter Elliott is an honorary research fellow at Murdoch University and author of Edward Irving: Romantic Theology in Crisis (2013).