Deep Church Rising: Recovering the Roots of Christian Orthodoxy

The major cultural changes in Western societies since the Reformation have created a serious challenge for the Church. Modernity in particular has been inhospitable to Christian orthodoxy and many have been tempted to reject classical versions of the faith. This has led to a division within churches that Walker and Parry name 'the third schism,' a divide between those who embrace what C. S. Lewis called 'mere Christianity' or 'deep church,' and those who do not. This book is a call deep church, to remember our future, to make a half-turn back to premodernity. Not in order to repeat the past but in order to find often forgotten resources for the present. Embracing the spirituality of deep church, according to Walker and Parry, is the only way that the church can be true to its calling in the midst of the postmodern world.

Andrew G. Walker is Emeritus Professor of Theology, Religion and Culture, King's College London, and author of Restoring the Kingdom (4th edn, Eagle 1998) and Telling the Story (SPCK 1996). Robin A. Parry is an editor at Wipf and Stock Publishers, and author of The Evangelical Universalist (2nd edn, SPCK 2012).