An urgent call for Christians to face a changing world with faith and resolve.
The world is changing rapidly. Between climate change, an unequal economic system, and widespread human migration, our societies are under stress and strain like never before. And just at the moment when the world needs to hear good news, many people perceive the Christian church as too old, tired, or out-of-touch to respond.
In Faithful, Creative, Hopeful, Jesse Zink demonstrates the importance of the Christian gospel and its witness to the flourishing of human societies. Zink offers 15 theses—echoing those of the church reformers—that together offer a vision for a renewed faith and a renewed church in this crisis-shaped world. From the future of the Eucharist to the nature of Christian hope, from the challenges of neoliberal capitalism to the joys of local community, Zink skillfully weaves together theology, Scripture, liturgy, congregational ministry, and on-the-ground experience of church in a variety of contexts to provoke, motivate, and challenge Christians to renew their ministry and live our mission in a changing world.
Jesse Zink is the principal of Montreal Dio, an ecumenical theological college affiliated with McGill University, and canon theologian in the Anglican Diocese of Montreal. He was born in Canada and raised and ordained in The Episcopal Church. His previous books include Backpacking through the Anglican Communion and A Faith for the Future. He lives in Montreal, Quebec.
"In clear, direct, and vigorous prose, Jesse Zink situates the crisis of the church in the context of the global crises of climate, economics, and migration, and gives a clear-eyed response. Facing squarely our objective uncertainty regarding the world’s future, his fifteen theses outline concrete acts of Christian witness shaped by the certainty of God’s enduring faithfulness."—Ian McFarland, Robert W. Woodruff Professor of Theology, Candler School of Theology, Emory University
"Jesse Zink describes the crises of our time, inside and outside the church, with the particularity of local stories that are filled with authenticity and immediacy. Despite these challenges, named with sometimes blunt clarity, he maintains an encouraging focus on what is hopeful and faithful, calling us to practices that will ground the church for the future."—Linda Nicholls, former primate of the Anglican Church of Canada
"These theses present a way of finding God’s insistent vision for a church in need of thinking—no, of living!—bigger and with more hope than we have dared to in recent generations. An astute and resolutely clear-eyed student of both church and society, Zink presents the world-saving eschatological promise of the gospel of Jesus Christ while avoiding gimmick or game. Indeed, we have little time for such distractions in these last days."—A. Robert Hirschfeld, Bishop of New Hampshire
