Can I Get a Witness?

As the twenty-first century muddles along, perhaps the phrase Can I get a witness? will sharpen our thinking about the current state of religion in American culture, particularly for Protestants. Indeed, the permanent transition that characterizes American religious life offers an opportunity to revisit the word witness and its meaning for the future. The materials in this volume survey issues in American religious communities developed through academic research, classroom teaching, sermons, and years of working with ministerial students. Each essay reflects responses to a time in which old systems of organization and identity are changing, reforming, declining, and disappearing from the ecclesiastical landscape. Thus methods for offering Christian witness are undergoing significant reexamination by denominations, congregations and individuals.