In Search of the Common Good

Christian Fidelity in a Fractured World

Jake Meador

• Publisher: IVP
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780830845545, 9780830845545
• eBook ISBN: 9780830873784
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

ECPA Christian Book Award Finalist - Faith and Culture
Christianity Today Book of the Year Award, Politics and Public Life

Common life in our society is in decline.

Our communities are disintegrating, as the loss of meaningful work and the breakdown of the family leave us anxious and alone—indeed, half of all Americans report daily feelings of loneliness. Our public discourse is polarized and hateful. Ethnic minorities face systemic injustices and the ever-present fear of violence and deportation. Economic inequalities are widening.

In this book, Jake Meador diagnoses our society's decline as the failure of a particular story we've told about ourselves: the story of modern liberalism. He shows us how that story has led to our collective loss of meaning, wonder, and good work, and then recovers each of these by grounding them in a different story—a story rooted in the deep tradition of the Christian faith.

Our story doesn't have to end in loneliness and despair. There are reasons for hope—reasons grounded in a different, better story. In Search of the Common Good reclaims a vision of common life for our fractured times: a vision that doesn't depend on the destinies of our economies or our political institutions, but on our citizenship in a heavenly city. Only through that vision—and that citizenship—can we truly work together for the common good.

Table of contents

• viii
• Timothy Keller
• The
• The Passing of the American Church
• The Unwinding of Common Life in America
• The
• The Loss of Meaning
• The Loss of Wonder
• The Loss of Good Work
• The
• Sabbath and the Chief End of Man
• The Membership
• Work
• The
• Political Doctrine and Civil Virtue
• The Eternal City
• Praise for In Search of the Common Good
• About the Author