In Search of the Common Good: Christian Fidelity in a Fractured World
Written by Jake Meador and Timothy Keller
Narrated by Jim Denison
4/5
()
About this audiobook
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.
Jake Meador
Jake Meador is the editor in chief of Mere Orthodoxy, an online magazine covering the Christian faith in the public sphere, and a contributing editor with Plough. His first book was In Search of the Common Good: Christian Fidelity in a Fractured World. Jake's work has been published in First Things, National Review, Books and Culture, Commonweal, Christianity Today, Front Porch Republic, and the University Bookman. He lives with his wife and children in his hometown of Lincoln, Nebraska.
Related to In Search of the Common Good
Related audiobooks
Disruptive Witness: Speaking Truth in a Distracted Age Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Faith for This Moment: Navigating a Polarized World as the People of God Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Our Secular Age: Ten Years of Reading and Applying Charles Taylor Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Religious Freedom in a Secular Age: A Christian Case for Liberty, Equality, and Secular Government Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Onward: Engaging the Culture without Losing the Gospel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Inalienable: How Marginalized Kingdom Voices Can Help Save the American Church Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Church of Us vs. Them: Freedom from a Faith That Feeds on Making Enemies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Liberty for All: Defending Everyone's Religious Freedom in a Pluralistic Age Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Religion of American Greatness: What's Wrong with Christian Nationalism Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Awaiting the King: Reforming Public Theology Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Against Christianity Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Spirit of Our Politics: Spiritual Formation and the Renovation of Public Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Jesus v. Evangelicals: A Biblical Critique of a Wayward Movement Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gospel & Religious Liberty Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Christians in the Age of Outrage: How to Bring Our Best When the World is at Its Worst Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Don't Stop Believing: Why Living Like Jesus Is Not Enough Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Liturgy of Politics: Spiritual Formation for the Sake of Our Neighbor Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Letters to an American Christian Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Democratization of American Christianity Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What Are Christians For?: Life Together at the End of the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Beautiful Community: Unity, Diversity, and the Church at Its Best Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The End of the Christian Life: How Embracing Our Mortality Frees Us to Truly Live Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Recapturing the Wonder: Transcendent Faith in a Disenchanted World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You Are Not Your Own: Belonging to God in an Inhuman World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How to Inhabit Time: Understanding the Past, Facing the Future, Living Faithfully Now Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5On the Road with Saint Augustine: A Real-World Spirituality for Restless Hearts Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Jesus, Justice, and Gender Roles: A Case for Gender Roles in Ministry Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Home of God: A Brief Story of Everything Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5For the Life of the World: Theology That Makes a Difference Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Religion, Politics, & State For You
The Right Side of History: How Reason and Moral Purpose Made the West Great Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Harbinger Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Son of Hamas: A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue, and Unthinkable Choices Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Shortest History of Israel and Palestine: From Zionism to Intifadas and the Struggle for Peace Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book of Mysteries Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Return of the Gods Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Exvangelicals: Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Testimony: Inside the Evangelical Movement That Failed a Generation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Flag and the Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Josiah Manifesto Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The History of the Medieval World: From the Conversion of Constantine to the First Crusade Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I Think You're Wrong (But I'm Listening): A Guide to Grace-Filled Political Conversations Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Speak of the Devil: How The Satanic Temple is Changing the Way We Talk about Religion Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Not in It to Win It: Why Choosing Sides Sidelines The Church Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism Is Un-American Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Fight Racism: Courageous Christianity and the Journey Toward Racial Justice Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Theft of America’s Soul: Blowing the Lid Off the Lies That Are Destroying Our Country Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Thou Shalt Not Be a Jerk Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Medieval Christianity: Understanding Faith, Mysticism, and Worship during the Middle Ages Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gospel of J. Edgar Hoover: How the FBI Aided and Abetted the Rise of White Christian Nationalism Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Uncanceled: Finding Meaning and Peace in a Culture of Accusations, Shame, and Condemnation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5White Christian Privilege: The Illusion of Religious Equality in America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Evangelical Imagination: How Stories, Images, and Metaphors Created a Culture in Crisis Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for In Search of the Common Good
11 ratings1 review
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An exploration of the challenges of early 21st century Western culture.The author does well at even-handedly investigating what has gone wrong with our culture: the loss of community, the rise of rampant individualism, the loss of value in work and effort, the commodification of everything, etc. This is not a partisan work; he finds as much at fault in modern conservatism as he does modern liberalism. The author no doubt finds in faithful Christian living some kind of antidote to these difficulties, and a presumed path to the common good, but I found the work much lighter in terms of figuring out the way forward than it was in ascertaining how things have broken down. The author is a fan of Dreher's "Benedict Option," and much good could be done with more effective Christian catchesis. But that doesn't seem like something that's going to bring everyone in our pluralist society around to the common good, although it might well be that the author is convinced there can be no common good without communal confession of Christianity. If that's the case, then the common good was rarely, if ever, activated, and has little prayer in the future as a going concern, and is chasing after a myth...or the definition of what it might look like to find common ground in a secular society to improve the lot of everyone would need to be considered to be possible. Is it an impossibility or just beyond the imaginative purview of the author and his associates?Nevertheless, a good read to consider the situation in which we find ourselves.**--galley received as part of early review program