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Product Description

SECOND PRIZE WINNER FOR BEST CHRISTIAN BOOK OF THE YEAR IN AUSTRALIA, 2007

Exiles: Living Missionally in a Post-Christian Culture presents a biblical, Christian worldview for the emergent church—people who are not at home in the traditional church or in the secular world. As exiles of both, they must create their own worldview that integrates their Christian beliefs with the contemporary world. Exiles seeks to integrate all aspects of life and decision-making and to develop the characteristics of a Christian life lived intentionally within emerging (postmodern) culture. It presents a plea for a dynamic, life-affirming, robust Christian faith that can be lived successfully in the post-Christian world of twenty-first century Western society. This book will present a Christian lifestyle that can be lived in non-religious categories and be attractive to not-yet Christians.

Such a worldview takes ecology and politics seriously. It offers a positive response to the workplace, the arts, feminism, mystery and worship. Exiles seeks to develop a framework that will allow Christians to live boldly and courageously in a world that no longer values the culture of the church, but does greatly value many of the things the Bible speaks positively about. This book suggests that there us more to being a Christian than meets the eye. It explores the secret, unseen nooks and crannies in the life of a Christian and suggests that faith is about more than church attendance and belief in God. Written in a conversational, easy-to-read style, Exiles is aimed at church leaders, pastors and laypersons and seeks to address complex issues in a simple manner. It includes helpful photographs and diagrams.

“An evocative and stimulating treatment which builds on earlier work written with Alan Hirsch [The Shaping of Things to Come, published by Hendrickson Publishers in 2003], Frost develops many of those earlier insights as he challenges the church to live missionally in a post- Christian culture.

“We may not agree with everything in this book, but it provides plenty of food for thought with respect to the nature of church, and to living as an exile in the contemporary western world.

“The image of ‘exiles’ is an evocative one and Frost exploits it in terms of the mindset and lifestyle of an exile, and the critique an exile might make of the host culture. This is counter-pointed with a critique of many aspects of more conventional church culture, as he challenges Christians to live the exilic life as an outworking of Christian identity and incarnational mission.”
—2007 Christian Literature Awards, Australia

Reviews

“As he did in The Shaping of Things to Come, Frost begins the book on the reality that we are living in a Post-Christendom world as exiles in a foreign land, a fact that many Christians (especially in the West) are still coming to terms with. Once we accept this inevitable state of affairs, Frost challenges us to resist the impulses to bemoan the glory days, helplessly trying to rebuild the impossible or becoming complacent, allowing the values of the Empire to consume and distort our identity.
“Frost offers clear guidance on this journey: discover our Dangerous Memories, those revolutionary stories that inspire us; affirm our Dangerous Promises, offering true Spirit transformation; declare our Dangerous Criticism, boldly confronting unjust; and sing our Dangerous Songs, those birthing cries of revolution.
“The second chapter goes on to root these powerful truths in their strongest source: Jesus. Frost demonstrates how we have slowly allowed our Jesus to altered, losing His humanity in the abstract philosophy of His divine nature. While we accuse "liberal theologians" of stripping Jesus of His divinity in pursuit of His humanity, we commit an equal though opposite injustice by placing Jesus so far out of our own context and experience that He no longer presents an achievable model of Christlikeness.
“Through the creative use of visuals (b&w images of several Renaissance masterpieces), reflecting on how these images shape(d) our view of Jesus and our relationship to Him, Frost brings the radical character of Jesus back to where it is best suited—not on the lighted stage of grand stadium, not on the pages of beautifully bound book or in the words of a clever blog—but in the "mundane" reality of everyday life, specifically to the table. From the miracle at Cana to the meal in the upper room, we rediscover both the power of Jesus and his humanity.
“In chapter 3, the final in "Dangerous Memories", continues to flesh out what it means to follow and imitate Christ in this incarnational lifestyle. Doing what he does best, Frost illustrates his points powerfully using real life stories and example of what this rediscovered revolution might look like. Using examples of the creation of "third places" (sociological term for welcoming public spaces, such as cafes, communities centres, etc.), he demonstrates the impact of liberating Jesus & ministry from the untouchably religious framework we often couch them in. For those not able to start such daring ventures, he offers the profoundly important practice of the presence of Christ, drawing from the essential book by Brother Lawrence The Practice of the Presence of God.
“In a time when the world's mistrust of the religious institutions of Christianity leads people to devour such books as The Da Vinci Code, readers are challenged to embrace the naked truth of who Jesus is. Rather than denying the importance of the verbal proclamation of the Gospel, Frost asserts that the spoken message needn't take place from the stage or behind the pulpit, but in those very personal encounters when our incarnational living inspires the inevitable questions about why we are different.
“This final point is so important to me. Like so many, I have been burnt by the tactics of evangelism to the point where I have become reactionary. I am often so concerned that identifying as a Christian or (worse) a missionary will alienate me from my neighbours—which it very well might—that I put all my energy into guarding against misunderstanding instead of missional loving and living in the everyday context of my life. It was a much needed reminder.”
—http://emergentvoyageurs.blog.com/

“Brian McLaren writes that “this book is for exiles: Christians who find themselves caught in that dangerous wilderness between contemporary secular Western culture and an old-fashioned church culture of respectability and conservatism. Frost pleads for such Christians to embrace a dynamic, life-affirming, robust faith that can be lived confidently in a world that no longer values such a faith.”
“Mike is most recently the co-author with Alan Hirsch of The Shaping of Things to Come, one of the must read books of the past five years. He is also professor of evangelism and missions at Morling College in Sydney, Australia. . . .Mike has divided the book into four parts. . .

• DANGEROUS MEMORIES reaching back to Abraham and Sarah. Israel was tempted to substitute more reasonable and respectable memories rather than embrace the ambiguity and embarrassment of such messy heroes.
• DANGEROUS CRITICISM that mocks the deadly Empire. We need two kinds of critique. First, we need an ongoing religious critique of the tamed gods of the Empire (commercialized Christianity). Second, we need the political critique of entrenched power, wherever we find it.
• DANGEROUS PROMISES that imagine a shift of power in the world. The kingdom of God will come. The poem of Isa.54:1-3 is first despairing, but then affirms a wild and outrageous hope.
• DANGEROUS SONGS that predict unexpected newness of life. We sing a new song and affirm a reality we have not fully experienced. Worship is a political statement.
• DANGEROUS BREAD free of all imperial ovens. The food God gives is reliable. Hardness of heart comes when we think the Empire controls all the resources.
• DANGEROUS DEPARTURES of heart and body and mind, leavings undertaken in trust and obedience. Israel looked forward to a time of freedom from exile. Similarly, we need to imagine a time when we leave behind consumerism, ambition, and militarism for other territory.
• DANGEROUS ACKNOWLEDGEMENT of how life really is. Our God is good; but He is not safe. We sometimes cry out for the elusive Presence, and acknowledge like the early Apostle that we are “hungry and thirsty, homeless and ill treated.”

“Frost’s thesis is that Christendom has collapsed. He quotes Stuart Murray that “post-Christendom is the culture that emerges as the Christian faith loses coherence within a society that has been definitively shaped by the Christian story and as the institutions that have developed to express Christian convictions is in decline.” (Murray, Post-Christendom, 19)
“Naturally, this is a matter of deep grief for many. For others, most of those who will read this review, it is also a moment of profound hope. We can rediscover ourselves as exiles, as a missional movement. Brueggemann offers his disciplines as a way for exiles to maintain a faithful witness in an alternative community—or communitas—an alternative culture. Frost will expand on the first four in the list above. He summarizes his approach in pages 15-24, then closes with the call to be generously angry, relating the story of George Orwell. Orwell began as a depressed, withdrawn writer who discovered the stories of Charles Dickens. He emerged as a man with a purpose, committed to exposing injustice and untruth, full of vision and ideals. Frost concludes that the work of the exile is not the discovery of a new gospel, but a rediscovery of the life of Jesus. Chapter two looks at Jesus the exile, and chapter three shows how we follow Him… these are our dangerous memories.”
— http://nextreformation.com/

"Believers, according to Frost (The Shaping of Things to Come, Hendrickson), must live a fresh and missional faith—without the trappings of modernism, consumerism and materialism—to be followers of Jesus in a post-Christian world. Though Frost's penchant for historical detail may lose those who are looking for a quick read and instant inspiration, his unique voice on everything from hospitality to war is worth hearing."
—OUTREACH Magazine

"Exiles is an empowering workbook and a careful analysis of the challenges and needed directions for new expressions of ‘living missionally in a post-Christian culture.’"
—Zadok Perspectives

Michael Frost is an Australian teacher,writer, and church leader and one of Australia’s leading communicators and evangelists. He is the Director of the Centre for Evangelism and Glocal Mission at Morling Baptist Seminary in Sydney, Australia, and is the author of numerous books including Seeing God in the Ordinary (Hendrickson, 2000) and The Shaping of Things to Come with Alan Hirsch (Hendrickson, 2003).

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