''A Peculiar People: The Church as Culture in a Post-Christian Society'' (1996) is a book by
Rodney Clapp Rodney R. Clapp is a Christian author and editor. Clapp was formerly a longtime associate editor for '' Christianity Today'' and until 1999 was the senior editor for academic and general books at InterVarsity Press. He also used to be an editor wit ...
discussing the Christian church's witness in contemporary culture.
In the book Clapp explores the changing role of the
Christian church
In ecclesiology, the Christian Church is what different Christian denominations conceive of as being the true body of Christians or the original institution established by Jesus. "Christian Church" has also been used in academia as a synonym fo ...
in light of a changing North American culture. Clapp argues against a church that has been co-opted by the larger culture. As such he argues that the church should stand as a unique or peculiar culture that can then critique the larger culture.
A contingent aspect of this that Clapp argues for is the notion that the church needs to shift its understand of itself from a collection of
individual
An individual is that which exists as a distinct entity. Individuality (or self-hood) is the state or quality of being an individual; particularly (in the case of humans) of being a person unique from other people and possessing one's own Maslow ...
s each with their own understanding, ideas, and values. For the church to be culture it must be understood as
community
A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, tow ...
.
Clapp argues that the church should be transformative in the world via living as an alternative culture rather than through political means. In essence his position is that by living a unique form of life in the world the church can bear witness to another way, and in bearing witness it can bring positive change to the larger culture.
1996 non-fiction books
Books about Christianity
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