WHOS MINDING THE STORY?

Whos Minding the Story? examines the trajectory of the United Church of Canada since its heyday in the mid-1960s. Jeff Seaton argues that the denomination accepted the criticisms leveled at it by proponents of secular theology in the 1960s and made sweeping changes to its practices, its presentation of the Christian story, and its engagement with the world. Seaton argues that these adjustments, which continue to exert strong influence in the denomination today--as witnessed in the approaches of influential contemporary United Church leaders John Pentland and Gretta Vosper--have seriously weakened the United Churchs Christian identity and contributed to its decline. Engaging the work of Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor in his magisterial volume A Secular Age, Seaton questions the assumptions that undergird secular theology. The book concludes with an invitation to the United Church to make a course correction by reengaging with the Christian tradition while maintaining its commitment to social justice, in a formulation Seaton names progressive orthodoxy. In his first book, Seaton utilizes Charles Taylors magisterial insights to analyze the United Church of Canadas turn toward secular theology in the late 1960s. Tracing its lineage from early advocates to well-known contemporary leaders, he shows how, desperate for relevance, we traded away our most potent resource