The Church faces many problems: internally and externally. Internal problems are called controversies. Those from the outside are apologetic problems, that is to say which call for the defense of the faith. Let us look briefly at some internal issues within the Church, to focus our attention primarily on the challenges that lie at the interface between the Church and the world. Because that is above all where the issue lies.

There is the problem of priesthood, celibacy, tensions between church leaders, Christian and ministerial ethics, vocations and many others. The refusal to truly confront faith and intelligence, reason and the believing approach are another reality (R. Rémond, Le Christianity en accusation, p. 93). But the real problem may not be there. Isn’t the real problem within the Church above all spiritual decline and the loss of its identity? What could be at the origin of the weakness of the Church? How did she get there?

Questions plague the mind of any vigilant observer: how does the question about the Church or Christianity constitute a major concern? Why has Christianity encountered so much opposition since its existence? Can he survive in the face of all these fierce attacks? “Are things going well or badly in the Church? » asks the curious little boy. “Good and evil,” replies the Sage. An ecclesiastical response, one might say, but nonetheless the Sage is right. As Nicolas Farrell and Christophe Paya said, we should not think that all of today’s questions are new.

Certain subjects run through history, like constants. But it is up to each generation of Christians to ask themselves in what world they live, and to listen to the spiritual quest of their contemporaries. The burning questions revolve around the major centers of reflection between and others:

– theology and the main Christian doctrines and themes;
– the Bible and the global questions it poses;
– ethics and the major moral questions of today, sometimes burning and painful questions, whether individual or collective;
– culture and society, and therefore the main trends in today’s world;
– faith and religion, in order to situate the Christian faith in the very diverse religious and spiritual world in which modern globalization places us;
– philosophy and values, in other words the major trends which shape the thinking and behavior of our contemporaries.

However, the question that arises is the following: has the Church, since its existence, remained the same? Has it kept its values, its power, its authority? Students of higher studies in Theology will find what they are looking for in this book.

It is a wide-ranging theological tool for theology teachers and church leaders.

Jérémie TCHINDEBE

Read  the free extract of the book “CHRISTIANITY AND ITS CHALLENGES”.