Is the Christian church something like a meteorite that fell to earth from another universe? Is it, in other words, something made, accomplished and therefore essentially unrelated to the space and time around it? This book answers "no". It approaches the church as a reality which is made with the world as its raw material; not just as its wrapper.

The witness that the church has to give takes many forms throughout history. And each time it is a tightrope walk between holiness and perversion. The church, in other words, is called upon every moment to decide whether it will be a presence that brings good tidings (isn't that what the word "gospel" means?) or, on the contrary, a patrol that will police societies. It's the heights and depths of mission...