Professor Anthony Reddie, who wrote the book’s foreword, agreed. “I see being young as a form of marginalisation within the life of the church,” he said, with people listened to only if they have experience and authority, something that comes with age. On the question of dialogue versus direct action, she said: “As a queer person in the church, I’ve been a suffragist for the past 28 years, and I’m tired of being a suffragist. No one’s listening. It’s really exhausting. There is much writing and strategizing aboutyoung people in the Church, which tries to understand and minister to them as the ‘missing generation’. This book is a much-needed contribution byyoung people to that conversation, and I pray the Church listens.

Edited by Victoria Turner, a Researcher, Tutor and Council for World Mission Scholar at the University of Edinburgh, and URC Youth representative on the URC’s Assembly Executive. Next, Molly Boot’s chapter tenderly and powerfully reconsiders our own relationship with our bodies. They move away from the objectification of the body as ‘it’. Rather, they remind us that our bodies are interwoven with our mind and spirit. Hence, our bodies are worth attending to with our Christian faith, our practices, and with a special concern for purity culture.

Molly Boot, who is training for the ministry in the Church of England, spoke about the gulf of understanding between generations on sexuality. Holding alternative ideas in church was hard: “A lot of us have testified to how tiring and difficult it is to be seen as a representative young voice”. Young Christians who feel marginalised, not listened to, powerless, and even oppressed within the church, have been given a voice in a new explosive book.

Since its beginnings in the first century, the church has faced varied resistance from the surrounding culture and challenges to the gospel. Recently, a new challenge has emerged: "wokeness," or the state of being "woke." Merriam-Webster identifies " woke" as a slang term meaning being "aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)." On the surface, wokeness might sound like seeking justice and showing concern for the weak and oppressed--things the Bible urges us to do (Isa. 1:17, Micah 6:8). However, wokeness often embraces theories and ideologies inconsistent with or even hostile to the Bible. Many well-intentioned Christians--out of a desire to be compassionate, accepting, and loving--are succumbing to cultural pressure to conform to woke ideology, likely unaware of its unbiblical tendencies.Dr Abby Day is Professor of Race, Faith and Culture in the Department of Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London. She is one of the co-editors of Diversity, Inclusion, and Decolonisation: Practical tools for improving teaching, research and scholarship (Bristol University Press, 2022).

Young people are often referred to as the church's 'missing generation'. But perhaps it is not them that are missing from God's mission, but the church itself. 'Young, Woke and Christian' brings together young church leaders and theologians who argue that the church needs to become increasingly awake to injustices in British society. It steers away from the capitalistic marketing ideas of how to attract young people into Christian fellowship and proclaims that the church's role in society is to serve society, give voice to the marginalised and stand up to damaging, dominating power structures. Shermara Fletcher’s chapter shifts the narrative of homeless communities from those whom the churches can help, to the ‘unlikely leaders’ who can be fully integrated into their lives, structures, and leadership. The central question is ‘Are we willing to change our structures and cultures of learning so that everyone can participate in the mission?’ (p. 139), which poses a real and thoughtful challenge to how we can have an effective and integrated ministry with, and not to, homeless communities. The 21st century American church has been both passively and actively incorporating woke ideology into their institutions and practices. Strachan observes that some Christians have started apologizing for and repenting of their "whiteness." Often these actions are prefaced with the proposal that we should change the gospel to fit with woke ideology so that brothers and sisters of color will be more comfortable in the church. While true racial reconciliation is an important outworking of the gospel (Eph. 2), wokeness changes the gospel by teaching that white people are never able to fully repent for their actions because they are inherently racist by nature of being white. But the gospel says all have sinned, and everyone can be fully redeemed through the work of Christ. With its different view of sin and redemption, wokeness undermines the gospel. This is why Strachan argues, "[W]okeness is not a prism by which we discover truths we couldn't see in a Christian worldview. Wokeness is a different system entirely than Christianity. It is, in fact, 'a different gospel.' But it is not just that. In the final evaluation, wokeness is not just not the Gospel. Wokeness is anti-Gospel." Matt Ceasar works on the Joint Public Issues T e a m (JPIT). JPIT is a partnership between the Baptist Union of Great Britain, the Methodist Church, and the United Reformed Church. The purpose of JPIT is to help the Churches to work together for peace and justice through listening, learning, praying, speaking and acting on public policy issues So, if you have struggled to understand the perspectives of young people in your congregation, and if you have seen the Christian faith as incompatible with being woke, then I encourage you to read this book. Read it carefully, respectfully and prayerfully, in the hope that even if you disagree, you can learn from it.But she, too, found the church failing: “I think that the church should be encouraging its participants to be involved in political movements: it should be encouraging protest, and it should be encouraging large-scale systematic change, which recognises that these issues that create food poverty are based on different inequalities in this country”. Young people are often referred to as the church's ‘missing generation’. But perhaps it is not them that are missing from God's mission, but the church itself. Instead, this chapter offered an alternative view, saying a resounding “yes” to the notion of loving God erotically. “Eros, this way of loving which is passionate and embodied, and takes the whole of ourselves, is absolutely the way in which we love God,” Molly said and this had been a thread through the scriptures and Christian history. Young, Woke and Christian’ brings together young church leaders and theologians who argue that the church needs to become increasingly awake to injustices in British society. It steers away from the capitalistic marketing ideas of how to attract young people into Christian fellowship and proclaims that the church’s role in society is to serve society, give voice to the marginalised and stand up to damaging, dominating power structures.