• What ongoing role does Jesus the Messiah play in shaping the ethos and self understanding of the movement that originated in him? • How is the Christian religion informed and shaped by the Jesus that we meet in the Gospels? • How do we assess the continuity required between the life and example of Jesus and the subsequent religion called Christianity? • In how many ways do we domesticate the radical revolutionary in order to sustain our religion and religiosity? • How can a rediscovery of Jesus renew our discipleship, the Christian community, and the ongoing mission of the church?
These questions take us to the core of what the church is all about. Rather than reformation, the authors call their task re-founding the church because it raises the issue of the church's true Founder or Foundation. This theme is of particular importance at the dawn of the twenty-first century as many attempt to address Christianity's endemic and long trended decline in the West. The authors feel that a spiritual, theological, missional, and existential crisis looms in the West.