Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, and the Renewal of the Church

The material in this collected volume, twelve essays in all, originated with a conference, ‘“Making all things new”? Evangelii Gaudium and Ecumenical Mission," held at St. John’s College, University of Cambridge, from June 29 to July 1, 2015. Unlike previous scholarly treatments of the Apostolic Exhortation, it was conceived in quite a particular ecumenical setting, namely a meeting of English ARC, the Anglican-Roman Catholic Committee in March 2014, at which EG and its implications were discussed within a broader set of conversations about evangelization and mission in the UK, and an ecumenical, pastoral guide to EG was commissioned. In this regard, it is a companion piece to a recent special issue of the International Review of Mission, which provides a detailed summary of each chapter of EG and then systematically juxtaposes the Apostolic Exhortation with two other, recent ecumenical documents on mission. This volume differs, however, in focusing exclusively on EG as interpreted from a variety of interdisciplinary and denominational perspectives, with a sharper focus on the ecclesiological as well as the ecumenical potentialities for the reform and renewal of the church contained within this reorientation and re-appreciation of the church’s primary mission to evangelization in the modern world.†