Book Review Russell Mooreonward Engaging the Culture Without Losing the Gospel

They merely don't write books on cultural engagement the fashion they used to. Many works over the terminal decade searched for "gospel bridges" from the church to culture or scorched the culture for abandoning the values of the church building. Merely with the specter of same-sex activity spousal relationship hanging over the church the concluding few years, the bulletin has changed. Yes, Western culture continues to movement away from the church building. The bigger problem, withal, concerns how much the culture has already infiltrated the church building.

Russell Moore'south new book, Onward: Engaging the Culture Without Losing the Gospel, wants to "keep Christianity foreign." You might consider 1 Corinthians 1:27 to exist its theme poetry: "But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong." He doesn't put much if any stock in evangelicals reaching the civilization with the gospel through supposedly respectable means or fashionable political causes. In fact, he doesn't seem to offer any overarching strategy at all, merely the hope that Jesus is coming once again and until then promises to build his church. Moore is neither concerned with propping up the Bible Belt nor invested in advancing a partisan political agenda that will save America.

"The shaking of American culture is no sign that God has given up on American Christianity," writes Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Freedom Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. "In fact, information technology may be a sign that God is rescuing American Christianity from itself."

Awfully Foreign

Moore's task positions him betwixt three groups that do not frequently become along: older Southern Baptists who fund ERLC and anchored the old Religious Right; younger Southern Baptists and other evangelicals who fight over the balance between grace and truth; and journalists who regularly host him on their TV programs and quote him in their newspapers.

Onward: Engaging the Civilization Without Losing the Gospel

Onward: Engaging the Culture Without Losing the Gospel

Russell Moore

B&H (2015) . 240 pp.

B&H (2015) . 240 pp.

Age locates Moore in the 2d group; he does non fit the Religious Correct. He must somehow offering compelling arguments for skeptical media while fighting off progressive challengers inside the church and assuring talk radio hosts that he hasn't gone liberal. Rather than try to appease each group, which would exist impossible, Moore assumes the prophet'southward posture. No one is safety.

• For "red-letter of the alphabet Christians," he attributes many of their concerns to "daddy issues": "These evangelicals are normally an Episcopalian'southward idea of what an evangelical should be, but they rarely achieve long-term influence amid the churches themselves."
• For older evangelicals worried near younger generations, he says divorce isn't a culture state of war issue today only because so many churches have already surrendered: "New generations of the church will live in a world in which all sorts of other sexual practices and family redefinitions volition seem merely equally 'normal.' Volition they be more counterculture than we?"
• For pastors concerned to proceed the church focused on personal sin and evangelism rather than "social problems," he rejects the dichotomy betwixt "public" and "private" problems: "In our attempts to keep the gospel from existence likewise big, we must not finish up with a gospel too small to exercise what Jesus allowable us to practice."

Especially as cocky-appointed watchbloggers continue to expose themselves every bit mendacious, many readers volition resonate with Moore'southward warning: "The problem with carnal acrimony and outrage is that it's one of the easiest sins to commit while convincing oneself that one is being faithful." But Moore doesn't but aim for the easy targets. While he refrains from naming names, readers can't aid only dissimilarity his emphasis on the strangeness and weakness of God's kingdom with pastors and sociologists who commend contextualization to accomplish the aristocracy culture-shapers of the major cities.

"The church is not built on the rock foundation of geniuses and influencers but of apostles and prophets," Moore writes. "Maybe the all-time way to gain influence is to lose information technology."

What does he mean? Imagine that a janitor in your church offers spiritual counsel and direction to his boss, a less mature Christian. "It would look clumsily strange," Moore says, "simply information technology would await no stranger than a crucified Nazarene governing the universe."

Upside-Downwardly Kingdom

The all-time sections of Onward illustrate how the kingdom of God upends the world'southward values, which take shaped the church's practices and priorities.

"The well-nigh of import cultural task nosotros have is to crucify our incipient Darwinism," Moore argues, "in which the leaders on the inside of the kingdom colony are the same as they would exist on the outside, even if there were no God in the universe."

Only with the return of Christ in listen tin nosotros see the world from God's perspective. We don't need any more ministry building to the poor, immigrants, or racial minorities, Moore says. We need them to pb us. We don't need to put on our Sunday best to impress the globe. We need the elderly suffering from dementia to read Scripture in our worship services.

Because nosotros know Jesus is coming back, nosotros love the "piffling people" the way he did.

"The child with Downward syndrome on the fifth row from the back in your church, he's non a 'ministry project,'" Moore says. "He's a futurity male monarch of the universe."

City of God

The hardest part about writing a volume on cultural appointment isn't the fear of offending. It's trying to cover everything that could autumn under "engaging the civilisation." You can't avoid the "ought" problem, when the number of "you must" commands pile up like pet policy proposals in a State of the Union address. Seeing our sin laid bare in all our various failures to love God and love our neighbors tin be overwhelming. The writer of such a book, so, faces a basic question: How do you convince readers to buy something that identifies themselves as the problem? After all, many—maybe even nigh—readers selection out books to experience improve about themselves or feel worse about someone else.

Moore's long-term optimism due to the imminent return of Christ helps him mostly avert this challenge inherent to this genre. When Christians take been known for their dour denunciations, Moore offers the ultimate promise of the gospel in Jesus Christ. I tin't call up of anyone I'd rather see representing my faith on TV. Even when this volume stung me personally, I could see him pointing back to the Scriptures to remind me what headlines really thing. To make the book even more hopeful and helpful, I remember he could take commended prayer for revival, though I acknowledge his rightful reservations about misuse of 2 Chronicles 7:fourteen.

Whether or non they know information technology or want information technology, evangelicals need this volume for such a time. Nosotros cannot turn back to Egypt, where we'll find "God and state" civil organized religion that suited the state more than God. Nor tin can we cry, "Peace, peace" where there is no peace with credo that denies God's authority over creation, including men and women made in his image. Considering we believe in a God who raises the dead, nosotros can exist skeptical about the world we see while hopeful about the world we volition see. The city of God will one mean solar day triumph over the metropolis of man.

"The side by side Augustine of Hippo might be a sexually promiscuous cult member right at present," Moore writes, "but similar, come up to recall of it, the kickoff Augustine of Hippo was."

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Source: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/reviews/onward-engaging-culture-gospel/

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