Onward: Engaging the Culture without Losing the Gospel
Onward: Engaging the Culture without Losing the Gospel
Author: Russell D. Moore
Desc: Christianity Today "Beautiful Orthodoxy" Book of the Year in 2016. Keep Christianity Strange. As the culture changes all around us it is no longer possible to pretend that we are a Moral Majority. That may be bad news for America but it can be good news for the church. What's needed now in shifting times is neither a doubling-down on the status quo nor a pullback into isolation. Instead we need a church that speaks to social and political issues with a bigger vision in mind: that of the gospel of Jesus Christ. As Christianity seems increasingly strange and even subversive to our culture we have the opportunity to reclaim the freakishness of the gospel which is what gives it its power in the first place. We seek the kingdom of God before everything else. We connect that kingdom agenda to the culture around us both by speaking it to the world and by showing it in our churches. As we do so we remember our mission to oppose demons not to demonize opponents. As we advocate for human dignity for religious liberty for family stability let's do so as those with a prophetic word that turns everything upside down. The signs of the times tell us we are in for days our parents and grandparents never knew. But that's no call for panic or surrender or outrage. Jesus is alive. Let's act like it. Let's follow him onward to the future.