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Onward: Engaging the Culture without Losing the Gospel
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 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.
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 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.
224 pages, Hardcover
First published July 10, 2015
About the author
Russell D. Moore
45 books290 followersRussell D. Moore is President of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, the Southern Baptist Convention’s official entity assigned to address social, moral, and ethical concerns.
Dr. Moore earned a B.S. in history and political science from the University of Southern Mississippi. He also received the M.Div. in biblical studies from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, and the Ph.D. in systematic theology from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
He blogs frequently at his “Moore to the Point” website, and is the author or editor of five books, including Tempted and Tried: Temptation and the Triumph of Christ, Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christian Families and Churches, and The Kingdom of Christ: The New Evangelical Perspective. In addition to these, Dr. Moore is also the author of dozens of academic articles and essays within the field of systematic theology and Christian ethics. He also serves as Senior Editor of Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity.
Dr. Moore earned a B.S. in history and political science from the University of Southern Mississippi. He also received the M.Div. in biblical studies from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, and the Ph.D. in systematic theology from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
He blogs frequently at his “Moore to the Point” website, and is the author or editor of five books, including Tempted and Tried: Temptation and the Triumph of Christ, Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christian Families and Churches, and The Kingdom of Christ: The New Evangelical Perspective. In addition to these, Dr. Moore is also the author of dozens of academic articles and essays within the field of systematic theology and Christian ethics. He also serves as Senior Editor of Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity.
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September 5, 2016
If you are tired of hateful facebook posts, biased newscasters, and despicable candidates, then you need to read this book! A refreshing refocus on Christ and his kingdom.
As I listened to this audiobook, I kept thinking to myself, "That's what I've always thought, but was too afraid to admit it, or didn't know how to put it into words."
I highly recommend it for every Christian.
As I listened to this audiobook, I kept thinking to myself, "That's what I've always thought, but was too afraid to admit it, or didn't know how to put it into words."
I highly recommend it for every Christian.
July 21, 2017
Introduction
The pursuit of cultural stability and the pursuit of personal salvation are distinct endeavors, particularly for people (like Russell Moore and me) who endorse a separation between church and state. And yet, undeniably, the health of the soul and the health of the culture are linked at almost every level. They are both, of course, important ends—probably the two most important ends we can conceive. They share a common past and future: the first society and the last society were and will be inhabited exclusively by the redeemed and ruled directly by the God of Christianity. They are linked in their effects: personal faith always affects its cultural milieu (even if only to attract hatred and violence), and the characteristics of a culture, such as the categories of its language, its assumed values, its traditions, its institutions, and its political structures, inevitably shape the moral and religious imagination of the citizenry. Indeed, both the evangelist and the cultural critic will offer their domain as the fulfillment of the other’s objectives: a good Christian will insist that there is no true cultural stability outside of a redeemed and sanctified creation; and a good cultural critic will insist that there is no true human religious fulfillment outside of participation in a resplendently virtuous and vibrant culture. Both are right. Christ restores the soul and the body, the individual and the community, and in Him we love the Lord our God and we love our neighbor. Personal salvation bestows citizenship in the New Jerusalem, not eternal isolation. Cultural stability emanates from the worship of Jerusalem’s King, not from the adoration of godless artifacts.
In the meantime, however, things are not quite so simple. The fullness of Christ’s kingdom is delayed. His rule is indirect, and the world is populated by both those chosen for glory and those destined for destruction. Laws are necessary to restrain wicked individuals, but sometimes there are wicked laws; wars are necessary to restrain wicked nations, but sometimes there are wicked wars. Competing visions of the good divide societies. Ancient sins are celebrated with confetti, ancient virtues are declared hate speech. Churches are subverted, and cultures are subverted, and people elect morons.
Given all this, it’s no wonder that the relationship of culture, America, and Christianity is complex and muddled. To what extent has Christianity shaped America, and how should American Christians think of their country? Exactly how good were things “back then,” and when was “back then”? How do we balance efforts for cultural renewal, charity, and Christian evangelism? Is there an ontological hierarchy between those three? Is charity, for instance, a subset of evangelism? To what extent can Christians cooperate with non-Christians?
The Religious Right (R.I.P.)
Moore wants to sort out some of these questions, and his starting point is to destroy any remaining adulation that might be out there for the late Moral Majority. In Moore’s view, the Religious Right, ascendant in the Bible-Belt South of the late twentieth century, has long been willing to compromise its message to achieve short-term political objectives. He chastises the church for inviting into its ranks anyone—business tycoons, casino owners, talk show hosts, televangelists—who helped conservative causes. The result, he claims, has been a theological downgrade that equates America with Old Testament Israel and incorrectly claims a Christian identity for our nation.
In the wake of the Blitzkrieg sexual revolution since 2000, such a claim is now impossible to make, and Moore recognizes that this is, in one sense, a very good thing. It is now perfectly clear that America is not the Promised Land, and that the balance of public opinion has slid like an obese child to the far left of the teeter-totter. Whatever silent moral majority there was has died off or abandoned its principles. “We are not,” as Moore says, “the chaplains of Mayberry, but the apostles in the wilderness.”
Moore is absolutely right in this respect: to the extent that churches abandoned the fundamentals of the faith in order to score political victories, to the extent that they confused promises made to Israel with promises made to themselves, to the extent that their leaders used their ministries to promote unbelieving hucksters and manipulators—to that extent, the demise of the Religious Right is a good thing.
On the other hand, to the extent that the Religious Right represented an electoral bloc of conservative families appalled by the obscenities unleased in the 1960s; to the extent that there was loose cooperation outside of the context of church, between adherents of different forms of Christianity, in financing honorable candidates and challenging the sexual revolution; to the extent that conservatives across the country, Christians and non-Christians, recognized that they had common ground in preserving a stable and just society, grounded, if not on revealed dogma, at least on natural law; to the extent that the efforts of these people were crucial in putting Thomas and Scalia and Alito and Gorsuch on the Supreme Court—to that extent, I have nothing but praise and honor for them.
And so should Moore. In other contexts, such as human rights and the common ground between Christians and Muslims, he lauds cooperation, arguing that we can appeal to mercy and compassion grounded in the image of God even when unbelievers deny the existence of that image. “We can work with our neighbors and those who disagree with us,” he writes, “because everyone has a conscience and a sense of what is right and just.” This sounds, to me, like a persuasive ground for cross-denominational political action, so long as Christians are careful not to equate their work for the culture with their eternal home or their gospel mission.
Some Moore Pros and Cons
There’s a lot more that Moore gets right. He’s critical of liberal Christianity, pointing out that the relaxation of sexual ethics in the postmodern church is leading to a completely new religion, no more connected to genuine Christianity than New Age Wicca is to ancient druidic rites. He affirms that Christianity “is not an ideology, like socialism or libertarianism, but a body.” He encourages charitable and gracious interactions with unbelievers: “We should not seek an angry, quarrelsome cultural presence,” he warns, “but neither should we seek to engage the culture with the sort of gospel the culture would want if they were making it up.”
But there are a few areas where Moore is simply too glib and simplistic. He frequently criticizes what he calls a “gloomy view of culture” that envisions postmodern Western society as “slouching towards Gomorrah”—a reference to the eponymous book by Reagan SCOTUS nominee Robert H. Bork, which in turn derives its title from Yeats’ poetic phrase “slouching towards Bethlehem” in The Second Coming. But Moore is not completely fair in representing Bork’s position as fatally gloomy. Indeed, Bork’s writings balance a calm, reasonable evaluation of the state of cultural affairs with advice for cultural restoration. For instance, Bork says:
Elsewhere, Bork writes:
Why religion? Because:
Surely here Bork and Moore are in fundamental agreement. The solution to our ills is not ultimately to be found in a Trumpish demagogue or a Republican sweep of the midterms, but in the restoration of value made possible only by religious sentiment. Where Bork, along with most serious conservatives, does differ with Moore is in adequately assessing the severity of decline that has already happened. This is not apocalyptic fear-mongering of the blustery-preacher sort, but the kind of level-headed grim-faced judgment of an emergency room physician dealing with the aftermath of an explosion. It’s not inconsolable hand-wringing about the future—the future is our hope and confidence, at least for those of us who believe Jesus is actually coming back. But knowing that the story is going to end with four kings and queens on the four thrones of Cair Paravel doesn’t change the fact that a White Witch just showed up, and oh crap she has an army. The reassuring claim that our culture can’t possibly be more depraved than the biblical Ammonite or Sodomite cultures is its own kind of racism, particularly now that we replicate their exact sins a millionfold and in HD; and as U.S. abortion totals approach the size of the Stalin purges, we should look back on the history of the world with an attitude of deep wonder that God would save anyone alive today.
About Those Catholics...
Finally, there are two off-putting references in Onward to twentieth-century Roman Catholics. (I stress twentieth-century to clarify that we’re not talking about Athanasius here. These are modern Catholics, post-Trent, post-Vatican I, post-Vatican II, and, if they are honest, not even remotely believers.) The first of these problematic references is, as it turns out, the headstone quote of the book:
It’s interesting that the epigraph of a book whose subtitle is “engaging the culture without losing the gospel” would be a quote from someone who—wait for it—lost the gospel. Walker Percy, who rejected his Reformed upbringing early on and died a staunch Catholic, doesn’t mean at all what evangelicals do when he says things like the church, its people, or doctrinal steadfastness. It’s a weird way to start. It’s a quote that works only if we reinterpret it away from its intended meaning. Moore could have pulled off the same effect with something more orthodox from Augustine’s City of God or Confessions:
Less excusable is Moore’s odd inclusion of a modern Roman Catholic in a list of great Christians—and here it’s perfectly clear that he’s describing not the nominal label Christian but the body of Christ comprised of believers in the gospel. In a section where he muses dreamily about unlikely future converts to faith, he speculates that among the worldly riffraff of the still-unregenerate there might be hidden the next Saint Augustine, the next Charles Wesley, the next Jonathan Edwards, the next Charles Spurgeon, the next Mother Teresa. Now, it’s perfectly fine for Moore to recognize that gospel-believing Christians and modern Roman Catholics share many things in common, and that much good can be accomplished by cooperating with them in charity, politics, and the defense of morality. This, in fact, was exactly what the Religious Right achieved, though Moore eviscerates it on the grounds that it confused the content of the gospel. Here, ironically, he seems to be making the same error. By extending the boundary of the gospel to include Rome’s avowed Holy Orders, Moore is keeping Christianity strange indeed.
Conclusion
Onward is significantly longer than it needs to be. It is also repetitive, and it is also repetitive. Still, Moore's central call is clear, timely, and wise. Christian America has too often been an idol in the place of Christ Himself, and the sentimental trappings of Christianity more dear to churchgoers than the blazing Word of life. In some ways, Moore is the perfect spokesman for the restoration of a biblical view of politics and religion, given his gracious but inflexibly principled opposition to both major candidates in the 2016 election. Now that the ruling political regime unapologetically promotes a godless American nationalism, Moore's book is all the more relevant. It's not flawless, but it's worth a read.
The pursuit of cultural stability and the pursuit of personal salvation are distinct endeavors, particularly for people (like Russell Moore and me) who endorse a separation between church and state. And yet, undeniably, the health of the soul and the health of the culture are linked at almost every level. They are both, of course, important ends—probably the two most important ends we can conceive. They share a common past and future: the first society and the last society were and will be inhabited exclusively by the redeemed and ruled directly by the God of Christianity. They are linked in their effects: personal faith always affects its cultural milieu (even if only to attract hatred and violence), and the characteristics of a culture, such as the categories of its language, its assumed values, its traditions, its institutions, and its political structures, inevitably shape the moral and religious imagination of the citizenry. Indeed, both the evangelist and the cultural critic will offer their domain as the fulfillment of the other’s objectives: a good Christian will insist that there is no true cultural stability outside of a redeemed and sanctified creation; and a good cultural critic will insist that there is no true human religious fulfillment outside of participation in a resplendently virtuous and vibrant culture. Both are right. Christ restores the soul and the body, the individual and the community, and in Him we love the Lord our God and we love our neighbor. Personal salvation bestows citizenship in the New Jerusalem, not eternal isolation. Cultural stability emanates from the worship of Jerusalem’s King, not from the adoration of godless artifacts.
In the meantime, however, things are not quite so simple. The fullness of Christ’s kingdom is delayed. His rule is indirect, and the world is populated by both those chosen for glory and those destined for destruction. Laws are necessary to restrain wicked individuals, but sometimes there are wicked laws; wars are necessary to restrain wicked nations, but sometimes there are wicked wars. Competing visions of the good divide societies. Ancient sins are celebrated with confetti, ancient virtues are declared hate speech. Churches are subverted, and cultures are subverted, and people elect morons.
Given all this, it’s no wonder that the relationship of culture, America, and Christianity is complex and muddled. To what extent has Christianity shaped America, and how should American Christians think of their country? Exactly how good were things “back then,” and when was “back then”? How do we balance efforts for cultural renewal, charity, and Christian evangelism? Is there an ontological hierarchy between those three? Is charity, for instance, a subset of evangelism? To what extent can Christians cooperate with non-Christians?
The Religious Right (R.I.P.)
Moore wants to sort out some of these questions, and his starting point is to destroy any remaining adulation that might be out there for the late Moral Majority. In Moore’s view, the Religious Right, ascendant in the Bible-Belt South of the late twentieth century, has long been willing to compromise its message to achieve short-term political objectives. He chastises the church for inviting into its ranks anyone—business tycoons, casino owners, talk show hosts, televangelists—who helped conservative causes. The result, he claims, has been a theological downgrade that equates America with Old Testament Israel and incorrectly claims a Christian identity for our nation.
In the wake of the Blitzkrieg sexual revolution since 2000, such a claim is now impossible to make, and Moore recognizes that this is, in one sense, a very good thing. It is now perfectly clear that America is not the Promised Land, and that the balance of public opinion has slid like an obese child to the far left of the teeter-totter. Whatever silent moral majority there was has died off or abandoned its principles. “We are not,” as Moore says, “the chaplains of Mayberry, but the apostles in the wilderness.”
Moore is absolutely right in this respect: to the extent that churches abandoned the fundamentals of the faith in order to score political victories, to the extent that they confused promises made to Israel with promises made to themselves, to the extent that their leaders used their ministries to promote unbelieving hucksters and manipulators—to that extent, the demise of the Religious Right is a good thing.
On the other hand, to the extent that the Religious Right represented an electoral bloc of conservative families appalled by the obscenities unleased in the 1960s; to the extent that there was loose cooperation outside of the context of church, between adherents of different forms of Christianity, in financing honorable candidates and challenging the sexual revolution; to the extent that conservatives across the country, Christians and non-Christians, recognized that they had common ground in preserving a stable and just society, grounded, if not on revealed dogma, at least on natural law; to the extent that the efforts of these people were crucial in putting Thomas and Scalia and Alito and Gorsuch on the Supreme Court—to that extent, I have nothing but praise and honor for them.
And so should Moore. In other contexts, such as human rights and the common ground between Christians and Muslims, he lauds cooperation, arguing that we can appeal to mercy and compassion grounded in the image of God even when unbelievers deny the existence of that image. “We can work with our neighbors and those who disagree with us,” he writes, “because everyone has a conscience and a sense of what is right and just.” This sounds, to me, like a persuasive ground for cross-denominational political action, so long as Christians are careful not to equate their work for the culture with their eternal home or their gospel mission.
Some Moore Pros and Cons
There’s a lot more that Moore gets right. He’s critical of liberal Christianity, pointing out that the relaxation of sexual ethics in the postmodern church is leading to a completely new religion, no more connected to genuine Christianity than New Age Wicca is to ancient druidic rites. He affirms that Christianity “is not an ideology, like socialism or libertarianism, but a body.” He encourages charitable and gracious interactions with unbelievers: “We should not seek an angry, quarrelsome cultural presence,” he warns, “but neither should we seek to engage the culture with the sort of gospel the culture would want if they were making it up.”
But there are a few areas where Moore is simply too glib and simplistic. He frequently criticizes what he calls a “gloomy view of culture” that envisions postmodern Western society as “slouching towards Gomorrah”—a reference to the eponymous book by Reagan SCOTUS nominee Robert H. Bork, which in turn derives its title from Yeats’ poetic phrase “slouching towards Bethlehem” in The Second Coming. But Moore is not completely fair in representing Bork’s position as fatally gloomy. Indeed, Bork’s writings balance a calm, reasonable evaluation of the state of cultural affairs with advice for cultural restoration. For instance, Bork says:
This is not a counsel of despair. There is no iron law that bad trends must continue in a straight line forever. Taking back the culture will not be easy, but religion rejects despair. The four cardinal Christian virtues, paralleled in other religions, are, after all, prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. These are quite enough to take back the culture. In our current cultural wars, perhaps the most important of the virtues for conservatives is fortitude—the courage to take stands that are not immediately popular, the courage to ignore the opinion polls. Otherwise, we will never change the polls. That is what true conservatism means, or it means nothing.
Elsewhere, Bork writes:
In an era of moral decline, a reversal probably depends on a revival of biblical religion… Religion, where it has not been subverted by the culture, is an antidote, perhaps the only antidote, to moral nihilism.
Why religion? Because:
Only religion can accomplish for a modern society what tradition, reason, and empirical observation cannot. Christianity and Judaism provide the major premises of moral reasoning by revelation and by the stories in the Bible. There is no need to attempt the impossible task of reasoning your way to first principles. Those principles are accepted as given by God.
Surely here Bork and Moore are in fundamental agreement. The solution to our ills is not ultimately to be found in a Trumpish demagogue or a Republican sweep of the midterms, but in the restoration of value made possible only by religious sentiment. Where Bork, along with most serious conservatives, does differ with Moore is in adequately assessing the severity of decline that has already happened. This is not apocalyptic fear-mongering of the blustery-preacher sort, but the kind of level-headed grim-faced judgment of an emergency room physician dealing with the aftermath of an explosion. It’s not inconsolable hand-wringing about the future—the future is our hope and confidence, at least for those of us who believe Jesus is actually coming back. But knowing that the story is going to end with four kings and queens on the four thrones of Cair Paravel doesn’t change the fact that a White Witch just showed up, and oh crap she has an army. The reassuring claim that our culture can’t possibly be more depraved than the biblical Ammonite or Sodomite cultures is its own kind of racism, particularly now that we replicate their exact sins a millionfold and in HD; and as U.S. abortion totals approach the size of the Stalin purges, we should look back on the history of the world with an attitude of deep wonder that God would save anyone alive today.
About Those Catholics...
Finally, there are two off-putting references in Onward to twentieth-century Roman Catholics. (I stress twentieth-century to clarify that we’re not talking about Athanasius here. These are modern Catholics, post-Trent, post-Vatican I, post-Vatican II, and, if they are honest, not even remotely believers.) The first of these problematic references is, as it turns out, the headstone quote of the book:
By remaining faithful to its original commission, by serving its people with love, especially the poor, the lonely, and the dispossessed, and by not surrendering its doctrinal steadfastness, surely the church serves the culture best.
It’s interesting that the epigraph of a book whose subtitle is “engaging the culture without losing the gospel” would be a quote from someone who—wait for it—lost the gospel. Walker Percy, who rejected his Reformed upbringing early on and died a staunch Catholic, doesn’t mean at all what evangelicals do when he says things like the church, its people, or doctrinal steadfastness. It’s a weird way to start. It’s a quote that works only if we reinterpret it away from its intended meaning. Moore could have pulled off the same effect with something more orthodox from Augustine’s City of God or Confessions:
What does love look like? It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That is what love looks like.
Less excusable is Moore’s odd inclusion of a modern Roman Catholic in a list of great Christians—and here it’s perfectly clear that he’s describing not the nominal label Christian but the body of Christ comprised of believers in the gospel. In a section where he muses dreamily about unlikely future converts to faith, he speculates that among the worldly riffraff of the still-unregenerate there might be hidden the next Saint Augustine, the next Charles Wesley, the next Jonathan Edwards, the next Charles Spurgeon, the next Mother Teresa. Now, it’s perfectly fine for Moore to recognize that gospel-believing Christians and modern Roman Catholics share many things in common, and that much good can be accomplished by cooperating with them in charity, politics, and the defense of morality. This, in fact, was exactly what the Religious Right achieved, though Moore eviscerates it on the grounds that it confused the content of the gospel. Here, ironically, he seems to be making the same error. By extending the boundary of the gospel to include Rome’s avowed Holy Orders, Moore is keeping Christianity strange indeed.
Conclusion
Onward is significantly longer than it needs to be. It is also repetitive, and it is also repetitive. Still, Moore's central call is clear, timely, and wise. Christian America has too often been an idol in the place of Christ Himself, and the sentimental trappings of Christianity more dear to churchgoers than the blazing Word of life. In some ways, Moore is the perfect spokesman for the restoration of a biblical view of politics and religion, given his gracious but inflexibly principled opposition to both major candidates in the 2016 election. Now that the ruling political regime unapologetically promotes a godless American nationalism, Moore's book is all the more relevant. It's not flawless, but it's worth a read.
September 4, 2015
A trumpet call to end the hand-wringing and hair clutching in favor of marching forward with Jesus into the future that He has foreordained. Moore has an engaging style and neat turn of phrase, making his book as readable as it is challenging to the soul. "Keep Christianity Strange," indeed. Recommended.
February 6, 2021
A good overview of the role of the church in culture. Russell Moore discussed how Christianity has become too entwined in American culture and how to maintain the gospel & still minister to the culture. He spends quite a bit of time lightly touching upon various ethical issues. His overview of the gospel and treatment of pro life issues are beautiful.
My only issue is that this books feels a bit like he took birdshot to it. The beginning started out tightly written but it unraveled into almost a collection of stand alone essays which inevitably results in too much repetition. Think of it like a fireside chat when I’m used to a more academic & systematic approach to argumentation.
I agreed with much and had only minor disagreements with his Baptist perspective. Overall I was encouraged & convicted by Onward. A worthwhile read.
My only issue is that this books feels a bit like he took birdshot to it. The beginning started out tightly written but it unraveled into almost a collection of stand alone essays which inevitably results in too much repetition. Think of it like a fireside chat when I’m used to a more academic & systematic approach to argumentation.
I agreed with much and had only minor disagreements with his Baptist perspective. Overall I was encouraged & convicted by Onward. A worthwhile read.
May 3, 2021
Drew and I got to Ch. 3 of this book and decided not to finish. The author makes sweeping generalizations with few, if any, footnotes or references (Biblical or otherwise). We also found ourselves frustrated by his failure to articulate his guiding frameworks, and found ourselves in disagreement with his overall opinion about the role the church plays in the political sphere.
March 14, 2016
Summary: Written by a leader in the Southern Baptist Convention, this book describes an agenda for a post-Moral Majority church, centered around both cultural engagement and gospel integrity.
I found this a heartening book in many ways that articulated, at least in the words of one denominational leader, the journey the Southern Baptist Convention has been on over the last few decades. Russell D. Moore is president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention and a frequent contributor in the New York Times, The Washington Post, Christianity Today and First Things.
Moore writes about what a church that has had Bible Belt roots and Moral Majority political clout does when these conditions no longer hold. His contention is both that the church needs to reconceive its cultural engagement, and use this opportunity to reaffirm its gospel integrity. He begins by affirming the importance of the life of the kingdom not only in its "not yet" dimensions but rather in the present. The kingdom must be first and he calls us to "be pilgrims again, uneasy in American culture." He contends that the true culture war must be first to embody the life of the kingdom in gospel communities. He argues for mission that preaches both justice and justification, reconciliation both between people, and between people and God and these two must not be pitted against each other. He then focuses on three particular issues he believes need to be emphasized in this effort to bring together gospel and culture: human dignity, religious liberty, and family stability.
In a chapter on Human Dignity, he begins with a statement of the dignity of black lives, and argues for a Whole Life dignity perspective, within which he advocates compellingly for continued pro-life engagement around issues of abortion and euthanasia. In discussing religious liberty, he freely invokes the Baptist history of separation of church and state, and argues for the liberties of all religious peoples, while acknowledging that in our present context, gospel integrity will be increasingly "strange" and not always supported. I loved his concluding statement in this chapter affirming, "We are Americans best when we are not Americans first."
The chapter on family stability particularly struck me as one that might surprise some. One the one hand he is uncompromising in naming the sins of fornication and adultery rather than deploying euphemized equivalents and arguing for chastity rather than mere abstinence. On the other hand, he seeks to extend compassion to those wounded by today's libertarian sexual ethics, acknowledges the need for stronger support of the abused, speaks of the connection between poverty and family instability, and argues that living wages are important for these families. He affirms the role of church as family for all, not just for couples with children. At the same time, he has some challenging comments about young couples waiting to marry because of economic considerations, that ends up leading to moral compromise. He'd contend that we are never ready for marriage, economically or otherwise!
His concluding chapters speak about the vital importance of speaking with both conviction and kindness, and for the fact that the hope for the American church is in the transforming power of the gospel, that leadership is not genetically inherited and the next "Billy Graham" may currently be an alcoholic, or come from another part of the world. God has ways of breaking out of both liberalism and legalism and raising up new generations.
Moore can turn a phrase and one has the sense that this was material adapted from oral speaking. At the same time, it felt at times that the organization could be tighter. Reading this felt like listening to rambles, albeit very engaging rambles, around a theme.
It is heartening to me that this book can be published by a Southern Baptist publishing house. It reflects a pilgrimage from a segregated, culture warring church focused on personal rather than social ethics to a church that is beginning to wrestle with what it means to hold justice and justification together. True, some of the material on questions like the environment, gun violence, economic justice and more are still very cautious, and I suspect most Blacks would like to see them go even further on issues of race and confronting the history of racism in this country. Yet the fact that these issues are talked about in the context of the dignity of all life and the gospel of the kingdom by a Southern Baptist leader is an encouraging sign and one that I hope will encourage similar conversations throughout the American church.
________________________________
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher via Netgalley. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
I found this a heartening book in many ways that articulated, at least in the words of one denominational leader, the journey the Southern Baptist Convention has been on over the last few decades. Russell D. Moore is president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention and a frequent contributor in the New York Times, The Washington Post, Christianity Today and First Things.
Moore writes about what a church that has had Bible Belt roots and Moral Majority political clout does when these conditions no longer hold. His contention is both that the church needs to reconceive its cultural engagement, and use this opportunity to reaffirm its gospel integrity. He begins by affirming the importance of the life of the kingdom not only in its "not yet" dimensions but rather in the present. The kingdom must be first and he calls us to "be pilgrims again, uneasy in American culture." He contends that the true culture war must be first to embody the life of the kingdom in gospel communities. He argues for mission that preaches both justice and justification, reconciliation both between people, and between people and God and these two must not be pitted against each other. He then focuses on three particular issues he believes need to be emphasized in this effort to bring together gospel and culture: human dignity, religious liberty, and family stability.
In a chapter on Human Dignity, he begins with a statement of the dignity of black lives, and argues for a Whole Life dignity perspective, within which he advocates compellingly for continued pro-life engagement around issues of abortion and euthanasia. In discussing religious liberty, he freely invokes the Baptist history of separation of church and state, and argues for the liberties of all religious peoples, while acknowledging that in our present context, gospel integrity will be increasingly "strange" and not always supported. I loved his concluding statement in this chapter affirming, "We are Americans best when we are not Americans first."
The chapter on family stability particularly struck me as one that might surprise some. One the one hand he is uncompromising in naming the sins of fornication and adultery rather than deploying euphemized equivalents and arguing for chastity rather than mere abstinence. On the other hand, he seeks to extend compassion to those wounded by today's libertarian sexual ethics, acknowledges the need for stronger support of the abused, speaks of the connection between poverty and family instability, and argues that living wages are important for these families. He affirms the role of church as family for all, not just for couples with children. At the same time, he has some challenging comments about young couples waiting to marry because of economic considerations, that ends up leading to moral compromise. He'd contend that we are never ready for marriage, economically or otherwise!
His concluding chapters speak about the vital importance of speaking with both conviction and kindness, and for the fact that the hope for the American church is in the transforming power of the gospel, that leadership is not genetically inherited and the next "Billy Graham" may currently be an alcoholic, or come from another part of the world. God has ways of breaking out of both liberalism and legalism and raising up new generations.
Moore can turn a phrase and one has the sense that this was material adapted from oral speaking. At the same time, it felt at times that the organization could be tighter. Reading this felt like listening to rambles, albeit very engaging rambles, around a theme.
It is heartening to me that this book can be published by a Southern Baptist publishing house. It reflects a pilgrimage from a segregated, culture warring church focused on personal rather than social ethics to a church that is beginning to wrestle with what it means to hold justice and justification together. True, some of the material on questions like the environment, gun violence, economic justice and more are still very cautious, and I suspect most Blacks would like to see them go even further on issues of race and confronting the history of racism in this country. Yet the fact that these issues are talked about in the context of the dignity of all life and the gospel of the kingdom by a Southern Baptist leader is an encouraging sign and one that I hope will encourage similar conversations throughout the American church.
________________________________
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher via Netgalley. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
May 10, 2020
3 Parts:
1) General Thoughts
2) Crtical Thoughts
3) Thoughts on this book in Trump and post-Trump age:
1)
In this book, Moore helpful walks those who may have grown up in a version of white evangelicalism that didn't value social engagement or who were taught a social gospel/saving gospel dichotomy, that those choices aren't ones one must make. Rather, living in the kingdom of God, one must hold both. Christians should proclaim the gospel boldly be engaged in social action. I think this book is mandatory reading for Silent Gen/Boomer/even some older Gen X leaders who are trying to figure out how Christian Millennials think about public engagement. Also, I would encourage people to read this for the sole reason of having a theological friend help break the shackles of the Religious Right, their attitude, and hypocritical groveling to POTUS45. If the older generation can't understand this shift politically, then many Millennials will simply leave the SBC to be (a) nothing, (b) angry exvangelicals, or (c) a part of a denomination/church with more thoughtful and nuanced position that at least as space for someone who breaks from the party line, places with more theological and historical depth.
2)
The two main implications I believe is that one must become unshackled to the belief/attitude that to be Christian means one must be a Republican following the marching orders of the Religious Right. Moore could have been even more aggressive on this point, but it comes through well enough. Moore still advocates for traditional Christian morés on abortion and LGBT issues, but (A) wants to expand the horizon of our public vision and (B) wants Christians to be more compassionate.
The second implication follows from that: Christians need to be willing to live with and around others without being judgmental – however petty or serious our judgments may be. This is rooted in the fact that all humans are made in the image of God, even those with whom we may vehemently disagree.
Some may be critical of Moore for not going far enough on some issues. I do think he could be clearer and could push a little harder on a few things. However, for many evangelicals, this will be a great first step. He uses arguments for Christian liberty that I think I've come to think over the years are a bit too weak to stand up against such multi-faceted horrors such as white supremacy. If most ethical discussions end with an appeal to liberty, how can one say what is actually right and wrong? What is the point of Christian ethics?
3)
However, I think this book is still important, even 5 years after it was published. If it were published today, the main reason it would stand out is for Moore's irenicism. But is irenicism what we need in the present moment?
One must remember that "Onward" was published in 2015 just BEFORE Trump announced his candidacy for president. Talk about prophetic timing. I would read chapters and have to set the book down to think about how prescient Moore's words are.
It's well known that Moore's courageously prophetic voice was blunted when a cabal of influential right-wing SBC pastors threatened to withhold their financial contributions to the SBC because of strong (correct) statements he had made against Trump and those "Christian" leaders – whom historian John Fea dubbed "Court Evangelicals" – who bowed down before him, sacrificing the public witness of the church and empowering white supremacy, especially that which is left within our ranks.
Now there are right-wing watchdogs who try to out Moore as a crypto-archliberal/progressive who is rotting the SBC from the inside out as he sneaks in critical race theory/intersectionality into the ranks. These critics simply confirm that they too are shackled to the monolithic mindset of the Religious Right. They definitely demonstrate that they refuse to acknowledge how subtle white supremacy can manifest itself in individuals and in systems.
Even as prominent evangelical leaders who previously denounced Trump join the evangelical court – one thinks of Al Mohler in early 2020 – Moore's words in Onward still stand as a rebuke against them even if his 2020 Twitter feed doesn't.
I'll confess, I wish that Moore would be unshackled. He speaks of an attractive public witness that has a full gospel and a full heart. And I think Moore's public comments had that pre-2016. But until he is forced out of the ERLC by political pressure, it may not come back. I feel for his family, especially his young sons whose daddy is a hero maligned by slanderers. And I pray for them as I pray for the church.
1) General Thoughts
2) Crtical Thoughts
3) Thoughts on this book in Trump and post-Trump age:
1)
In this book, Moore helpful walks those who may have grown up in a version of white evangelicalism that didn't value social engagement or who were taught a social gospel/saving gospel dichotomy, that those choices aren't ones one must make. Rather, living in the kingdom of God, one must hold both. Christians should proclaim the gospel boldly be engaged in social action. I think this book is mandatory reading for Silent Gen/Boomer/even some older Gen X leaders who are trying to figure out how Christian Millennials think about public engagement. Also, I would encourage people to read this for the sole reason of having a theological friend help break the shackles of the Religious Right, their attitude, and hypocritical groveling to POTUS45. If the older generation can't understand this shift politically, then many Millennials will simply leave the SBC to be (a) nothing, (b) angry exvangelicals, or (c) a part of a denomination/church with more thoughtful and nuanced position that at least as space for someone who breaks from the party line, places with more theological and historical depth.
2)
The two main implications I believe is that one must become unshackled to the belief/attitude that to be Christian means one must be a Republican following the marching orders of the Religious Right. Moore could have been even more aggressive on this point, but it comes through well enough. Moore still advocates for traditional Christian morés on abortion and LGBT issues, but (A) wants to expand the horizon of our public vision and (B) wants Christians to be more compassionate.
The second implication follows from that: Christians need to be willing to live with and around others without being judgmental – however petty or serious our judgments may be. This is rooted in the fact that all humans are made in the image of God, even those with whom we may vehemently disagree.
Some may be critical of Moore for not going far enough on some issues. I do think he could be clearer and could push a little harder on a few things. However, for many evangelicals, this will be a great first step. He uses arguments for Christian liberty that I think I've come to think over the years are a bit too weak to stand up against such multi-faceted horrors such as white supremacy. If most ethical discussions end with an appeal to liberty, how can one say what is actually right and wrong? What is the point of Christian ethics?
3)
However, I think this book is still important, even 5 years after it was published. If it were published today, the main reason it would stand out is for Moore's irenicism. But is irenicism what we need in the present moment?
One must remember that "Onward" was published in 2015 just BEFORE Trump announced his candidacy for president. Talk about prophetic timing. I would read chapters and have to set the book down to think about how prescient Moore's words are.
It's well known that Moore's courageously prophetic voice was blunted when a cabal of influential right-wing SBC pastors threatened to withhold their financial contributions to the SBC because of strong (correct) statements he had made against Trump and those "Christian" leaders – whom historian John Fea dubbed "Court Evangelicals" – who bowed down before him, sacrificing the public witness of the church and empowering white supremacy, especially that which is left within our ranks.
Now there are right-wing watchdogs who try to out Moore as a crypto-archliberal/progressive who is rotting the SBC from the inside out as he sneaks in critical race theory/intersectionality into the ranks. These critics simply confirm that they too are shackled to the monolithic mindset of the Religious Right. They definitely demonstrate that they refuse to acknowledge how subtle white supremacy can manifest itself in individuals and in systems.
Even as prominent evangelical leaders who previously denounced Trump join the evangelical court – one thinks of Al Mohler in early 2020 – Moore's words in Onward still stand as a rebuke against them even if his 2020 Twitter feed doesn't.
I'll confess, I wish that Moore would be unshackled. He speaks of an attractive public witness that has a full gospel and a full heart. And I think Moore's public comments had that pre-2016. But until he is forced out of the ERLC by political pressure, it may not come back. I feel for his family, especially his young sons whose daddy is a hero maligned by slanderers. And I pray for them as I pray for the church.
September 3, 2015
A Kingdom vision is necessary, first of all, to show us what matters. The kingdom future shows us the meaning of everything else.
If you are a bible believing Christian, unless you have been living under a rock, the church is now in a shakeup of sorts. Is the church relevant? Part of the problem, church in the west looks more like America than the gospel. What kingdom are we building? In this eye opening and I have to say encouraging word, we need to focus on moving Onward. Russell D. Moore challenges his readers on what the Kingdom entails, with the breakdown of families and the church losing its influence, have we assumed the gospel? Has the gospel become about a better marriage, better children, or a better life? If it has, we have mistakenly put values over gospel. Kingdom focus is how the gospel grows. Are we concerned about losing our influence with culture? We don’t have to be if we are Kingdom minded.
Engaging in the culture is living a kingdom mindset. What does this look like? Social issues become mercy and grace issues while we engage in our culture. How do you engage with illegal immigrants? Are we reminded of the gospel or are we reminded of entitlement.
Every Christian should read this mission kingdom - minded teaching and have our eyes and hearts set on what really matters.
Quotes that I found encouraging.
The shaking of American culture is no sign that God has given up on American Christianity. In fact, it may be a sign that God is rescuing American Christianity from itself. We must remember that even Israel’s slavery in Egypt was a sign of God’s mercy.
If we see ourselves as only a minority, we will be tempted to isolation. If we see ourselves only as a kingdom, we will be tempted toward triumphalism. We are, instead a church. We are a minority with a message and a mission.
Finding ourselves in his inheritance frees us from clamoring and fighting for our own glory or relevance.
If the gospel is abstracted from the kingdom, then our mission is simply about the initial evangelism of new believers. If we abstract the kingdom from the gospel, though, then the kingdom seems to be about mere morality, and, thus, an easy client from the pretend Messiah of state power. The gospel is a gospel of the kingdom of Christ.
We are not slouching toward Gomorrah; we are marching to Zion. The worst thing that can possibly happen to us has already happened; we’re dead. We were crucified at Skull Place, under the wrath of God. And the best thing that could happen to us has already happened; we’re alive.
A Special Thank You to B&H Books and Netgalley for the ARC and the opportunity to post an honest review.
If you are a bible believing Christian, unless you have been living under a rock, the church is now in a shakeup of sorts. Is the church relevant? Part of the problem, church in the west looks more like America than the gospel. What kingdom are we building? In this eye opening and I have to say encouraging word, we need to focus on moving Onward. Russell D. Moore challenges his readers on what the Kingdom entails, with the breakdown of families and the church losing its influence, have we assumed the gospel? Has the gospel become about a better marriage, better children, or a better life? If it has, we have mistakenly put values over gospel. Kingdom focus is how the gospel grows. Are we concerned about losing our influence with culture? We don’t have to be if we are Kingdom minded.
Engaging in the culture is living a kingdom mindset. What does this look like? Social issues become mercy and grace issues while we engage in our culture. How do you engage with illegal immigrants? Are we reminded of the gospel or are we reminded of entitlement.
Every Christian should read this mission kingdom - minded teaching and have our eyes and hearts set on what really matters.
Quotes that I found encouraging.
The shaking of American culture is no sign that God has given up on American Christianity. In fact, it may be a sign that God is rescuing American Christianity from itself. We must remember that even Israel’s slavery in Egypt was a sign of God’s mercy.
If we see ourselves as only a minority, we will be tempted to isolation. If we see ourselves only as a kingdom, we will be tempted toward triumphalism. We are, instead a church. We are a minority with a message and a mission.
Finding ourselves in his inheritance frees us from clamoring and fighting for our own glory or relevance.
If the gospel is abstracted from the kingdom, then our mission is simply about the initial evangelism of new believers. If we abstract the kingdom from the gospel, though, then the kingdom seems to be about mere morality, and, thus, an easy client from the pretend Messiah of state power. The gospel is a gospel of the kingdom of Christ.
We are not slouching toward Gomorrah; we are marching to Zion. The worst thing that can possibly happen to us has already happened; we’re dead. We were crucified at Skull Place, under the wrath of God. And the best thing that could happen to us has already happened; we’re alive.
A Special Thank You to B&H Books and Netgalley for the ARC and the opportunity to post an honest review.
February 19, 2017
When I finished this book I let it sit for a few days. I had some initial thoughts and feelings, but I wanted to make sure that I gave myself a few days to simmer on these. Its a heavy subject matter and I did not want to speak off the initial emotions after finishing the book. Now, 2 week removed, I still feel confident in saying that I have not read a book in recent memory that I thought more accurately, logically, and graciously dissects the current evangelical culture while giving us an outline for engaging our culture. The church has a powerful unique gospel message thats relevant and needed, and we can do that without coming off as a curmudgeon. I think this book timely and is a desperately need message to current evangelicalism. As we engage the culture we need to get back to what is ultimately important. Moore again puts it better than I can:
"Once Christianity is no longer seen as part and parcel of patriotism, the church must offer more than "What would Jesus do?" moralism and the "I vote values" populism to which we've grown accustomed."
I hope so, then we will be able to address with the culture the most important question. The question Jesus asked of Peter: "who do you say that I am."
To read more of my reviews please visit thelakesidecover.com
"Once Christianity is no longer seen as part and parcel of patriotism, the church must offer more than "What would Jesus do?" moralism and the "I vote values" populism to which we've grown accustomed."
I hope so, then we will be able to address with the culture the most important question. The question Jesus asked of Peter: "who do you say that I am."
To read more of my reviews please visit thelakesidecover.com
September 7, 2015
What did Jesus mean when he said his kingdom come His will be done on earth as it is in heaven? Out the church I help pastor we use the term "kingdom focused" to describe this concept. What does this mean? What does this look like lived out in 21st century America? Russell Moore has written a book well worth the time to read focused on these topics of kingdom. I highly recommend the book. It was handed to me by a fellow elder of our church who read it and then bought 14 copies to hand out to friends. Now that I've finished the book I understand his enthusiasm.
January 8, 2016
I thought this book was O.K. I was excited to read it based on all of the good reviews. But I just had hard time getting through it. I found it to be somewhat repetitive and lacking in depth and focus. Having said that, I know that many have benefited from it and I also though it was helpful at times. Moore does address some very critical issues that Christians need to be thinking about. I thought his best quote was "The next Billy Graham might be drunk right now." It was a statement that gives one hope for what God can do in any persons life and how he can use them in instrumental ways.
August 31, 2023
Originally read in Sept., 2020.
Currently re-reading (Sept., 2023) for a class I'm teaching.
__________
Fantastic.
Up until this point, Carl Henry's Uneasy Conscience has held my spot for #1 book I recommend to people on cultural engagement. I may be replacing that spot with this book by Moore though now. (For those who know Uneasy Conscience, you know that's a big deal.) Moore is heavily influenced by Henry, and you can tell. But this book by Moore is maybe more comprehensive in scope and brought up to the contemporary situation. It's the Uneasy Conscience of our generation.
Currently re-reading (Sept., 2023) for a class I'm teaching.
__________
Fantastic.
Up until this point, Carl Henry's Uneasy Conscience has held my spot for #1 book I recommend to people on cultural engagement. I may be replacing that spot with this book by Moore though now. (For those who know Uneasy Conscience, you know that's a big deal.) Moore is heavily influenced by Henry, and you can tell. But this book by Moore is maybe more comprehensive in scope and brought up to the contemporary situation. It's the Uneasy Conscience of our generation.
January 27, 2017
Best book for the Church
This book is so relevant for the Church. I am really grateful for Dr.Moore and his wise words and emphasis on Christ while engaging the culture around us.
This book is so relevant for the Church. I am really grateful for Dr.Moore and his wise words and emphasis on Christ while engaging the culture around us.
December 12, 2016
A truly great book.
August 27, 2018
SO GOOD. I wanted to underline pretty much everything. And the creators of the God's Not Dead movies should have read this book before making any films whatsoever. It would have flipped their persecution complex right on its head.
April 13, 2021
Didn’t disagree with the content but just couldn’t connect with the writing style.
November 4, 2015
For most Christians in America, this book came out at the perfect time. This summer gay marriage was codified across all 50 states, a man made the world believe he was a woman, and businesses left and right have been fined and/or shut down for using their businesses as a witness to their Christian faith.
For me, however, it was a bad time. I have to admit this book took me much longer than I had anticipated. Over the course of reading this book, I accepted a new job, my wife and I moved in with my parents briefly, purchased a home, moved into said home, and had a baby girl about a week ago. My attention was divided.
Yet even though my reading was done in spurts, it's clear there is something special about this book. It simultaneously confirms the fears of conservative Christians and completely dismisses them as irrelevant. The premise is this: Things are really bad here, but here is not our home. Russell Moore examines the landscape of Christianity in America and confirms that we are more and more exiled than before. Whatever commonalities we had with the majority of the country were based on agreed mores rather than the cross. As those values and attitudes shifted, the cross remained, but with less people paying societal homage to it.
Moore's solution is to keep Christianity similarly as Austinites keep Austin: Strange. He is often fond of pointing out to people who think it odd we believe that marriage is intended between one man and one woman that we believe much stranger things, such as a man raising from the dead.
Quite simply, if you are a Christian at all interested about our witness to society (as we all should be), you need to be paying attention to Russell Moore (and Albert Mohler, for that matter). This book encourages Christians to not back down from engaging society with what we believe, but to loosen our grip on culture, as it was never ours to begin with. This is an important book that I recommend to all my friends of the faith.
For me, however, it was a bad time. I have to admit this book took me much longer than I had anticipated. Over the course of reading this book, I accepted a new job, my wife and I moved in with my parents briefly, purchased a home, moved into said home, and had a baby girl about a week ago. My attention was divided.
Yet even though my reading was done in spurts, it's clear there is something special about this book. It simultaneously confirms the fears of conservative Christians and completely dismisses them as irrelevant. The premise is this: Things are really bad here, but here is not our home. Russell Moore examines the landscape of Christianity in America and confirms that we are more and more exiled than before. Whatever commonalities we had with the majority of the country were based on agreed mores rather than the cross. As those values and attitudes shifted, the cross remained, but with less people paying societal homage to it.
Moore's solution is to keep Christianity similarly as Austinites keep Austin: Strange. He is often fond of pointing out to people who think it odd we believe that marriage is intended between one man and one woman that we believe much stranger things, such as a man raising from the dead.
Quite simply, if you are a Christian at all interested about our witness to society (as we all should be), you need to be paying attention to Russell Moore (and Albert Mohler, for that matter). This book encourages Christians to not back down from engaging society with what we believe, but to loosen our grip on culture, as it was never ours to begin with. This is an important book that I recommend to all my friends of the faith.
May 31, 2017
Russell Moore's previous book Adopted for Life was one of my favorites a couple of years ago, so I had high expectations for this one. It's about the church in America today and the religious atmosphere (which is a mess as we all know.)
This book, to put it simply, was stellar. Moore argues the point that we are not and never have been a 'Moral Majority' but that instead we are sinking into the background of a nation that has never really wanted us.
The blurb says: "We can be Americans best if we are not Americans first." And it is so true. He makes a compelling case for keeping the gospel strange to the culture, because that is what draws the unbelievers in. So often we talk about making the gospel relatable, but that is not the point of it. We must preach the same gospel that the apostles preached, and it's strangeness is one of its biggest draws.
One of his points that I don't know if I agreed with is that he was very pessimistic toward the idea of there actually being a revival in America. While I know it's unlikely, I also believe that God is a God of miracles, and he can work revival in this country if he wants to. This was a minor enough complaint, however, that I'm still giving this book five full stars.
Bravo, Mr. Moore. Onward.
This book, to put it simply, was stellar. Moore argues the point that we are not and never have been a 'Moral Majority' but that instead we are sinking into the background of a nation that has never really wanted us.
The blurb says: "We can be Americans best if we are not Americans first." And it is so true. He makes a compelling case for keeping the gospel strange to the culture, because that is what draws the unbelievers in. So often we talk about making the gospel relatable, but that is not the point of it. We must preach the same gospel that the apostles preached, and it's strangeness is one of its biggest draws.
One of his points that I don't know if I agreed with is that he was very pessimistic toward the idea of there actually being a revival in America. While I know it's unlikely, I also believe that God is a God of miracles, and he can work revival in this country if he wants to. This was a minor enough complaint, however, that I'm still giving this book five full stars.
Bravo, Mr. Moore. Onward.
May 16, 2019
I think most of this book is about helping Christians not to freak out when their candidate didn't win an election. I found much of it good and true, but think he glosses over a few things like Natural Law pretty quickly. Moore also seems almost eager for the collapse of Bible Belt nominal Christianity, however I don't think this book reflects on the fact that the Bible Belt is the product of generations of active evangelicalism. So if we are going to scrap the idea that we live in a Christian society, we probably should spend some time reflecting on why it isn't one now when Christianity was the normative just a generation ago. Along those lines, just because a Christian culture can tend to be hypocritical in not walking out what it preaches does not mean that antagonist paganism is the better alternative, and that is where I think common grace and natural law would have been useful.
September 26, 2015
Dr. Moore does an excellent job providing scenarios on engaging the current culture. Basically, he challenges Christians to move on from being the dominant force in culture (where most Christians were cultural Christians) to the small band in history that changed culture (true Christians in the early church or earlier in history). The book is thought provoking for those of us who are challenged by the lack of influence Christianity has in today's culture. The book caught my interest when I read the title for the first chapter, "A Bible Belt No More."
October 15, 2017
Russell Moore speaks my heart language. So many "conservative" voices sound so sarcastic, "holier-than-thou," but not Moore. This book touches a lot of my concerns regarding where the culture is going. I love the way he references scripture in ways that aren't total departures from what I've heard but in a slightly different context--cultural/political. I love the balance he brings as he issues encouragement to the "God and country" folks and the "I don't need to engage in politics because Jesus didn't" folks. It's something we all need--be encouraged, press on!
July 18, 2018
When this book was released, Christianity Today called it the “Beautiful Orthodoxy Book of the Year.” I don’t know that there’s a better phrase to describe this book than “Beautiful Orthodoxy”; this book is a stunner. Moore states the obvious: that Christianity in America is at a crossroads. Many thinkpieces have been written as to whether the nation is post-Christian or something else; and whether Christianity can survive in a culture that deems its orthodoxy to be untenable, outdated, and offensive. Instead of lamenting this crossroads, Moore applauds it because that is what Christian orthodoxy has always been and where historically it has been most successful: preaching a gospel that flips the world’s values upside down. As Moore notes, the world doesn’t want and doesn’t need an “almost gospel” – the kind of moral therapeutic deism that is a watered-down gospel and not true orthodoxy. Moore confronts American Christianity’s desires to co-opt culture (i.e. the Religious Right), withdraw from culture (i.e. The Benedict Option), or embrace culture (i.e. nominal Christianity). Then chapter by chapter, Moore lays out what true Christian orthodoxy says about things like its mission, the kingdom of God, culture, human dignity, and the family; why American Christianity by and large misses the boat on these topics; and how the gospel reframes all these things. More than just laying out a cohesive theology and challenging our understanding of the Christian message, Moore lays out how the church and how true Christians ought to move forward in engaging culture while preaching the gospel. Prose-wise, the book reads like a series of meditations/sermons, with so many choice soundbites, I had to read aloud whole pages to people. Overall, this is one of the best Christian books I have ever read, and the best one as it relates to Christianity and culture. Highly recommended.
July 7, 2017
Onward is a great book on the current American culture and how the church should respond. While billed as a book about engaging the culture, quite a bit of the book is aimed instead at how the church needs to change what it says to the people in the pew. The biggest message of the book is that Christians need to calm down, stop freaking out about the problems in our culture, and focus on the mission on which we were sent. While I don't agree with everything Moore says in the book, the book contains a lot of good, thought-provoking ideas. This is a book every Christian should read.
March 13, 2024
I agree with much of what Moore wrote, but evangelical Christianity in America seems to have changed so much since he published this less than a decade ago. I am curious to read his new book which appears to tap into more of the problems facing the American church in light of a new political wind blowing through it. A side note on his style of writing--it isn't always linear which can sometimes lead to a sense of confusion on his point. I'm not of the same denominational persuasion as Moore, but he does have some relevant points.
December 5, 2017
This book helps Christians understand the awkward and unstable social landscape we find ourselves occupying. The troubles we see around the church and in the church should not diminish our confidence in the progress of the gospel.
Russel Moore writes one of the best books I have read this year. Tolle Lege.
Russel Moore writes one of the best books I have read this year. Tolle Lege.
October 9, 2018
Dr. Moore. I genuinely want to be friends with you. This book was marinated in scripture references (from all over the Bible, not just gospels and epistles), bold (and biblical) statements, and a tone that truly loves Jesus. Dr. Moore emphasizes that the gospel awakens us to engage with the culture around us and practice "convictional kindness" in all crevices of our lives. Which is more active than ~niceness~.
Big takeaways:
-What does the ¡KINGdom! of God have to do with politics? A LOT! The kingdom determines what matters and WHO matters. #GimmeEternalEyes
-Human dignity chapter hit hard on political pro life agenda to be "pro whole life" meaning- pro life living and professing extends to action for all the marginalized (orphans, widows, immigrant communities, the poor etc) to preserve life.
-Each chapter made me excited to learn about how the Jesus changes our attitudes, hearts, and our reality. Kingdom. Human dignity. Religious freedom. Family stability. Everything.
Big takeaways:
-What does the ¡KINGdom! of God have to do with politics? A LOT! The kingdom determines what matters and WHO matters. #GimmeEternalEyes
-Human dignity chapter hit hard on political pro life agenda to be "pro whole life" meaning- pro life living and professing extends to action for all the marginalized (orphans, widows, immigrant communities, the poor etc) to preserve life.
-Each chapter made me excited to learn about how the Jesus changes our attitudes, hearts, and our reality. Kingdom. Human dignity. Religious freedom. Family stability. Everything.
January 11, 2021
I cannot recommend this book highly enough to anyone who claims themselves a Christ follower. Moore is insightful and biblical in his explanation of how we can interact with the world who finds the Bible unnecessary and even dangerous. Kindness is our ammunition, grace our best offer to the world in need of a savior.
January 30, 2021
A book about the need for American evangelicals to correct their orientation from earthly power to the kingdom of God. Refreshing to see a case made that the loss of power is good for the evangelical church. Amen! Written in 2016 it was a prescient word for what tragically happened the next 4 years among evangelicals.
February 4, 2016
Onward: Engaging the Culture without Losing the GospelRussell D. MooreThis is not a Sunday School manual on the blessings of life in Christian America. Dr. Moore does not repeat the consensus opinion of voting for conservative Republicans to maintain our good fortune. Onward is a battle plan, a Kingdom soldier’s guide to cultural warfare. “The kingdom of God is a declaration of war.” The first step toward victory in this theater of battle is to see God’s kingdom in its future glory and its present reality. Future glory is easy; present reality not so much. But if we believe that where King Jesus is, His kingdom exists, then we must start focusing on the present realities of life as ‘living in the Kingdom.’ Eschatology often hinders us from the fullness of life here; living for Christ the King makes the present more real. He is after all the head of the church. The culture is a battleground. A soldier of Christ will then be engaged in battle wherever it exists.
In the milieu of the greater culture is another culture, the church. In this earthly culture, “the church is an act of war.” The church brings aliens and strangers together, sinners of every kind are united in one body. This unified living is an attack on the self-seeking desires of the world around us. Even the angels take note. (Ephesians 3:10) Sometimes “the kingdom of God dawns in trailer parks and refugee camps.” So rather than disengaging from social and political issues we must apply the gospel to all of our “callings and vocations.” The Scriptures are profitable for living. The Gospel informs “the tone of our engagement.”
Dr. Moore emphasizes three specific areas of concern-human dignity, religious liberty, family stability.
There is no greater dignity afforded a human than to be called a child of God. The Gospel is then the most important aspect of our mission for human dignity. The future kingdom will be ruled by children of God from every tribe and nation. “How can the believing community stand by while some of the cosmos’s future rulers are denied justice because of the pigment of their skin?” The church must be ‘whole-life’ not just pro-life.
Dr. Moore speaks forcefully about the separation of church and state. “Do we really believe that unregenerate people can approach God, without a mediator, to pray? If not, why would we ask the government to force people to pretend to do so?” We are citizens but citizenship here is not final. “We are Americans best when we are not Americans first.”
“The family is a gospel issue, not a values issue.”
The kingdom of God is a declaration of war. The church is an act of war. Kindness that leads to conviction may be our greatest weapon. We love people enough “to tell them the truth and to tell ourselves the truth about them.”
Some of the greatest cultural warriors may not yet be on the winning team. “Jesus is marching onward, with or without us, and if the gates of hell cannot hold Him back, why on earth would He be panicked by Hollywood or Capitol Hill?”
In the milieu of the greater culture is another culture, the church. In this earthly culture, “the church is an act of war.” The church brings aliens and strangers together, sinners of every kind are united in one body. This unified living is an attack on the self-seeking desires of the world around us. Even the angels take note. (Ephesians 3:10) Sometimes “the kingdom of God dawns in trailer parks and refugee camps.” So rather than disengaging from social and political issues we must apply the gospel to all of our “callings and vocations.” The Scriptures are profitable for living. The Gospel informs “the tone of our engagement.”
Dr. Moore emphasizes three specific areas of concern-human dignity, religious liberty, family stability.
There is no greater dignity afforded a human than to be called a child of God. The Gospel is then the most important aspect of our mission for human dignity. The future kingdom will be ruled by children of God from every tribe and nation. “How can the believing community stand by while some of the cosmos’s future rulers are denied justice because of the pigment of their skin?” The church must be ‘whole-life’ not just pro-life.
Dr. Moore speaks forcefully about the separation of church and state. “Do we really believe that unregenerate people can approach God, without a mediator, to pray? If not, why would we ask the government to force people to pretend to do so?” We are citizens but citizenship here is not final. “We are Americans best when we are not Americans first.”
“The family is a gospel issue, not a values issue.”
The kingdom of God is a declaration of war. The church is an act of war. Kindness that leads to conviction may be our greatest weapon. We love people enough “to tell them the truth and to tell ourselves the truth about them.”
Some of the greatest cultural warriors may not yet be on the winning team. “Jesus is marching onward, with or without us, and if the gates of hell cannot hold Him back, why on earth would He be panicked by Hollywood or Capitol Hill?”
April 1, 2024
I was going to give this book a 3, but Mr. Moore changed his tune a bit in the last chapters. While I agree with most of what he wrote about there was a few things that went against my beliefs. One example is where he talks about not baptizing a woman, because she was going to continue to sin (and freely admits it) even though she professed to believe in Jesus Christ and wanted to be baptized. It reminded me of my brother-in-law that wanted to join a church, but was told by a pastor that he couldn't because he drove a truck (for work) that contained alcohol. His last chapters seemed to veer towards kindness to those who may be different from us. He reminds us that they "may not yet know Jesus." Moore reminds us that, "Jesus was building his church with those who seemed to have wrecked their lives forever; prostitutes, Roman collaborators, outcasts with infectious diseases, demon-possessed grave dwellers, and on and on. Jesus will build his church, with us or without us. But if we are going to be faithful to him, we must share his mission. This means we don't just talk about lost people; we talk to them." When it comes to politics or opposing cultures, he warns us about human anger. "The problem with carnal anger and outrage is that it's one of the easiest sins to commit while convincing oneself that one is being faithful." "If outrage were a sign of godliness, then the devil would be the godliest soul in the cosmos." He talks about Christian Nationalism, "Religion that needs state power to enforce obedience to its beliefs is a religion that has lost confidence in the power of its Deity." He ends on a good note, without gloom and doom, but a hope for tomorrow. We are not headed toward Gomorrah. We are headed ONWARD to Zion.
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