Onward: Engaging the Culture without Losing the Gospel By Russell Moore

"American Culture is shifting, it seems, into a different era, An era in which religion is not necessarily seen as a social good. Christianity in its historic, apostolic form is increasingly seen as socially awkward at best, as subversive at worst."

In Russell Moore's newest book Onward: Engaging the Culture without loosing the Gospel, he attempts to navigate the apparent tension between Christianity and our current culture. Moore's main objective is to addressed the question of how do we engage with our current culture? To answer that, Moore first identifies two tactics the church has failed in using when engaging the culture.

First, we encounter the strategy that so conforms Christianity to the culture that it loses any distinctive flavor or qualities. The hope in this approach is to shed the "awkwardness" of christianity within the culture. But the problem with this approach is that from the very beginning Christianity has been awkward. The inherent tension of Christianity and the culture it lives in did not find its genesis in the last several decades. The narrow way has always been the narrow way. In fact, a Christianity that has lost its distinctiveness won't be any more appealing to the culture anyway. As Moore says it like this:

"We can not build Christian churches on sub-christian gospel. People who don't want Christianity, won't want an almost-christianity."

The uniqueness, the awkward contrast, of the gospel is what the culture will actually find attractive. The gospel will always stand out.

Second, Moore identifies a strategy of engaging the culture that is a toxic blend of Christianity and Patriotism. It's the strategy that tries to take us back to the days when our country was run on Christian values. Back to the so called good ol' days. This is another attempt to reduce the awkwardness and tension with our culture, but this time, by bring the culture to “us”. I find this strategy being deployed frequently with evangelicalism and it seems to be the driving force behind out recent "culture wars." There are a few problems with this approach. First, when in our history has the country truly embraced the gospel or did we just embrace the comfortable Christian Values (i.e. happy marriage, family, kids who listen, etc)? Moore describes it like this:

​"Christian values were always more popular in American culture than the Christian gospel. That's why one could speak of "God and Country" with great reception in almost era of the nation's history but would create cultural distance as soon as one mentioned "Christ and him crucified." God was always welcome in American culture. He was, after all, the Deity whose job it was to bless America. The God who must be approached through the mediation of the blood of Christ, however, was much more difficult to set to patriotic music or to "Amen" in a prayer at the Rotary Club."

Bring the culture back to these values by force of governmental laws does nothing if that’s the stand alone goal. (by the way, that does not mean we don't use the democratic process to bring about good social change that aligns with the values). Without the Christ centered gospel, these values mean nothing. Its just a religious facade. At times evangelicals can get so caught up in the "culture wars" that we forget that the United States of America culture is not the goal. The Kingdom and those sharing in its inheritance are. Culture changes when people change, not when governmental law changes. Moore articulates it again by saying:

"Our end goal is not a Christian America, either of the made-up past or the hoped-for future. Our goal is the kingdom of Christ, made up of every tribe, tongue, nation, and language."

Just as conforming Christianity to the culture is faulty, so can forcing the culture to conform to Christian values devoid of the gospel, or with a sub-gospel, can be just as disastrous. Moore again says:

"But it would be a tragedy to "get the right president", the "right Congress", and the wrong Christ. That's a very bad trade-off."

So how should we engage the culture? We engage with a Gospel Mission as our motive. The gospel is unique and will always be awkward in the culture. We engage while remembering Human Dignity as fellow image bearer of God. (I re-read this chapter twice it was so good.) We engage with Convictional Kindness speaking truth in love, with clarity, and seasoned with salt. We engage with a Gospel Counter-Revolution remembering the power of the gospel and that God uses people we least expect. As Moore puts it "the next Billy Graham might be drunk right now." When we have a Kingdom minded mission, treating each person with human dignity, speaking truth in love, and remembering how God uses sinners we can engage the culture effectively without losing our distinctive message.

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 evangelical culture while giving us an outline for engaging culture we live in. 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 is timely and is a desperately need message to current evangelicals. 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."