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Kingdom Triangle: Recover the Christian Mind, Renovate the Soul, Restore the Spirit's Power

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This book profoundly disturbed me. It brought to light many things within myself that I had known but managed to never directly addressed.

I am a avid fan of J.P. Moreland, and as such there was not much in this book that I was not already familiar with, including many of the examples. Around pg 130 or so the stuff that distinguishes this book as different from his others crops up. There is one page in that book that I find to be worth the price of the book alone. And that is in distinguishing between what one says they believe and on the surface claims to believe, with what they actually believe. It helped me to realize that for all practical purposes I had been living like a functional deist.

I don't know what to do with some of the latter chapters and it will require a lot of reflection, but I think this is also one of the books greatest strengths, in putting something in front of virtually everyone that will challenge them to analyze themselves, and where they are at with God.

Another major strength of this book is in it's use of practicallity. It's fine to say one should do this or that, but without any clear recommendation of how to go about doing this or that. J.P. gives advice, his own guidelines, and recommended reading to either show one how to do ... or to study furthur to decide wether or not one should do ... .

It's a great book well worth the money, even for a guy who's read most of his books and gotten most of his lectures from the Veritas forum and Stand To Reason. This book can be a wonderful tool for furthur reflection upon what a life lived for Christ should be like, and thus how your life for Christ should be lived.

With the skillful eye of a philosopher, the heart of a pastor, and the biblically saturated worldview of a theologian, J.P. Moreland's Kingdom Triangle offers a unique and provocative diagnosis of the spiritual, moral, and intellectual impoverishment of our time and the courage to envision a more preferable future. According to Moreland's own admission, the Kingdom Triangle is "the single best and most important book I have ever written, including the best seller Love Your God with All Your Mind." A Zondervan editor observed: "As a person who reads dozens upon dozens of books each year, Kingdom Triangle is one of the best three or four books I have ever read."

With a forward by Dallas Willard and endorsements from Lee Strobel, Chuck Colson, Nancy Pearcey, Ravi Zacharias, and other luminaries, Kingdom Triangle is a passionate, weighty, vision-casting book that harnesses the settled reflection of Moreland's thirty-five years of Christian activism. It is a manifesto clarion call to transformative action; a penetrating critique of the powers and persuasions of Western culture that have contributed to our spiritual and existential malaise.

The first half of the book analyzes the crisis of our age, which is reflected in the widely acknowledged rift in Western, and especially American culture; a rift, he believes, greater than any divide since the Civil War. Moreland deftly shows that this rift is not primarily political, socio-economic or racial; instead, it reflects a worldview struggle among the three central worldviews currently vying for allegiance: Naturalism, Postmodernism, and Christianity. Moreland identifies these worldviews, explains their interrelationship and pecking order, and shows how they have shaped the power brokers in the university, media, pop culture and public discourse in general. Not content with mere description, Moreland empowers Christians by providing them with resourceful tools for recognizing and interacting with these worldviews and discerning their real cultural presence and habits. Thankfully, though, Moreland's book is not another typical "cultural crisis" sort of book about naturalism or postmodernism, where worn-out clichés, alarmist thinking, or dull analyses frequent its pages.

The second half of the book turns from crisis to cure as Moreland charts a powerful way forward for believers who desire to re-capture the church's authority and integrity in the contemporary scene. Building on the model and the priorities of the church in its first three centuries, Moreland underscores, defends, teaches, and, most importantly, provides explicit practical advice for the three central components for the church's renewed vision. These components constitute the three necessary "legs" of the "Kingdom Triangle":

1. Recover theology as a branch of knowledge and not mere true belief, along with specific steps for recovering a robust life of the mind and worldview thinking in one's personal life and local church;

2. Renovate the inner, emotional, experiential life of the heart through spiritual disciplines, direction, specific forms of (usually unheard of) meditation, therapy, and spiritual exercises;

3. Restore an openness to experience the power of the Kingdom of God and the Holy Spirit by re-discovering the practice of healing prayer, demonic deliverance and the supernatural habits of the Christian life.

Readers are served a delectable feast of insight, the sort of mental and affective soul food that enables persons and
churches to live their life skillfully and wisely. Longtime Moreland readers will not be disappointed by the careful treatment of ideas, and the ease to which Moreland attentively takes heady distinctions and makes them accessible to the lay reader. First-time readers of Moreland will also find much to be admired. For here, in a single volume, a modeled evangelical mind distills his choicest and wisest ideas. Kingdom Triangle is a robust précis of Moreland's most important rumination about how best to flourish, individually and corporately, within our local churches.

J.P. Moreland's authorial tone beneficially conveys his mature reflection. Readers experience a pastoral heart that feels like the strength of a faithful friend who wants you to mature and succeed in your life. He is an experienced, wise investor in the capital of Christianity. Moreland knows how to skillfully show his readers where to invest their lives in Kingdom values and priorities so that they can reasonably reap lives and churches that blossom with life giving life and vitality.

The Kingdom Triangle is for the thoughtful Christian who cares deeply about forming a receptive heart that expects the power of God and the presence of His Kingdom to in-break into individual lives and culture in a transformational way.Kingdom Triangle: Recover the Christian Mind, Renovate the Soul, Restore the Spirit's Power

We're seven years into the decade. It's possible to make that sort of claim. While Nancy Pearcey's Total Truth was leading the pack for the distinction of most important book published in the 00s, after reading Dr. Moreland's masterful new work The Kingdom Triangle, I'm calling the race for him.

After all, when JP Moreland-yes, the guy who wrote the book on the life of the Christian mind-says ridiculous things like, The Kingdom Triangle is "the single best and most important book I have ever written" and "This is the book I've been waiting all my life to write," we should take note. He's written a lot of books, and all of them are worth reading.

I should offer a disclosure, though. You'd expect to hear me to say that I got the book for free. I didn't. I had to buy it. While it's not available from bookstores until June 1st (pre-orders help sales, apparently!), Torrey Honors sold some advance copies. But though I didn't get the book for free, I have met Dr. Moreland, and have an immense amount of admiration for the guy. He doesn't know it, but he's indirectly responsible for me marrying my wife (a story for another post), which is the only decent thing I've done in my life to date. But none of that would change my assessment of this book a bit.

The Kingdom Triangle is clear, provocative and informative. Dr. Moreland manages to attain that difficult but essential balance between the practical and the theoretical, a skill that I admire and lack. It is, as a result, a difficult book to read in that his brief recommendations for how to change remove every excuse to remain stagnant that we might otherwise muster.

Yet Dr. Moreland is practical without being preachy. While no one-not the heartless academic, not the mildly content and mostly passive churchgoer, not the thoughtless charismatic (to pick three bad stereotypes!)-is safe from Dr. Moreland's incisive analysis, he is nothing less than encouraging and humble in his approach. He writes with the awareness that he is offering painful truths, and is at points explicit in his trepidation about doing so. Yet his trepidation doesn't descend into timidity. He writes with a wisdom and maturity of someone who is able to appropriately acknowledge his own shortcomings, and then use them to help others. Throughout the work, Dr. Moreland exemplifies the disposition toward knowledge that he defends, namely one that is confident but not arrogant, humble but not self-deprecating.

The book is broken into two parts: the disease and the antidote. In the first part, Dr. Moreland doesn't pull punches, addressing what he sees as the two chief ailments of Western civilization head on. First, he takes down scientific naturalism. After that, it's post-modernism. Dr. Moreland is intent on establishing the possibility of religious knowledge, something naturalism and post-modernism both undercut.

Dr. Moreland then turns to the Kingdom triangle, or the three aspects to discipleship that individuals and communities must embrace if they wish to be effective witnesses for Christ. Not surprisingly, he starts with the recovery of the knowledge as the grounds of Christianity. Dr. Moreland goes to great lengths to demonstrate how much the Bible cares about knowledge, including some five full pages of verses to demonstrate his case.

Yet knowledge, and the knowledge that we have knowledge, are not enough for a robust Christian life. The second leg of the triangle, then, is "the cultivation of an inner life, developing emotional intimacy with God, engaging in classic spiritual formation practices..." Here Dr. Moreland is extremely practical. He pays particular attention to the role of the body and the emotions in sanctification, and offers tips for how to bring those areas of our lives under the Lordship of Jesus.

Finally, and perhaps most controversially, Dr. Moreland contends that Christians should practice "learning to live in and use the Spirit's power and the authority of the Kingdom of God, developing a supernatural lifestyle, receiving answers to prayer, learning to effectively pray for healing and demonic deliverance, growing in hearing God's voice through impressions, prophetic words of knowledge and wisdom, dreams and visions." Dr. Moreland is open, honest, and candid about the need for evangelical Christians (the book's target audience) to recover the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit, and the external signs of His power. It is here that Dr. Moreland really shines, offering a sensible and persuasive perspective on the role of signs and wonders in the Church. He is sensitive to their abuses, but compelling in his defense of their importance to the robust Christian life.

Ultimately, the vision for Christianity that Dr. Moreland outlines-a vision, he points out, which is not original to him-demands that each of us grow in our areas of weakness. We are, I think, better at some legs of the triangle than others. But Dr. Moreland challenges us to recognize that having one or two of the legs is not enough if we wish to be robust and effective proponents of the Gospel. We must recover all three if we wish to rescue the Church from cultural impotence, and discover the sort of dramatic lifestyles for which we were created.

If you buy and read one book in this decade, make it this one. If you buy one book for your pastor this decade, make it this one. If you buy one book for your small group leader, make it this one.

This is a wonderful book on at least two levels. First of all, it is an accurate and thoughtful critique of two of the most prevalent cultural trends in our world today: naturalism and postmodernism. Secondly, it is a practical and straightforward call to action and engagement for Christians caught up in this particular culture. As a result of these two emphases, Moreland provides a clear picture of what needs to be critiqued and engaged, and how to go about it.

In the first section, his call is for a return to the basics of what it means to know something. Naturalism has too narrowly defined knowledge (scientific knowledge only), and postmodernism has jettisoned it altogether (we can know nothing or nearly nothing with certainty). Moreland associates biblical fidelity with a commitment to a form of correspondence theory about knowledge, and argues that part of the pastoral job of the church is to engage the Christian culture and the culture at large with this fundamental committment in mind.

In the second section, he calls for the recovery of the Christian's mind and soul, and the Spirit's power in the church. Some of the negative criticisms have not dealt with Moreland's arguments for the activity of Spirit in our age, and too quickly dismiss modern-day spiritual formation writers such as Dallas Willard and Richard Foster. The fact that many in the emergent movement like their writings does not make either one of them emergent.

No doubt Moreland's call for the present and miraculous activity of the Spirit in today's church will be controversial in some circles, but it is overreaching to dismiss the book's argument based on that alone. I happen to believe it is an accurate argument, one the church needs to hear, and a crucial part of his work.

The Kingdom Triangle is a great call to action for the American church.

J.P. Moreland, Kingdom Triangle: Recovering the Christian Mind. Renovate the Soul, Restore the Spirit's Power. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2007.

J.P. Moreland is a highly esteemed, well-published, and extremely active Christian philosopher. For years I have profited greatly from his books and articles, and for fifteen years I have used his books as texts for courses at Denver Seminary. Unlike many Christian academics, Moreland maintains a passionate concern for the church, evangelism, and the state of culture at large. To that end, he divides his writing and speaking between the highly academic and the more popular or semi-academic. In so doing, he is able to build a bridge between scholarly pursuits and the questions and concerns of laypeople. Os Guinness refers to this area of endeavor as "intermediate knowledge." While proponents of intermediate knowledge are few, the need for such is great. Few non-philosophers are likely to read Moreland's book on universals, for example, but many thoughtful Christians will be drawn to his other books, such as Love Your God With All Your Mind (NavPress, 1997), which is a stellar apologetic for a robust and spirit-filled engagement of the intellect for the glory of God, the good of the church, and the winning of the world.


Moreland's new work is both profound and controversial. The controversy will largely stem from his endorsement of the charismatic dimension of Christian experience. It is highly unusual to find an analytically trained philosopher with a Th.M. from Dallas seminary who endorses the "third wave" form of the charismatic movement!

Kingdom Triangle is a passionate and knowledgeable summons to the church to engage God, the world, and the self in a deeply biblical and profoundly meaningful manner. To this endeavor, Moreland brings the resources of philosophy to bear fruitfully on the exigencies of the Kingdom of God. This is both rare and wonderful. The book is divided into two sections. The first explains "the crisis of the age" in America and the West in general. The second section gives the answer: a kingdom triangle of intellectual engagement, spiritual formation, and supernatural spiritual power.

In explaining the contemporary crisis, Moreland writes that we have moved from the "thick" world of the biblical worldview to the "thin" worlds of naturalism and postmodernism. A biblical worldview provides the knowledge of God, existential meaning, and authentic drama to all of life. We are creatures of a good and holy God, placed on earth to manifest the virtues of the Kingdom of God. We are immersed in and engaged with a life and death struggle with the forces of evil, yet God is our strength and hope. We are not groping in the dark, but have been given knowable truth in Scripture and elsewhere.

But both scientific naturalism and postmodernism--each in its own way--eviscerate the world of any objective meaning or genuine drama. Naturalism denies the reality of anything outside of what materialistic science can observe. The cosmos is reduced to merely material properties. All must be explained by impersonal change and necessity. There is no soul, no God, no angels or demons, and no afterlife. As Peter Berger put it, it is "a world without windows" because the universe is self-enclosed. Morality is not rooted in the Designer and in human nature, but is merely the result of natural selection. Knowledge is limited to what can be known through scientific methods (scientism).

Postmodernism recoils from the aridity of scientific naturalism and tries to find meaning in the meaning-creation of communities and individuals. Like scientific naturalism, it denies that there is any objective meaning to life, but instead of trying to find meaning in science, it affirms the contingent constructions of human beings, variously situated. Each community--or person--has its own narrative or language game, none of which is superior to any other, but all of which are acceptable. However, there is no objective meaning to be found and no knowledge of objective reality to be had. While scientific naturalism is a form of realism (we can know something of objective reality, which is only material), postmodernism is a form of nonrealism (there is no objective reality, scientific or otherwise, to know). Both deny the knowledge of God.

These two worldviews rob us of objective moral values, the dignity of human beings, and any concrete hope for our existence. As a result, instead of moral agents deeply rooted in objective reality, we find around us--or even within us--"empty selves" that are restless, easily distracted, infantile, and narcissistic. Moreland ardently argues that both worldviews are both empty and false. Christianity not only provides meaning and drama for life, but is true and rational and knowable. The knowledge of God is available to errant humans. While the book does not give a full-fledged apologetic for Christianity or against scientific naturalism and postmodernism, it does powerfully demonstrate the intellectual weaknesses of these two worldviews with respect to epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics.

In the second half of the book, Moreland advocates the kingdom triangle as the proper response to "the crisis of our age." The first leg of the triangle is the recovery of the Christian mind. As a Christian philosopher and apologist, Moreland is in an exemplary position to offer advice. We must reclaim Christianity as a knowledge tradition; that is, we must not be content with leaps of faith or merely true beliefs about God and the Bible. To acquire knowledge we need to justify our beliefs (in various ways). Moreland provides a short but clear run down on various ways to know things and the importance of the mind to the Christian life. (On this, see also his book, Love Your God With all Your Mind, as well as James Sire's Habits of the Mind [InterVarsity, 2000].)

The second leg of the kingdom triangle is the devotional life or spiritual disciplines. Moreland advocates the classical disciplines of retreat (such as solitude) and engagement (such as service) and speaks of ways one can understand the heart or affective side of one's personality. This interior understanding of the affect has become important to Moreland in recent years. From his own experience, he speaks of the need not only to apply the mind to the things of God, but also to bring one's emotions under the Lordship of Christ. Some may find his "heart meditation" a bit strange, since it emphasizes focusing on the heart muscle itself as a place of emotion. However, there is nothing necessarily New Age or otherwise dangerous about such a meditation if it is done prayerfully and thoughtfully. Nevertheless, this practice may not be appropriate or helpful for everyone. If so, one may ignore it, and I am sure Moreland would not mind. My lone criticism of this chapter is that it did not emphasize adequately the neglected discipline of prayer with fasting. If the essence of spirituality is denying ourselves, taking up our cross, and following Jesus, then there is no better way to deny ourselves in an age of over-indulgence and narcissism than to deny ourselves food in order to give ourselves more fully to the Lord.

"The restoration of the Spirit's power" fills out the last leg of the kingdom triangle. Although Moreland graduated from a seminary that teaches that the supernatural gifts of the spirit (such as healing and prophecy) have ended (cessationism), in the past few years he has experienced some of these gifts himself and has reevaluated what the Bible teaches on these matters. He has come to believe that this dimension of Kingdom living is crucial if we are to respond effectively to the deadness and darkness of our time. I completely agree. While Moreland does not give a detailed exegetical or theological argument for the ongoing manifestation of supernatural gifts, he points out that the old cessationism has been losing its credibility among many, that Christians in the global south are experiencing these gifts in powerful ways, and that he himself has experienced or witnessed the miraculous dimension of the Kingdom of God in the past few years. What Moreland advocates is not classical Pentecostalism or the Charismatic renewal of the 1960s and 1970s, but the "third wave" approach of the Vineyard movement. This is an orientation that does not emphasize a second "baptism of the Holy Spirit" or insists on the speaking of tongues. It rather seeks God's supernatural agency for healing, prophecy, and other signs and wonders.

Although I am also a proponent of signs and wonders as part of the dynamic of the ongoing manifestation of the Kingdom of God, I wish that Moreland had given a few more warnings about potential and actual abuses in these areas. Moreland alludes to the dimension of spiritual warfare, but one wishes he had fleshed out this aspect of Kingdom living in more detail, since the contemporary world is awash in false forms of religion that are inspired by "the god of this world" (2 Corinthians 4:4). But to his credit, he provides references to works that tackle this area.

Kingdom Triangle has many strengths and no significant weaknesses. Moreland writes with a confident, compelling, and courageous voice. He does not avoid strong judgments when he deems them necessary. This may be off-putting to tender souls accustomed to terminal tentativeness in Christian writing, but it should not be. Moreland has paid his dues and knows of what he speaks. For example, as a robust proponent of Intelligent Design, he refers to theistic evolution as "intellectual pacifism," since it gives so much ground to Darwinism, a naturalistic understanding of biology that is not warranted by the facts. Likewise, Moreland has no patience with Christians who adopt postmodernist views of truth or knowledge, because such an approach marginalizes Christianity as merely another language game or perspective on reality. Christianity is, rather, a knowledge tradition that can and should be rationally defended according to objective principles of rationality. Moreland is not afraid to offer tough judgments against elements of popular culture--such as celebrity-ism and sports worship--when they reveal the hollowness and shabbiness of lives poorly lived (see Romans 12:1-2; 1 John 2:15-17).

If read, pondered, preached, taught, and applied, the teachings of Kingdom Triangle could spark revival, reformation, and reform in the church, as well as in the world at large. This is a triangle that Christians must not ignore.

Since the other reviewers have provided adequately detailed overviews of the content of Dr. Moreland's most recent book, I'll refrain from doing so. Rather, I'll simply say that I found Kingdom Triangle an incredibly educational, inspiring, and forward-thinking read.

Moreland's critiques of the dominating worldviews of our society, namely those of scientific naturalism and postmodernism, are the best general critiques I've read. Though more detailed critiques of these worldviews exist elsewhere, it is the very fact that Moreland's writing maintains approachability and avoids becoming too heavy that make it so effective.

Moreland's admonition to recapture the knowledge of the Christian faith is expected, though his insights into the nature of knowledge are a welcome addition that set Kingdom Triangle apart from many of the other apologetic books I've read recently.

Unquestionably, the most provocative corner of Moreland's Kingdom Triangle is his belief that the Evangelical church must, in a quite literal sense, recapture the power of the Spirit. Moreland recognizes that this concept will probably be the most difficult for the majority of his readers to grasp, and I must concur. Nonetheless, it is an idea that deserves careful thought and consideration as it may, as Moreland asserts, be the very piece of the puzzle that the Western Evangelical church has been ignoring for the past few centuries.

Highly recommended.

I read twice through Kingdom Triangle in the first two weeks I had it. My recommendation: Get yourself a copy and read it, then read it again. Get your friends to read it. The legs of Moreland's "Kingdom Triangle" may--or may not--be the three most important things Western Christians must do to make a difference in our world. Two of them, however, are very likely the things we have been most severely lacking.

Western culture is pervaded with scientific naturalism and with postmodernism. The first of these strips the world of spirit, the other of knowledge. Both take away the hope of ultimate, transcendent meaning. Naturalism denies there is anything more to life than what we can touch and see, and postmodernism says there is almost nothing beyond ourselves that we can truly know. Moreland tells how that "thins" our lives, for example on page 23, where he writes:

"Under the influence of naturalist and postmodern ideas, many people no longer believe that there is any ultimate meaning to life that can be known. These folks...have given up on seeking that meaning and instead are living for happiness. Today, the good life is a life of happiness.... 'Happiness' is a good thing, all things being considered. But if it is overemphasized or made the focus of one's life, it leads to depression a loss of purpose in life, and a deep-seated sense of fragmentation. In short, it ruins your life. Why? For one thing, there are more important things in life than being happy.... we are wired for more than happiness. We are made to live for God's honor by learning how to become spiritually competent, mature members of his Kingdom and to make that Kingdom our primary concern."

Regarding this spiritual competence he has much to say, and it starts with knowledge, the first leg of the "Kingdom Triangle." To be competent is to have progressed satisfactorily in an area of knowledge. Spiritual competence, then, is not best seen as exclusively a matter of faith or belief, but especially of knowledge. Moreland does not belittle faith or belief by this emphasis, but strengthens them. "Faith" is too often thought to be a matter of opinion, value, preference; a choice divorced from real knowledge. Josh McDowell speaks of some who say they know the Bible is true "because I have faith in it!" Such "faith" is divorced from actual thinking and knowing, and is distant from historic conceptions of what faith is. Moreland urges us to recognize that Biblical faith is built on actual knowledge: knowledge of God, knowledge of what is ethically real and true, knowledge regarding wisdom and the truly good life.

Very strong counter-cultural words, these are. He's trying to wrestle spiritual knowledge back to the status it had before it was denuded through scientism and secularism. Even Christians have been fooled into thinking that faith is something to be set against knowledge rather than upon it. To correct this he goes into the most philosophically technical passages of the book, exploring what knowledge actually is, how we can distinguish it from opinions or values, and how we can have confidence in it.

Competence extends also into developing the skills of Christian living. The second leg of his triangle, "Renovate the Soul," has received more attention in the church than the other two, and though Moreland devotes a chapter to it, he directs the reader to other sources for more. His treatment of how disciplines can help us tame the "flesh" (Biblically, the seat of sinful habit) is fresh and intriguing. His support of Christian counseling and spiritual formation is encouraging; God didn't plan for us to grow on our own.

These first two themes, knowledge and spiritual disciplines, are pretty much expected fare from a Christian philosopher. The third leg of his triangle is not. This third leg is the advancing of the Kingdom of God by God's working supernaturally in signs, wonders, and miracles.

We Christians are supernaturalists, as Moreland gently reminds us, and should therefore stand on the side of expecting God to work supernaturally. Moreland speaks sensitively to Christians who believe that God's miraculous works ceased long ago, and then turns around and addresses Pentecostals who have made experience far too much the center of their theology. In the center is the belief that God is still God, and his Bible is still our authority.

God is working powerfully around the world, as Moreland details with several examples, from the U.S. and elsewhere, and we can fruitfully call on him for more of the same.

Recovering the Christian mind, renovating the soul, seeing again the Spirit's power: in a world grown thin, Kingdom Triangle offers real substance. I expect that twice through this book will not be enough for me--I'll back in it again before much time goes by.

Kingdom Triangle is an uncommonly broad prescription for healthy Christian living and effective engagement of secular culture. It addresses the necessities of being grounded in a theistic worldview, experiencing classic spiritual formation, and living in the power of the Holy Spirit. These are the vertices of the kingdom triangle. The author, J. P. Moreland, a professor of philosophy and theology, writes with passion and humility. This book is meaty, challenging, and encouraging.

Part 1, "Assessing the Crisis of Our Age," describes the conflict in western culture between three dominant worldviews: naturalism, postmodernism, and Christian theism. Some readers may find this section slow going, a possibility that Moreland himself acknowledges. However, he challenges Christians to better understand the worldview struggle taking place in our culture and cautions against various elements of naturalism and postmodernism creeping into the church.

Moreland describes naturalism and postmodernism as "thin" worldviews that cannot meet human needs for meaning, value, and drama. Naturalism holds that the physical/material world is the only objective reality. There is no God, no spiritual or immaterial world, no life after death, no purpose, no meaning, and no absolute morality. Naturalism also holds that the hard sciences are the only way, or at least a vastly superior way, of obtaining knowledge. Postmodernism goes even further than naturalism and holds that there is no objective reality or truth at all, not even scientific truth. What we call reality and truth are simply cultural and linguistic constructions that various social groups form as their "narratives." Narratives are simply stories, none of which is better than any other, and none of which is true in the normal sense of the word.

In contrast to naturalism and postmodernism, Christian theism is a "thick" worldview that offers objective value, meaning, and purpose. "Some things really matter and other things don't. Some things have meaning and others don't. ... Some things are right and others are wrong. You can lead a heroic life or waste it. The world in general, and human beings more specifically -- and you in particular -- were put here for a purpose." Moreland does not claim that secular people completely lack these thick attributes, only that their worldviews provide no basis for them. They have most likely borrowed them from other worldviews (often the west's Judeo-Christian heritage).

Moreland does a good job describing the bleakness and everyday unworkability of naturalism and postmodernism, as contrasted with Christian theism. And he asks two questions that go to the heart of the crisis he is attempting to describe. First, is Christianity a "knowledge tradition" or a "faith tradition" (i.e., a tradition that may be true, but cannot be known to be true, and can only be accepted on some basis other than knowledge)? Second, is there such a thing as nonempirical knowledge, including knowledge of morals and of the immaterial world? How one answers these questions affects the robustness of one's faith and the way one engages the culture. Historic Christianity has always claimed to be a knowledge tradition. "Christianity... places knowledge at the center of proclamation and discipleship. The Old and New Testaments, including the teachings of Jesus, claim not merely that Christianity is true, but that a variety of its moral and religious assertions can be known to be true." But if Christians treat Christianity as merely a way of seeing the world that entails something less than real knowledge, they contribute to its marginalization.

Part 1 ends with a summary of the crisis our culture faces, a crisis that Moreland says we have reached through five interrelated paradigm shifts. The first shift was "from knowledge to faith," by which Moreland means faith has largely come to be regarded as nonfactual and nonrational. It is merely a "brute decision of the will to believe something." The second shift was "from human flourishing to satisfaction of desire." The good life (i.e., the life of ideal human functioning and flourishing) used to mean living virtuously; now it often means merely maximizing one's own pleasure. The third shift was "from duty and virtue to minimalist ethics." Minimalist ethics can be summed up in the oft-expressed belief that people should be allowed to do whatever they want as long as it doesn't harm others. Thus, individual freedom is the highest (and sometimes only) good and all moral viewpoints should be tolerated. The fourth shift was "from classic freedom to contemporary freedom." Classic freedom means the power to do what is right, but absent moral knowledge it degenerates into freedom to do whatever one wants to do. The fifth shift was "from classic tolerance to contemporary tolerance." Classic tolerance requires respect for persons, but allows disagreement with their viewpoints. Contemporary tolerance claims that one should not even disagree with or judge another's viewpoints.

Part 2, "Charting a Way Out: The Kingdom Triangle," turns to the three-fold prescription in the book's title. Moreland roughly takes as his model the three factors that were central to Christianity's growth in the first four centuries: the church's persuasive apologetics; the transformed character and compassion of early believers, even in the face of persecution; and the power of the Holy Spirit demonstrated through healing, demonic deliverance, and prophecy. Part 2 is surprisingly practical in the suggestions it offers for Christian growth.

The chapter entitled "The Recovery of Knowledge" addresses the church's need to regain confidence that it possesses real spiritual and ethical knowledge. Scripture portrays knowledge as the foundation for faith. This chapter discusses the nature of knowledge, including the general features of knowledge, the various kinds of knowledge, and a critique of skepticism. It next discusses the nature of faith, which it summarizes as confidence or trust in a person, thing, or proposition. The chapter concludes with several suggestions for growing one's Christian belief. For starters, Moreland urges an honest personal assessment of what one believes, what those beliefs mean, and how strongly one believes them. For some, this exercise may result in a few steps backward, but it is nevertheless the beginning of the way forward. From this assessment, one can develop a list of questions, doubts, and confusions for which one can begin to seek answers. Next, Moreland suggests taking regular risks that stretch one's faith, even if those risks are small. In this vein, he challenges his readers to consider how much of their Christian walk requires God's existence as an explanation, and how much would have happened in the normal course of events. Finally, Moreland suggests the reading of books and sharing of stories about God's miraculous work in the world. He says that believers in the west tend to believe that God is inactive in the world today, but this impression is incorrect.

The next chapter, "Renovation of the Soul," begins by describing the epidemic of "empty selves" in western society. The empty self is consumerist, pleasure-seeking, lacking in community and shared meaning, lacking in personal conviction and worth, and emotionally hungry. The way the church carries out ministry and discipleship must counter this epidemic. First, Moreland suggests a proper understanding of Christian self-denial. That one finds his life by losing it for Christ is a description of reality, not a command. In one sense such self-denial is difficult because it goes against most of our ingrained tendencies. But in another sense, it is easy because it is how we were made to live and flourish. The really hard life is that of the person who needs to be in control, needs to be the center of attention, strives for significance, pours energy into things that don't matter, can't forgive, and is hungry for love. Second, Moreland suggests fostering individual and corporate Christian disciplines. He recommends the classic spiritual disciplines described by many other authors as well as any repeated practice that helps Christian growth, for example, practicing sharing one's faith. Third, Moreland suggests cultivating emotional sensitivity to the inner movement of the soul, by which he seems to mean a kind of emotional awareness and tone that contribute to peace, joy, and confidence in God. To cultivate this sensitivity, he suggests various readings on spiritual formation, use of Christian therapists and spiritual directors, and a type of meditation of the heart.

The final chapter, "Restoration of the Kingdom's Miraculous Power," is the most surprising in the book. It begins by describing the explosive growth of the Christian church in the Third World during the past 50 years, especially since 1980. The church is growing faster than at any other time in history, and this growth represents the single biggest (and least reported) social phenomenon of our time. The connection to this book is that this growth is usually associated with miraculous expressions of God's power, such as healings, demonic deliverances, and prophecies. Many western Christians are skeptical or dismissive of such miracles, probably because our worldviews are more secular than we realize. Nevertheless, Moreland argues that the miraculous element is consistent with Scripture, and he notes that theologians are increasingly abandoning cessationism (the view that miraculous gifts of the Spirit ended with the death of the apostles). Next, Moreland describes a spectrum of Christian views regarding miraculous gifts of the Spirit, from "cessationist," through "open but cautious" and "third wave," to "Pentecostal/charismatic." He cautions Christians at both ends of the spectrum about errors to which they are prone. To believers at the cessationist end, he warns against too much caution and not enough risk-taking, too much sterility and not enough extravagant worship, and too little power in their churches. To believers at the charismatic end, he warns against anti-intellectualism, addiction to spiritual experiences, and not enough attention to the day in and day out processes of discipleship and spiritual formation. Moreland's overarching view is that western Christians need to move toward the charismatic end of the spectrum, a view that mirrors his own spiritual journey. Toward this end he offers several suggestions: desire and seek the miraculous (though not as an end in itself); read about this area of ministry (both instruction and testimonials); seek contact with credible Christians who have experienced miracles; and create opportunities for Christians to share experiences of answered prayer or other miracles.

Overall, this book was a challenging and worthwhile read. It left me with a great deal of material to digest. (One of my purposes in writing this overly long review is to better process what I have read.) I appreciated the author's efforts to present a broad prescription for Christian living, although it is clear that his strength lies in addressing philosophic issues. I also appreciated his humility and conciliatory tone when addressing issues about which Christians disagree. There was only one topic that I found somewhat confusing and under-developed -- the suggestion in Chapter 6 to cultivate emotional sensitivity to the movement of the soul. The topic that influenced me most was the discussion in Chapter 7 about restoring the kingdom's miraculous power. After reading this chapter I have to wonder if my own Christian faith and journey have become too skewed toward the rational. This chapter opened my eyes to different possibilities. The following line (quoting Michael Green) has stuck with me: "Instead of being a community demonstrating the Lord's power, we [western evangelicals] have become one which talks incessantly. We need to remember that 'the kingdom of God is not talk, but power.'"

I first encountered Professor Moreland's impressive intellect indirectly when Professor Gary Habermas visited Bates College under the sponsorship of the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. The professors co-authored the book, Beyond Death. Exploring the Evidence for Immortality, a riveting exploration of the scientific, philosophical, anthropological, and theological evidence for life after death. Next I discovered Professor Moreland in Lee Strobel's The Case for Faith. A Journalist Investigates the Toughest Objections to Christianity. The professor took on the toughest of the "toughest" questions: "How Can God Send Children to Hell?" "Why Does Everyone Suffer the Same in Hell?" "Why Are People Punished Infinitely for Finite Crimes?" "Couldn't God Force Everyone to Go to Heaven?" "Why Doesn't God Just Snuff People Out?" "How Can Hell Exist Alongside of Heaven?" "Why Didn't God Create Only Those He Knew Would Follow Him?" "Why Doesn't God Give People a Second Chance?" and "Isn't Reincarnation More Rational Than Hell?" By the time Professor Moreland was through, I saw God as even more loving than before!

So when I received Kingdom Triangle, I read it non-stop. Then I read it again. Then I read the underlined sections to my wife. Then she took the book to read for herself!

The thesis of Kingdom Triangle is that human beings, naturally hungering for both drama and happiness, must choose among three basic worldviews to satisfy those needs - naturalism, postmodernism, and Christianity. In the first part of the book, Professor Moreland demolishes naturalism and post-modernism as both theories and as practical bases for living.

Beginning with Chapter Five, Professor Moreland presents the Kingdom of God as the only way to satisfy our deepest purposes. As citizens of God's Kingdom, each of us needs to develop first, our knowledge, "the ability to represent things as they are on an appropriate basis of thought and experience"(114); second, our souls, "to form through repeated practice the daily habit of living each day with a specific attitude and outlook. More specifically, one is to form a passion for the daily practice of giving up on the failed project of making one's self the center of focus and, alternatively, to live hour by hour for God's Kingdom. It is to be preoccupied with learning skillfully to find one's place in his unfolding plan and play one's role well, to give one's life away to others for Christ's sake"(146); and third, to restore the Kingdom's miraculous power, quoting St. Paul, "the kingdom of God does not consist in words but in power (1 Cor. 4:20)

Kingdom Triangle is a passionate and profound call to arms to the citizens of the Kingdom of God. Professor Moreland wants us to "foment a revolution in how we do church and how we conceive of our presence in the world as Jesus' apprentices and representatives" (200).

As Professor Moreland says: "The crisis of our age requires nothing less than a revolution of those who live in, proclaim, and seek to advance the Kingdom that was not made with hands." (14) Kingdom Triangle is a Revolutionary's Handbook for the Kingdom of God.

First of all, let me explain the basics of the triangle Moreland has so keenly presented in this book. The book has 4 basic sections:

1. "The Crisis of Our Age" (Chapters 1-4)
2. "The Recovery of Knowledge" (Chapter 5)
3. "Renovation of the Soul" (Chapter 6)
4. "Restoration of the Kingdom's Miraculous Power" (Chapter 7)

Chapters 1-4 describe in lucid detail the reason we need the Kingdom Triangle right now. Our culture is in a state of crisis, and Moreland explains the what, why, and how of it. With sharp awareness, Moreland has observed and studied our world and its history, recognizing what God intended, and pinpointing how we've gone against those intentions. Having failed as a race to follow God's intended course has resulted in a widespread crisis, namely, our abandonment of classic philosophy and life practice in exchange for modern substitutes. The inevitable outcome has been a pandemic case of human enslavement to "the empty self". We have exchanged the "thick" worldview of Christian monotheism for the "thin" worldviews of scientific naturalism and postmodernism. Moreland explains what is required for today's church to function as God intended, encouraging readers to effectively take action, penetrating the culture around us.

Moreland brings the reader up to date on the relevant facts of the matter and writes informatively about the subject of knowledge. This is the heaviest and deepest part of the book, which Moreland admits. But he also encourages the reader that these things are essential for everyone in the church to understand. He writes as clearly as possible on these complex issues, sharing great wisdom in a way the layperson can understand.

Having set the stage with the appropriate background, Moreland now moves on to explain the "triangle". First, he explains the importance of knowledge and its importance, recovery, and value for the Christian church. Second, he concisely explains the role of spiritual formation and discipleship in the inner life of a Christian, giving a brief overview of some classic spiritual disciplines. Finally, he completes the triangle with a thoughtful discussion of the role of the Holy Spirit's power in the life of the church, manifested in various miraculous signs, wonders, and providential acts. This section will be one of the biggest and most useful wake-up calls to many readers. Moreland sensitively presents well-informed ideas about the supernatural realities absent in so much of the Western church, while they thrive in other parts of the world.

Moreland is one of today's greatest Christian philosophers and thinkers, and his years of experience spill forth in this book. He has gleaned rich knowledge and experience from various mentors and friends and from his own spiritual journey. The range of books he has studied is vast and his careful research is evident throughout.

While reading, the value of this inspired book quickly became apparent to me. By the time I was done, there was no question: Kingdom Triangle has climbed to the top of my personal stack of "the greatest books of all time," sitting right there with my Dallas Willard collection. The book demands that the reader change his or her life for the best - which is my favorite kind of book. The challenges presented are very relevant for the current Western church, and Moreland argues for them masterfully. If I had to pick one part that most affected me, it would be the section where he explains a plan for living a life of self-denial, taking up your metaphorical cross (Mark 8:34-35), and living to love and serve others, after Christ's own example.

I can't recommend the book enough. I think every Christian in our culture should read it, consider its truth, discuss it with friends, and apply its wisdom to a life of spiritual transformation. Pastors, grab a copy and start recommending it to others. This book is an honest and realistic call to participate in the life of greatness God has designed us for in his eternal kingdom.