The Way of the (Modern) World: Or, Why It's Tempting to Live As If God Doesn't Exist [Paperback]

Mr. Craig M. Gay (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 26, 1998

Does God really matter for today's Christians? Craig Gay addresses this issue in his The Way of the (Modern) World: Or, Why It's Tempting to Live As If God Doesn't Exist. Gay takes a critical look at the modern world and exposes the foundational worldview of contemporary secular society and the ideas that undergird modern culture. Gay shows how, for Christians, one of the most seductive temptations fostered by these ideas is the temptation toward practical atheism-living as if God does not matter. Practical atheism has become so attractive that even some Christian churches have embraced it. In The Way of the (Modern) World Gay describes in detail the far-reaching consequences of practical atheism and what it will eventually mean for Christians. Yet Gay is not without hope for today's Christians. Arguing for the eviction of certain modern ideas from our churches, he shows that there is a biblically sound way to live in but not of the world.

Product Details

• Paperback: 350 pages
• Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (June 26, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 080284362X
• ISBN-13: 978-0802843623
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #414,003 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Outstanding work of Christian Scholarship, June 7, 2003

By 

Gordon Hackman "absent minded prof" (Buffalo Grove, IL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Way of the (Modern) World (Paperback)

This is one of the best and most insightful (and dare I say important?) books I have ever read. It's clarity, depth of insight and profundity have few equals in contemporary scholarship. I am reminded, reading this book, of the first time I ever read Francis Schaeffer's "How Should We Then Live?" This book is equally profound in its insight and implications, but is a much better work of applied scholarship than that one is.

Gay's basic premise is that the forces that shape the modern world are not those things we see on the surface, but those hidden assumptions that permeate our understanding of ourselves and our world via modern politics, science and technology, economics, and psychology. Gay argues that these areas are often permeated with subtle "worldly" assumptions which drive our culture in a secular direction and make belief in God seem irrelevant or unrealistic. Not that Gay is against these areas of modern life per se, either. He simply wishes to make his readers aware of the danger in the assumptions that often lie beneath the surface of these areas that can influence us to "live as if God doesn't exist," even if we are professing Christians.

The book is extremely well researched and documented, and Gay spends a great deal of time, in each section of the book, setting up the historical factors that contributed to the rise of these worldly assumptions. In each chapter he also talks about the historical relationship between the Christian church and these different facets of modern life and how Protestant Christianity (Gay is a Protestant Christian) is, ironically, partly responsible for the rise of modern secularity. He concludes the book by offering some helpful reflections on how Christians should think and act in the secularized modern world.

Even though this book is a first rate work of scholarship, it is very lucidly written, and any intelligent and interested person should be able to follow the basic gist of Gay's argument. This has my highest recomendation.

12 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant and incisive critique of post modern world, November 22, 1998

By 

Cato Sapiens (Berkeley, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Way of the (Modern) World: Or, Why It's Tempting to Live As If God Doesn't Exist (Paperback)

Wide ranging and delightfully erudite but enlivened with a deft and engaging style, Gay gives fresh insight and thoughtful nuggets on every page as to "why it's tempting to live as if God doesn't matter" For so very long after C. S. Lewis, Christian scholars couldn't seem to put pen to paper without sounding like Jeremiah. Gay--and a few others in recent years--show that there need not be anything scandalous about the "evangelical mind."

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Valuable Critique and Challenge for the Modern Minister, July 12, 2000

By 

Ron Clark (Portland, OR, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Way of the (Modern) World (Paperback)

Gay does an excellent job summarizing the major problems of worldliness and modernity. He indicates that the issues of modernity involve "control". Science, socio-political issues, technology, and anthropocentrism are about control. This has created a consumer and self-absorbed culture which seeks to control the outcomes of their life, environment, and religious views. Gay indicates that this may be due to the former centuries' emphasis on rationalism. He believes that this rationalism is concerned with achieving predetermined results.

How does this affect the Christian? The cultural Christian has focused on self-therapy, religious freedoms, and a fear of commitment to community. The Christian becomes a private, lonely, and isolated individual.

Gay's solution is to view the self and culture in relation to the all-powerful God. God has created man in His image and the world as His special revelation. This view of creation, human image, and revelation calls humans to view themselves as part of God, rather than apart from Him. The culture may attempt to control but the Christian allows themself to be controlled by God and realizes that life is about obedience and joy rather than manipulation and lonliness.