“If we wanted to find Jesus, we would have to lose our religion.” That is the first line of Russell Moore’s 2023 book, “Losing Our Religion.” Dr. Moore speaks from the point of view of evangelical leadership, but also as a contrarian, standing up to the status quo of much of the modern evangelical church that in a sense has lost its way both through cultural inculcation and political conflation.
Unfortunately, those on either side of the culture wars within church, those who need to hear what Moore has to say, are the ones that will tend to reject to book out of hand. Those who hold strongly to the belief that the church must be in the political fight to save our way of life think they already know where he stands. Progressives, who may merely laugh or cry at it all, do so at their own risk because his points are just as relevant for them. Set aside your ingrained cultural proclivities and hold onto your belief in the truthfulness of the Bible long enough to get to the end of the book.
[Update: As an elder in my church, I purchased the book as part of research for our leadership board to write and publish a position paper on the relationship of the church to politics. Like most churches, the combination of Covid and the political climate in America weakened the sense of community that should exist within a local body of believers. Not even the pastoral staff agrees on these subjects, so the paper (we have written on other topics) will act as a guide for counseling, teaching, and preaching on the subject if/when appropriate. For a deeper and more theological perspective on this issue, I can highly recommend "Five Views on the Church and Politics," published by Zondervan and also available on Amazon.]
In this book Moore brings his voice from over the past several years into focus and is, in part, speaking his personal pain and, in part, attempting to speak prophetically to the American evangelical church. If you are really interested in what he has to say, you must read through the former to get to the latter, and, for the most part, it is worth it. Moore makes his point by making five core observations regarding the church’s current predicament and offers suggestions for individual believers to respond in a Biblical manner by answering a question he poses in each chapter. Here are the points and the questions. You can read his answers in the book and consider them accordingly.
1. Losing Our Credibility: How Disillusion Can Save Us from Deconstruction
When we protect the institution of the church as we currently maintain it, even despite its flaws and sometimes outright sinful behavior, and even when that becomes public knowledge, the credibility of the gospel we claim to proclaim is lost. So, what can you do to follow Christ in a time when the church seems to be losing credibility at a rapid pace?
2. Losing Our Authority: How the Truth Can Save Us from Tribalism
Christian nationalism, even in its softest form, is at odds with the truth of Scripture. To the extent the church holds to this, and similar, errancies, and not the authority of Scripture, it loses its moral authority and becomes just one more tribe in the culture wars. So, what can you do as you stand firm in the gospel and hold to the truths of the Bible in a post truth culture?
3. Losing Our Identity: How Conversion Can Save Us from Culture Wars
While realizing that “nothing is new under the sun,” the intensity of today’s culture wars, fueled by identity politics and social media, can cause believers to identify with a tribe and bring their tribal faith with them to church, rather than identify as believers, and parse the truth – if any – out of the rhetoric. So, what should you do to hold fast to the kind of conversionism that can counteract the ever-heightening culture-warring and ever-expanding political idolatries of the moment?
4. Losing Our Integrity: How Morality Can Save Us from Hypocrisy
When we fail to believe and live the true Biblical gospel – exchanging it for a lie of some sort, the world sees the gospel as a lie. Believing in and living out the True gospel of Scripture creates integrity both in us individually and within the church and gives credibility to the culture around us of what we say whether they like hearing it or not. So, if you want a different path forward, what should you do?
5. Losing Our Stability: How Revival Can Save Us from Nostalgia
Looking back is never the answer, but it can provide encouragement. Illustratively, while Samuel’s Ebenezer was a remembrance of God’s provision and salvation, the pillars of smoke and fire were evidence of God’s leading to the fulfillment of His promise, followed in faith because they led those loved by God one day at a time. Fear should not destabilize us into returning to the past but energize us to follow the God who cares and knows. So, what can we do in the face of the crumbling of American Christianity?
Moore’s Conclusion?
American Christianity is in crisis. The evangelical church is a scandal in all the worst ways, and we bear the responsibility for that (elsewhere he has apologized for the part he played in that within his own denomination); some of us even contributed to it. We cannot simply “will it away” by shrugging our shoulders and saying, “That’s just the way people are.” The fact is, “Jesus Saves,” even if those words are associated with bad behavior.
American evangelicalism may or may not be there for the future, but someone will be. As long as there’s a church (and there will be until Jesus returns), there will be people within it reminding everyone else that the Sprit blows where He wills, and that there’s hope, no matter how far gone a person goes, to be born again.
Losing Our Religion: An Altar Call for Evangelical America
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