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- Life in the Negative World: Confronting Challenges in an Anti-Christian Culture
Life in the Negative World: Confronting Challenges in an Anti-Christian Culture
|
Aaron Renn | Zondervan Academic
- $43.99
Life in the Negative World: Confronting Challenges in an Anti-Christian Culture
1 review
|
Aaron Renn | Zondervan Academic
- $43.99
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From a peak in church attendance in the mid-20th century, Christianity has been on a trajectory of decline in the United States. In the first phase of this decline, society was still largely positive toward Christianity and Christian moral teachings. Toward the mid-90s, cultural shifts led many to adopt a more neutral tone toward the Christian faith, seeing it as one option among many in a pluralistic public square. Today, however, Christianity is viewed negatively, and being known as a Christian means a lower social status in elite society. Christian morality is repudiated and viewed as a threat to the new moral order.
In Life in the Negative World, author Aaron Renn looks at the lessons from Christian cultural engagement over the past 70 years and suggests specific strategies for churches, institutions, and individuals to live faithfully in the "negative" world--a culture opposed to Christian values and teachings. Many of the strategies Christians found useful to engage the positive and neutral worlds no longer work today. The negative world will require a diversity of strategies and there is no one size fits all solution.
Today, Christians must begin thinking like a "moral minority." Learning how to live in the negative world will require experimentation, trial and error, and adaptation over time, but there are ways to live with integrity and follow Christ today, even in a negative world.
240 pages.
R
R.A. Aaron Renn is one thinker who has his finger on the pulse of shifts and movements within the evangelical world. If you’ve been reading his blog, this is basically that in book form. His main idea is that we should remain (prudentially) engaged with the world - not primarily against nor withdrawn from it - and obedient to God’s word, especially as being a Christian is no longer a culturally positive or neutral thing (hence the negative world). The old ways (culture warrior, seeker-sensitivity and ‘faithful presence’) are not helpful techniques in the new context.
This book is mostly for an American context but there’s still a lot that Aussie readers can glean from it, especially the chapters on gender and the overall concept of a negative world. I also liked his application of Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s ideas on black swans and antifragility (although some of these ideals are out of reach to many). Generally speaking, it is more of a book to kickstart a conversation about how Christians engage in a context that is new to Christianity in the West, rather than outlining exactly how.
One great observation is that modern secular culture no allows for a private faith. We must fall in line. There’s a positive angle to this - we need to be wise about how we engage as God’s people, and be willing to suffer or be cancelled in retaining our faithful witness.
Overall, I recommend it if you’re unfamiliar with Renn’s ideas but it wasn’t anything new if you’ve followed him for some time.
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R
R.A. Aaron Renn is one thinker who has his finger on the pulse of shifts and movements within the evangelical world. If you’ve been reading his blog, this is basically that in book form. His main idea is that we should remain (prudentially) engaged with the world - not primarily against nor withdrawn from it - and obedient to God’s word, especially as being a Christian is no longer a culturally positive or neutral thing (hence the negative world). The old ways (culture warrior, seeker-sensitivity and ‘faithful presence’) are not helpful techniques in the new context.
This book is mostly for an American context but there’s still a lot that Aussie readers can glean from it, especially the chapters on gender and the overall concept of a negative world. I also liked his application of Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s ideas on black swans and antifragility (although some of these ideals are out of reach to many). Generally speaking, it is more of a book to kickstart a conversation about how Christians engage in a context that is new to Christianity in the West, rather than outlining exactly how.
One great observation is that modern secular culture no allows for a private faith. We must fall in line. There’s a positive angle to this - we need to be wise about how we engage as God’s people, and be willing to suffer or be cancelled in retaining our faithful witness.
Overall, I recommend it if you’re unfamiliar with Renn’s ideas but it wasn’t anything new if you’ve followed him for some time.
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