Life in the Negative World: Confronting Challenges in an Anti-Christian Culture

Aaron Renn | Zondervan Academic

  • $43.99

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R
R.A.
Good overview to Renn’s ideas

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 His main idea is that we should remain (prudentially) engaged with the world - not primarily against nor withdrawn from it - and obedient to God’s word, especially as being a Christian is no longer a culturally positive or neutral thing (hence the negative world).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.