A Passionate Review

Culture Shift
R. Albert Mohler Jr. Colorado Springs: Multnomah, 2008. 160 pp. $14.99 (hardcover)

Navigating western culture is like navigating a ship in thick fog, without a compass, in the midst of a field icebergs that are moving all the time. It would be one thing to navigate through a field of icebergs without fog and with a compass and with stationary icebergs but the mixture of those things altogether spells one thing: shipwreck. Sure and imminent destruction is what awaits the poor mariner who attempts to navigate this sea. Does the word, “perilous,” come to mind? Let me explain. Most days I follow a fairly consistent routine: I wake up, get dressed, read my Bible and study, and then check the news via my friendly internet provider. Then the confusion sets in. Even after a few minutes on Reuters or the BBC everything gets foggy and starts to feel dangerous. Abortion, international strife, genocide, rape, murder, fierce political debate, and scandal all add to the haze. If these things were reported without bias as mere news it may not be so horrid, it would be horrid no doubt, but less horrid. Most news articles serve to lend to the confusion because of the clear and obvious agendas that are barely hidden beneath the surface. Often it is nearly impossible to tell what is good and what is evil because the lines between the two are completely blurred or what one will say is good in one article another will say is bad in another article. So I get away from the cursed screen and abandon trying to wade through it all and go out into the workplace. Here I am assailed by co-workers who could do or say just about anything in a given day. Whether it's talking about their explicit sexual escapades from the evening before, how staggering smashed they were at the party last night, or the recent CNN special on how Jesus bones were found or the Bible can’t be true, there is sure to be plenty of offensive talk, gossip, and slander. It can be just as confusing and sometimes outright dangerous if not more so than reading the news, especially if one is a monogamous truth loving Christian. On a good day I usually leave feeling at best fatalistic or at worst highly melancholy. Relieved from the day’s duties I may go grocery shopping or to some other retailer to run the days errands. Here, I am assaulted by materialism at its best with items in each section of the store screaming, “Buy me I’ll make your life better!” and then at the checkout line are the wonderful magazines that were clearly not edited by anyone with any specific morals and which shout for you to pick apart the woman on their glossy covers. In short, by the time I get home I have spent the day being assaulted by myriads of worldviews, hundreds of people without any moral compass, and everyone with different interpretations of life. Understand the icebergs in the fog metaphor now? I need a lucid guide who understands the world I live in. Of course, the Bible is my ultimate compass by which I live, and evaluate the world I live in, but every once in a while a person comes along who speaks 21st century language with convincing clarity and applies the Bible to my situation. I need those people, all generations need those people, and most generations have had one or more of those types who have spoken to the issues of their day through writing or other forms of cultural commentary. R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville Kentucky, is just such a man. In the midst of the perilous field of icebergs in the fog I need someone who knows where I’m coming from and what I need to hear. In his brutally clear book, Culture Shift, Al Mohler is a sure guide and a wonderful mentor to help us navigate the danger.

The day I found out Mohler had a book in the works I went straight to my local Christian librarian and bade him pre-order it for me. I wanted my copy as quickly as possible. Why did I want the book so bad? Mohler has been something of an anchor for me in the midst of, no pun intended, a changing culture. I discovered Albert Mohler in the midst of a time of life in which I was morally and culturally confused, unsure of how the church should conduct itself in matters of postmodernism, politics, and life in general. The very first time I heard him he was sounding the call that we should love the homosexual but hold fast to the biblical truth that homosexuality was sin and should not be permitted in our churches or in our lives. It was after this, in exploring his blog, listening to his radio program, and watching more addresses from him that I became convinced that postmodernism needed to be addressed strongly and biblically and that, in Paul’s words, the church is “the pillar and support of the truth,” in a reeling culture of relativism. Whether it has been his brilliant response to the New Atheists, his compassionate call to love homosexuals but address sin as sin, or his extremely lucid, practical, everyday responses to everyday questions in a confused and confusing world, there is no one more qualified to write this book.

Culture Shift’s driving force is a clear call to engage the world that is around us with the gospel, especially in issues political. It is driven by the questions, “How are Christians to remain faithful as we live in this culture? How should we think about so many of the crucial moral questions of our day?” Says Mohler,

“These questions are not merely academic . They will eventually touch every church and every Christian family. Our homes are constantly invaded by the culture all around us. Our children are targeted by advertisers and the marketplace of ideas. Entertainment has become a constant - symbolized by the satellite dish and the iPod. There is no place to hide.”

This nails the issue square on the head and characterizes Mohler’s cogent prose throughout the entire volume. Naturally the most commendable thing about this book was his constant return to the gospel as a central driving force for me to engage in politics and to wage active worldview war with the culture I am steeped in. The questions begin to be answered for us as Dr. Mohler writes that whatever our bent in today’s moral confusion,

“Disengagement from critical issues is not an option. . .We love our neighbor because we first love God. In His sovereignty, our Creator has put us within this cultural context in order that we may display His glory by preaching the gospel, confronting persons with God’s truth, and serving as agents of salt and light in a dark and fallen world. In other words, love of God leads us to love our neighbor, and love of neighbor requires our participation in the culture and in the political process.”

Further,

“As evangelical Christians we must engage in political action, not because we believe the conceit that politics is ultimate, but because we must obey our Redeemer when He commands us to love our neighbor.”

The message is clear: to be a true witness to the gospel I must be an active Christian in a fallen world. This is no social gospel but the reality of the situation. Remaining aloof from politics and the moral wars therein is not allowed by my Lord!

What things does Mohler say we ought to be active in? Culture Shift is set up from several of Dr. Mohler’s commentaries published on his blog. The book spans everything from “Christian Morality and Public Law” to the use of torture in the war on terror and from abortion to the moral implications of America’s bombing of Hiroshima. As always with Dr. Mohler my favorite of his theses involves abortion and the strange confusion that has set in during the course of the American history of this debate. In addressing this issue he looks at a certain woman named Rebekah Nancarrow and how this woman was set on having an abortion, until she saw her baby via ultrasound. Commentating as he does so well Dr. Mohler says,

“That one shot was all it took. Once she saw the image of her living baby, she lost all interest in her abortion. . .The panic setting in among the abortion rights crowd is understandable. Once a woman sees the baby living in her womb, abortion is revealed for what it is - the murder of a living human being. Needless to say, this gets in the way of the abortion rights agenda and cuts into the profits of the abortion industry. . .The abortion-rights movement has finally met its match. The abortion industry is scared to death of the fetus, knowing that the mere image of a living baby in the womb is the refutation of every argument they can assert and all coercion they would employ. . .As Rebekah Nancarrow came to understand, she was carrying a baby, not a glob of tissue. That vision of life changed everything. Now, the question comes down to this: who’s afraid of the fetus?”

Need I say more? Al Mohler’s Culture Shift is surely worth the 15 dollars!

Francis Schaeffer once said,

“No discipline has tended to think more in a fragmented fashion than the orthodox or evangelical theology of today. Those standing in the stream of historic Christianity have been especially slow to understand the relationships between various areas of thought. When the apostle warned us to ‘keep [ourselves] unspotted from the world,’ he was not talking of some abstraction. If the Christian is to apply this injunction to himself he must understand what confronts him in his own moment of history. Otherwise he simply becomes a useless museum piece and not a living warrior for Jesus Christ.”

This was in 1968, well before modernism met its timely demise, and was written with the same intention that Al Mohler seeks in Culture Shift. It is prophetic of our own times. What looked like a building problem in 1968 has become a reality 40 years later: Christians are either giving in entirely to the confusion wrecking their ships on the moving icebergs of western culture or are simply dropping anchor in the middle of everything hoping that no icebergs come and hit them. These proverbial icebergs will one day collide with those who refuse to attempt navigation of the dangerous waters. The Christian living in these times who desires to navigate the field of icebergs that is western culture would be wise to listen to those who speak truth into the world surrounding them and, with Culture Shift, cultural commentator R. Albert Mohler Jr. has given us a wonderful and practical tool with which to navigate. I wish that every “lay” Christian would read this or at least have a copy on the shelf for when the confusion sets in.

Happy Reading!

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Ryan Thompson has been rocked by Al Mohler and encouages you to go check out his blog here. He also advises you to keep your eyes open for Mohler's soon to be released critique of the New Atheism and to go listen to Mohler on the New Atheism at the Dallas Seminary website.

Coming Wednesday May 14,

Ryan Thompson reviews R. Albert Mohler Jr.'s "Culture Shift."

While this review was originally slated for mid April, the "end-of-year freak outs" assailed Ryan at Emmaus Bible College, the school which he is currently attending, but have now subsided and the dust has settled.

Ryan resides in Dubuque Iowa with his wife of 2 years and attends a wonderful "Plymouth Brethren Assembly" which he dearly loves. While attracted to most of their Ecclesiology and just about all of their Eschatology he has a passion to see a Reformed Soteriology take hold and become revived among the "Peculiar People," especially among the younger constituency.

This passion has led him to John Piper and thus, eventually, Albert Mohler. It is with excitement and a feeling of privilege that he reviews this book.

The Cross: God’s Way of Salvation
Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Crossway Books, 1986, 224 pages, $12 (paperback)


Few books have impacted me emotionally as “The Cross” by D. Martin Lloyd-Jones. The first 100 pages flew by me late one Wednesday night leaving behind a small, broken man on the floor crying out in worship and thanksgiving. Page by page Mr. Lloyd-Jones, like a jeweler examining a diamond in the light, shows the reader different beautiful facets of the cross – that antinomy of the terrible and beautiful together. In this brief outline, I’ve decided to let Lloyd-Jones’ own words do most of the work to show the beauty and message of this book.

The book begins by explaining that the cross is what the apostles gloried in, and how Jesus’ life and teaching make no sense preached apart from the shadow of the cross.

“Now at the risk of being misunderstood I will put it like this: It is not primarily the teaching of our Lord. I say that, of course, because there are so many today who think that this is Christianity. They say, ‘What we need is Jesus’ teaching. He is the greatest religious genius of all times. He is above all philosophers. Let us have a look at His teaching, at the Sermon on the Mount and so on. That is what we want.’ ‘What the world needs today,’ they say, ‘is a dose of the Sermon on the Mount; a does of his ethical teaching. We must preach this to people and teach them how to live.” But according to the apostle, Paul, this is not their first need. And I will go further. If you only preach the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ, not only do you not solve the problem of mankind, but in a sense you aggravate it. You are preaching nothing but utter condemnation, because nobody can ever carry it out. So they did not preach His teaching. Paul does not say, ‘God forbid that I should glory, save in the Sermon on the Mount’ or ‘God forbid that I should glory save in the ethical teaching of Jesus’. He does not say that. It was not the teaching of Christ, nor the example of Christ either. What they preached was His death on the cross and the meaning of that event.” pp. 20-21

We see in Proverbs 17:15 that anyone who justifies a wicked man is an abomination to God, but later in Romans 4:5 we find Paul glorying that God has done that very thing – justified the wicked! How do we unlock these two contradictory statements? The cross is the key. A large and wonderful portion of this work is dedicated to the question posed to Spurgeon’s listeners 100 years prior, ‘How can a holy and just God forgive sinners without becoming an abomination to Himself?’

“No, we do not understand the righteousness of God. That is why modern man does not believe in the blood of the cross. He does not know what righteousness is. He does not know what justice is or what law is. He does not believe in discipline, and his world is becoming a hell for that reason. But God is righteous, he is the law giver, he is holy, he is of so pure a countenance that he cannot even look upon sin; and God cannot pretend that he has not seen it. God sees sin. He sees everything. He must punish sin. His own holy nature insists upon it and he has told us abundantly that he is going to do so. So here is the problem. Man is a guilty sinner, God is a holy God. How can the two be brought together? The answer is the cross of Christ.

…So what was happening on the cross was that God himself was laying your sins and mine upon his dearly beloved Son, and he paid the penalty of our guilt and our transgressions. “For he made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2Cor. 5:21). “The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6). That is what the Father did. What did the son do? He was passive as a lamb, he did not grumble, he did not complain. He took it all upon him. He allowed it to happen. He surrendered himself deliberately and freely.

“Who gave himself for (on behalf of) our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father” (Galatians 1:4). But still more wonderfully, in Galatians 2:20, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” pp. 32-33

The book is also a call for examination, echoing Paul’s own exhortation in 1st Cor. 13:5 to examine and test ourselves to make sure of our calling and election.

'The word 'glory' at once tells us at once that the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ is the test of every one of us. It is the test of our profession of Christianity. It is the test of our church membership, indeed, of our whole position and profession. There is no more subtle test of our understanding than our attitude to the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. In other words, the cross passes judgment on us all, immediately and of necessity. You cannot remain neutral in the presence of the cross. It has always divided mankind and still does. And what the apostle says is that there are ultimately only two positions with respect to it. The cross of our Lord Jesus Christ is either an offense to us or else it is the thing above everything else in which we glory.

My dear friends, there never can be a more important question than this: what does the cross do to you? Where do you find yourself as you think of it and face it? It is one of these two, it is either an offense or else you glory in it. Are we all clear about our position? Do we know exactly where we stand? There are some perhaps saying, 'Well quite certainly it is not an offense, to me, but I am afraid I cannot say I glory in it.' Well, my friend, you are in an impossible position. There are only two positions - offense or glory. As we value our immortal souls, let us examine the matter, let us look into it, let us see what the apostle has got to tell us here, and elsewhere in his writings, about these two positions, in order that we may know for sure." pp. 41-42

The book goes on to discuss the power of the cross whereby it was (and is) the means of the devil’s defeat, the amazing regeneratory strength of the cross whereby filthy, vile sinners can have peace with God, and the infinite worth of the cross whereby the Son of God gave up his very communion with His Father to save those who hated him. At the same time, Lloyd-Jones glories in his admission that there is SO much more to that great cross than we will ever know.

Although considered one of the greatest preachers of the 20th century, surprisingly very few people outside the theological academy know of this great man and his writings. I am partial to think we can attribute this to peddling shallow, superficial and some down right worthless books in an attempt to simplify and “dumb down” truth in an effort to reach our increasingly dim church members. There are several deeply theological authors who are very readable and accessible to people of all walks of life, and Lloyd-Jones is one of them – Spurgeon also coming immediately to mind.

A concise work from a man not usually known for brevity (he has a 14 volume commentary on Romans!), I would (and will) recommend this book to all my friends, saved or lost. It’s a priceless work on the most important subject.

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Graeme Pitman wishes he could have had the opportunity to hear Martyn Lloyd Jones speak, but is grateful that God has preserved his and others words to help him find truth as he travels through a world of relativity.