We the church have always been the extension of God’s grace that has given splendor and stability to America. However, odds are rising that a downturn is coming to our culture and our country. How do we answer the seminal question Francis Schaffer asked 50 years ago: How should we then live?
A former student, John Dickerson, is a gifted writer, a professional journalist, and a courageous pastor who holds to a Free Grace theology. He has written The Great Evangelical Recession. It is an insightful book concerning the sociology and spirituality of the evangelical movement and I encourage you to read it. But today, I would like to recommend for your consideration his latest book, Hope of Nations (Zondervan, 2018). This is a grand sociological and spiritual assessment of our America and what and how the church can and must respond considering and concerning our corrupting culture.
Understanding Our New Reality
“When did it become normal and routine for us to daily expect news of another terror attack, shooting, or act of evil?
We are pummeled each day with news of bloody terror attacks, social rioting, deep political hatred, missile launches, global unrest, and moral blindness here at home. Worse than the happenings themselves is the response from many of our neighbors and leaders. Where there was once a civilized pursuit of truth and social cohesion, there is now hatred, division, dishonesty, and destruction.
In the static noise of these cycling conflicts, we sense that we are losing something foundational – an entire way of life. We sense that the world our children and grandchildren inherit may be unrecognizable from the life of peace, stability, freedom, and prosperity that we once knew in America and the West.
The great cataclysm of this era is not merely a catastrophe of disconnected events, but fully the collapse of a culture, a society, a civilization. In moments of perspective, we suspect we’re not living through typical shifts in a stable society. No, it seems the tectonic plates are rupturing deep beneath our civilization.
This book explains – definitively, simply, and accurately – just what is happening in our world, our nation, and our society. This book enables you to see where these events are leading and why they are happening. This book combines the research of a decorated journalist with the Bible teaching and guidance of a pastor and bestselling author.
On this eye-opening journey, we will combine cultural reporting, surprising new data, global understanding, Scripture, and history to answer the four pressing questions of our day:
- What in the world is happening?
- Why are these things happening?
- Where will all of this lead?
- And, most importantly, how do we live like Christians now?
As the nations shake in fear, we will gain sure footing by rooting ourselves in Scripture
and in timeless truth. So many of our neighbors are confused and increasingly in a panic. But we can know with confidence what is happening, why it’s happening, and where it will lead. Ultimately, we can be people who stand strong because our lives are built upon the Hope of Nations.
More than ever, our divided society needs people who model true love, true courage, and true leadership. This book equips you to be such a person.
With an understanding of the times, we can be people of stability. Built on the unshakable Hope of Nations, we can be together a people of stability. We can lead families of stability, churches of stability, and organizations of stability – even within a shaking world.
We can be God’s anchored people, full of understanding, compassion, faith, hope, and resolve. We can be the people who shine bright the Light of the world and who declare the Hope of Nations.”
I hope you will consider this insightful book for your summer reading. Also, see our web page for other books and resources for this summer.
Serving Him with you until He comes for us,
Fred Chay, PhD
Managing Editor, Grace Theology Press
