Book Review: Culture Shift

Title:  Culture Shift

Author:  R. Albert Mohler, Jr.

Publisher:  Multnomah Books

General Subject Matter:  Apologetics, Christian Living

First Copyright:  2008, 2011

Type:  Paperback

Price:  $12.99

ISBN: 978-1-60142-381-8

In establishing the purpose of the author, it is necessary to quote from his preface, "...we are swimming in one of the most complex and challenging cultural contexts ever experienced by the Christian Church...How are Christians to remain faithful as we live in this culture? How should we think about so many of the critical moral questions of our day?" 

The purpose is seen in Mohler's last sentence in the preface, "My hope is that these essays will assist you as you seek to be faithful to Christ as a concerned and intelligent Christian." The purpose of this book is to assist the reader in understanding and responding to the ever changing culture in which today's believers are living.

Theme:  The battle for the moral heart of America
Thesis:  This is trustworthy help for developing a comprehensive Christian worldview based on timeless truth

Mohler develops his thesis by the method of argumentation. Mohler uses the technique of persuasion to establish the truths of his thesis. The author presents twenty five components of today's culture and explores them through the means of a short essay. Mohler uses these short essays to explore the effects that these components have on today's culture and argues how the reader is to respond to them.

Culture Shift is a very interesting book. Mohler's style of writing easily holds the reader's attention. Mohler is very objective as he identifes cultural trends and develops suggested response. This is an imporant book with a very important message for believers today. Even though each essay is very short and condensed, Mohler carefully chooses what information to convey in order to get the most "bang for the buck." These essays are of the utmost value to the reader enabling the reader, especially the Christian reader to respond in a biblical manner.

Mohler argues that these cultural entities are not "merely academic." He states that every  believer will be touched by them at some point in his or her life-time. This is a powerful proposition with which I agree. Mohler argues that our homes are constantly invaded by the culture that is all around us. Again, I agree that whether it be through media, electronic sources, or people we work with or worship with culture changes will effect each of us. 

Areas from homosexuality, morality, situation ethics, public schools and their agenda, abortion, character to the new American family, impact every human being, including believers requiring a response. The believer must develop a biblical world-view in order to respond in a biblical manner.

The author is readily and more than able to address these areas of culture. Dr. R. Albert Hohler, Jr., is president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Dr. Mohler writes a popular blog is writes regular comments at AlbertMohler.com. He is an acclaimed and accomplished author. Time.com has called Dr. Mohler the "reigning intellectual of the evangelical movement in the U. S."

Due to each chapter having footnotes listed within the chapter there is no end notes section. There is no index nor bibliography.

In summary I found the book to be very interesting and compelling. The content of Culture Shift is very relevant for today's Christian. My general conclusions include a high recommendation to every believer to read this book. It is my opinion that Mohler has given the Christian Community an excellent tool with which to think about the response required to the cultural shifts in our country and community today. This book is a trustworthy help for developing a comprehensive Christian worldview based on timeless truth

America’s Most Famous Preacher Turned 93

For the Rev. Billy Graham, America’s most famous evangelist across a career that lasted some six decades, the prospect of old age and death was for a long time something he tried not to think about, despite his convictions about the eternity that awaits human beings.

“I fought growing old in every way,” Graham, who turned 93 on Monday, writes in the newly-published “Nearing Home,” a book that ranges from Scripture quotations about the end of life to brass tacks advice on financial planning. “I faithfully exercised and was careful to pace myself as I began to feel the grasp of Old Man Time. This was not a transition that I welcomed, and I began to dread what I knew would follow.”

Graham’s book, his 30th, comes not only as he reaches another year, but as America’s huge Baby Boom generation moves into old age, its senior members now eligible for Social Security and retirement.

Graham, spent most of his life as an Arminian neo-evangelical attempting to reach the multitudes for Christ by mass evangelism. Graham during his long tenue as a preacher and evangelist has "broadened" the gospel beyond its biblical limits by being a part of the dumbing down of the good news. At times it was difficult to support Mr. Graham due to his salvific and redemptive universal tendencies. You see this especially in an interview that he gave in 2006:

"In Graham's view, the core message of the Gospel, and the love of God "for all people" should take priority..But more recent years have given him something he had little of in his decades of global evangelism: time to think both more deeply and more broadly....He.refuses to be judgmental.thinks God's ways and means are veiled from human eyes and wrapped in mystery. "There are many things that I don't understand," he says. He does not believe that Christians need to take every verse of the Bible literally; "sincere Christians," he says, "can disagree about the details of Scripture and theology-absolutely"..he is arguing that the Bible is open to interpretation, and fair-minded Christians may disagree or come to different conclusions about specific points. Like Saint Paul , he believes human beings on this side of paradise can grasp only so much.

"Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror," Paul wrote, "then we shall see face to face.".."As time went on, I began to realize the love of God for everybody, all over the world," he says. "And in his death on the cross, some mysterious thing happened between God and the Son that we don't understand. But there he was, alone, taking on the sins of the world..I spend more time on the love of God than I used to.".. When asked whether he believes heaven will be closed to good Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus or secular people, though, Graham says: "Those are decisions only the Lord will make.I believe the love of God is absolute. He said he gave his son for the whole world, and I think he loves everybody regardless of what label they have."

Meacham, Jon. Newsweek Magazine . 14 August 2006. Excerpt from interview with Billy Graham. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14204483/ .

Monday Facts

Monday Facts

 is a weekly blog party

designed to help you meet other bloggers.

 

 Tell us about your weekend,

 or give us some random facts.

Share your Monday post, and link back here! ☺

In conjunction with Seams Inspired's Party, I give you my Monday Morning Facts, for what shall we say? For your enjoyment, entertainment, encouragement, curiosity, concern, comprehension, snoopiness, wonder, amusement, to tickle your funny bone, and or your inquisitiveness!

Fact: Our old Wal-Mart reopened as a new Wal-Mart Super Store. Other than the "sad" deli, I love it. 27,000 square foot of bargains in a one stop shop. Longview (WA) now has two Super-stores. Thank God we don't have to drive to the other side of town any more.

Fact:  If lovin' Wal-Mart is wrong, I don't ever want to be right. I have never been and never will be PC (politically correct.) Sorry 'bout that, hope we can still be friends.

Fact:  This was the easiest "time-change" ever for me. Gotta love "fall-back."

Fact:  This past Saturday I made the best home-made beef stew ever. Simmered it all day in a dutch oven on the stove and hmmm mmm mmm! As Andy Griffith would say, "Them's good eats!"

Fact:  I bought the debut Michael Grimm CD and he is good. He deserved to be the Season 5 winner of America's Got Talent. Good album, can't wait for Eugene Landau Murphy, Jr.'s CD to come out.







Fact:  Gracious is the LORD, and righteous; our God is merciful. (Psalms 116:5, ESV)

Fact:  I graduated from the MCRD-San Diego January 17, 1973 in Platoon 2134. We began boot-camp with 72 recruits in our platoon and graduated 56. The other 16 were either held back and recycled through another platoon, dishonorably discharged, held in the brig, and one or two committed suicide. I think it was two who couldn't take the pressure of Marine Corps boot-camp.

Fact:  I love George Jones and his daughter's (Georgette Jones) latest duet, You, and Me, and Time. Can you believe he is 80 years old. I love his voice.

Fact:  They are almost all gone. When they are all gone, who will fill their shoes? Buck Owens, Conway Twitty, Porter Wagoner, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Ernest Tubb, Charlie Rich, Tammy Wynette, Hank Williams, Sr. - are gone and absolutely irreplaceable.

George Jones, Merle Haggard, Alan Jackson, George Strait, and Loretta Lynn is about all we have left of real authentic country music. The rest is what I call just bad rock-n-roll.

Fact:  I loved Law and Order Season One so much, Law and Order Season Two is on its way. Buying them used is so much cheaper than what the stores want for them.

Fact:  Thanksgiving Day is only 18 days away. I better get "jiggy-with-it" if I am going to plan, purchase, prepare, and present a Thanksgiving Day dinner for the fam!

Fact:  San Francisco 49ers are 7 and 1! Maybe we can go to the playoffs this year?

Living in the Fullness of the Gospel

The gospel, or as we also know it, the good news is not merely the "assurance" that we have secured a place in heaven, or that we are guaranteed that we have escaped hell. The gospel is, as Paul said in Romans 1:16-17, "the power of God unto salvation..." The gospel is so much more. The gospel includes the glorious news that God has been completely appeased and has fully forgiven or pardoned us of the sin that was charged against us in His dear Son.This realization enables us to begin each day realizing that we are fully accepted by God not on the basis of our performance and righteousness, but on the basis of the performance and righteousness of Jesus Christ. The gospel includes the glorious reality of the resurrection of Christ which ensures each believer that our daily life is lived in the power of the Son of God and that we too will be one day resurrected. Paul was anxious to preach the gospel to the believers at Rome. Why? He knew that acceptance, forgiveness, sanctification, and our glorious hope of final redemption is contained in that good news of God. He was anxious to remind the Romans of all that they had and all that they were because of the gospel. Are you living in the fullness and comfort of the gospel? Why not?

-- Gregg Metcalf

A Must Read...

Love is the Sum of All Virtue

“When God and man are loved with a truly Christian love, they are both loved from the same motives. When  God is loved aright, he is loved for his excellency, and the beauty of his nature, especially the holiness of his nature; and it is from the same motive that the saints are loved – for holiness sake. And all things that are loved with a truly holy love, are loved from the same respect to God. Love to God is the foundation of gracious love to men; and men are loved, either because they are in some respect like God, in the possession of his nature and spiritual image, or because of the relation they stand in to him as his children or creatures – as those who are blessed of him, or to whom his mercy is offered, or in some other way from regard to him. Only remarking, that though Christian love be one in its principle, yet it is distinguished and variously denominated in two ways, with respect to its objects, and the kinds of its exercise; as, for example, its degrees etc.”

--Jonathan Edwards

Calvin Commenting on the Incarnation

John Calvin’s Institutes, Book II, chapter 12, section 1:

————————

It deeply concerned us, that he who was to be our Mediator should be very God and very man. If the necessity be inquired into, it was not what is commonly termed simple or absolute, but flowed from the divine decree on which the salvation of man depended. What was best for us, our most merciful Father determined? Our iniquities, like a cloud intervening between Him and us, having utterly alienated us from the kingdom of heaven, none but a person reaching to him could be the medium of restoring peace. But who could thus reach to him? Could any of the sons of Adam? All of them, with their parents, shuddered at the sight of God. Could any of the angels? They had need of a head, by connection with which they might adhere to their God entirely and inseparably.

What then? The case was certainly desperate, if the Godhead itself did not descend to us, it being impossible for us to ascend. Thus the Son of God behooved to become our Emmanuel, the God with us; and in such a way, that by mutual union his divinity and our nature might be combined; otherwise, neither was the proximity near enough, nor the affinity strong enough, to give us hope that God would dwell with us; so great was the repugnance between our pollution and the spotless purity of God. Had man remained free from all taint, he was of too humble a condition to penetrate to God without a Mediator. What, then, must it have been, when by fatal ruin he was plunged into death and hell, defiled by so many stains, made loathsome by corruption; in fine, overwhelmed with every curse? It is not without cause, therefore, that Paul, when he would set forth Christ as the Mediator, distinctly declares him to be man. There is, says he, “one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus,” (1 Tim. 2: 5). He might have called him God, or at least, omitting to call him God he might also have omitted to call him man; but because the Spirit, speaking by his mouth, knew our infirmity, he opportunely provides for it by the most appropriate remedy, setting the Son of God familiarly before us as one of ourselves. That no one, therefore, may feel perplexed where to seek the Mediator, or by what means to reach him, the Spirit, by calling him man, reminds us that he is near, nay, contiguous to us, inasmuch as he is our flesh. And, indeed, he intimates the same thing in another place, where he explains at greater length that he is not a high priest who “cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin,” (Heb. 4: 15)