Uncompromised Faith: Overcoming Our Culturized Christianity

President of the Center for Christ and Culture in Dallas, Craven, a business executive turned minister, is long on passion but late to the discussion on postmodernism, which he sees as a socially corrosive philosophy nonetheless declining in influence. He notes, however, that the philosophy accepts that we cannot know all things and thus allows us to rediscover humility. He examines issues shaping culture today and argues that Christianity has become irrelevant in shaping society. He then seeks to promote Christian influence by engaging culture with what the Bible says about consumerism, marriage, homosexuality, spirituality, feminism. He concedes, for example, that some Christians have suppressed human rights in the name of religion, but “the Christian God is actually the foremost advocate of equality between the sexes.” Conservative readers will find a champion for not only resisting cultural shifts but actually reshaping culture with a Christian worldview, but other readers may question such sweeping assertions as “prior to the sixties, America’s moral consensus was largely derived from distinctly Christian principles and values—in essence a Christian worldview.” (Jan. 30)