Let the Modern World Make You Uncomfortable

Jake Meador challenges the church to rethink its attachment to the American way of life.

For all the talk these days about the dangers of Christian nationalism, there seems to be scarcely any consensus among believers on what building (or restoring) a genuinely Christian nation would actually entail. This makes Jake Meador’s new book, What Are Christians For?: Life Together at the End of the World, especially noteworthy, in that one could characterize it as a quest to envision a country truly guided by biblical beliefs.

Mind you, this is no attempt to “take America back for God” or to portray the Land of the Free as Christ’s chosen nation. Instead of pining for a lost golden age, Meador charges the church today to live by the biblical values we say we exalt, even at the cost of leaving behind our culture’s golden calves. As he puts it, “What would it mean for America to be an authentically Christian nation? It will mean a repudiation of the beliefs and views that assail the cause of life and threaten justice.”

Meador, editor in chief at Mere Orthodoxy, has written a hard-to-pigeonhole book, one that does not fit easily along any simplistic ideological spectrum. He is less interested in seeking a moderate balance between the warring poles of Left and Right than in rejecting the “inhumane and deeply anti-Christian” assumptions of our tribalized thinking.

Plenty of readers will appreciate Meador’s strong defense of the family or his careful and compassionate explanation of the classical Christian position on sexuality and marriage. But his not-so-subtle criticism of the American way of life will not sit well with those seeing the world through red-white-and-blue-colored glasses. You could say that he does not play nice with others, but he provokes in the ...

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from Christianity Today Magazine
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