What accounts for the negative perception that non-Christians generally seem to have about Christianity in America? According to Gabe Lyons, one problem is the failure of the Christian community to recognize and adapt to the characteristics of a post-Christian American culture (pp. 4, 21-27).He suggests that this failure to recalibrate has left the church without traction in modern America and has made her an object of disdain in eyes of the broader culture. Nevertheless, Lyons remains hopeful that a rising movement of Christians whom he calls Restorers provides a remedial example as they recapture the full gospel and navigate the opportunities afforded by our changing social terrain.

The book is divided into three sections, the first of which (chs. 1-4) measures the current relationship between Christianity and contemporary American culture. Chapters one and two observe that the church no longer occupies a central role in Western culture. Lyons notes three unprecedented cultural characteristics that have shifted Christian values to the social periphery in recent years: we now live in a pluralistic, postmodern, and post-Christian society (pp. 21-27).Despite resistance by Christians who have attempted to preserve America as “a sacred Christian nation,” the change is irreversible (pp. 26-27).The church lost the culture war, though Lyons believes this may be “the stirrings of something beautiful” (p. 28).

In the third chapter, Lyons describes three broad approaches to Christian cultural involvement. The first is the antagonistic approach of the Separatist Christians, who are admittedly spiritually devoted (p. 38), but generally “unconcerned about the social consequences of their tactics” (p. 37).Lyons roots this mentality in Fundamentalism, stating that its true objective was “combating a secular America” (p. 39).The Cultural Christians make up the second category, and are recognized by their active involvement in the community, “but offer little in the way of distinction” from the culture (p. 43).The chapter closes by introducing the Restorers, a third, emerging generation of believers who approach culture with a mission to tell the world about Jesus and “to infuse the world with beauty, grace, justice, and love” (p. 47).

Chapter four argues for the need to amend our popular and truncated understanding of the gospel, which “reduces the power of God's redeeming work on the cross to just a proverbial ticket to a good afterlife” (p. 51).In particular, the “next Christians” (i.e., Restorers) have regained an appreciation for the roles that creation and restoration play in the gospel story (pp. 50-51).Personal redemption is not the final goal, but rather “the beginning of our participation in God's work of restoration in our lives and in the world” (p. 53).The Restorers believe they play a role in the restoration chapter of God's gospel story as those “called to partner in a restorative work so that the torch of hope is carried until Christ returns” (p. 55).In the meantime, the next Christians work to “give the world a glimpse of what the world looked like before sin entered the picture” (p. 59).

Part two provides seven chapters of everyday portraits that illustrate distinguishing characteristics of the next Christians. Lyons recounts numerous stories of Christians engaged in a wide spread of cultural activities, ranging from a makeshift home rehab center (pp. 71-73) to male fashion models building homes in New Orleans after hurricane Katrina (p. 120).Among other things, he illustrates that Restorers tend to be creative social contributors (pp. 91-108), view their employment in terms of “calling” (pp. 109-26), and place a high value on community (pp. 147-63).Here we see the Restorer in action, “partnering with God to breathe justice and mercy and peace and compassion and generosity into the world” (p. 59).

The third part of the book echoes the conviction that Christians must recover the full gospel, a message that calls for Christians “to partner with [Jesus] to renew and restore the creation to its fullest potential” (p. 208).Once this priority is in place, Christians will realize that they must disperse throughout society and “take seriously their call to proclaim and embody the gospel in everything they do, everywhere they go” (p. 214).

The Next Christians helpfully explains the cultural shifts that have led to the depreciation of Judeo-Christian values in the American public square. The book persuasively explains how Christians have mishandled the shift by attempting to preserve America's so-called “sacred” status, which has not only led to the ill-repute of the Christian community, but to countless numbers of Christians who have a largely antagonistic posture toward society. Lyons's call for and multiple examples of engaged, compassionate, and community-minded Christians is an inspiring alternative and should provoke the pursuit of salty, God-glorifying lifestyles “in every channel of culture and every sphere of social interaction” (p. 67).Should faithful believers strategically scatter in this way, perhaps it would help reverse an unfortunate stigma incurred by Christians in America.

These helpful correctives are nevertheless tinged by Lyons's presumption that a Christian's cultural activity is unquestionably regarded as partnership with God in his restoration of the cosmos (a major premise of his paradigm).The notion is stated but undefended and results in numerous overstatements that indicate that Christians are virtually ushering in the new earth through civic involvement. For Lyons, “restoration living can flood and transform our entire cosmos” as Restorers “partner” with God to “restore every corner of the earth” (p. 65).The suggestion that God calls Christians to “redeem” the world (p. 192) not only embellishes the nature of a Christian's social activity, but grinds against Scripture's clear teaching that the earth remains in unredeemed bondage until the bodily resurrection (Rom 8:21).

A related and more fundamental concern is Lyons's misguided attempts to stimulate “restoration” activity with a defective understanding of the gospel. Though he is perhaps correct to suggest that a full rendering of the gospel-story should include Christ's eventual “restoration of all things” (p. 50), he nevertheless mistakenly argues that the gospel also proclaims that we Christians are God's means of this restoration: “The good news for humankind is that we are . . . purposed to partner with [Jesus] to renew and restore the creation to its fullest potential” (p. 208).Though this news will undoubtedly motivate “bored Christians” with “jobs they can get excited about” (p. 60), it apparently does so by loading Christian obedience into the gospel message itself. Rather than rousing love for our neighbors by announcing the redemptive and restorative accomplishments of Christ alone, we are provoked into action by a gospel that tells us that we are responsible to perform God's act of restoration in partnership with him.

In The Next Christians, the good news of the dawning of God's cosmic restoration is too quickly identified with Christian civic influence, as though the two are coterminous. Certainly both are biblical, and perhaps they are in some sense related. Christ has inaugurated the new creation (e.g., 2 Cor 5:17), and Christians should labor for the good of society (e.g., Titus 3:1-2). But far more care must be taken to define what elements of the new creation are already breaking in and to what extent, if any, civic engagement counts as such.

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