Now it is not my typical response to pick up a Christian sociology book, not because it doesn’t interest me, but because I am typically more interested in the Christian Living or discipleship book about an issue that I am struggling with or feel God is leading me to deal with – often buying the book assuages that feeling for a little while… Occasionally, I even by books because dear friends are struggling with certain issues or because I’m trying to answer somebody’s ridiculously in-depth or outrageous questions that I never had with my faith. If nothing else, the Christian sociology books just tend to be outside my small budget. So why on earth did Gabe Lyons’ book catch my eye? Honestly, because it is a book about active faith. Not activism, mind you, which is purely political in nature, but faith that motivates real, practical action to fix the problems in our world.
The premise on which the book is built is based on research that Lyons’ non-profit organization did a few years ago, talking with teens about how they view faith and spirituality and the Christian name. I do understand that there are good reasons why teens and young adults have issues with their faith. Honestly, I can say that I, and a few too many of my friends, used to be among them. Our connotation when we heard the word Christian wasn’t good, and we brought a few strange ideas to the table, even if we were, ourselves, nominally Christian. Quite simply, over the last forty to fifty years, Christians have fallen from grace and from prominence of voice in the American culture. What Lyons did in this book is capture the heart of the movement of Christianity in America that will carry it into the future. It’s the type of movement that restores grace and gives Christians a voice. What makes it awesome is that Lyons gives words to the movements and changes that Christian leaders who work among teens and young adults have been seeing for the past several years.
So what’s so different about these “new” Christians? To describe them in a single word, restoration marks these new Christians. They are moving away from a “Me”-centered faith to a faith that recognizes how they fit in the world. When these new Christians find problems with their world, instead of withdrawing into themselves or deciding to just go with the flow and live among the failures of the world, they take action. They recognize that the Gospel does not start with their sin and does not end with their salvation, but that a grander plan is at work. They start at the beginning, with the created, perfect world, and end with that perfect world being restored, and they realize that THEY have an active role in creating that restoration.
In his book, Lyons talks about six dimensions of this new Christian, contrasting them with past generations of Christianity and giving living, vibrant examples of people who have put his dimensions into practice. He gives real examples, like the non-profit organization To Write Love On Her Arms (TWLOHA), whose t-shirt design was one of Hot Topic’s best sellers for quite some time, and Paste magazine, whose founders chose to evaluate contemporary and pop art based on its artistic quality, not on the artist’s character or social faux paux.
While the book often seems to lack the scriptural references that are expected of any book in the “Christian” section of your local bookstore, Lyons does insert scripture at strategic points. He uses scripture less as the recipe, forming the definition of Christianity, instead focusing on movements in Christianity and showing how they are re-conforming themselves to scripture. This creates an interesting dynamic, because he explains where these new Christians are going, then anticipates people taking offense and correctly invokes scripture to affirm the offensive movements. In fact, for a sociologically-minded, rather than a discipleship-minded, perspective, he does, in fact, make the correct choice in using less scripture, thus creating a book that is more accessible to a secular audience, because it becomes a book about what Christianity IS instead of what it is supposed to be.
Despite the incredible strengths and occasional weak points in this book, I fell in love with it and with Lyons’ message for two reasons. First, I have seen countless numbers of his points proven true in both my own life and the lives of my friends, thereby giving confirmation to the movement he is recording. And second, as a campus minister working with the same population on which his research is based, I began to recognize the grand opportunity I have to bring this movement of restoration in Christianity to my students, specifically to my Mexican students. For so many years, the reason I ran from faith was because I recognized that the Bible spoke of active faith, yet everywhere I turned, faith was presented to me as passive and without lasting impact. My faith became my own when I finally encountered restoration-minded Christians, whose faith lead to real, tangible action. Now, my act of restoration is to pass on the restoration mind-set to my college students, who can take that restoration to so many more corners of the world and of Mexico than I could ever dream of gaining access to.
The premise on which the book is built is based on research that Lyons’ non-profit organization did a few years ago, talking with teens about how they view faith and spirituality and the Christian name. I do understand that there are good reasons why teens and young adults have issues with their faith. Honestly, I can say that I, and a few too many of my friends, used to be among them. Our connotation when we heard the word Christian wasn’t good, and we brought a few strange ideas to the table, even if we were, ourselves, nominally Christian. Quite simply, over the last forty to fifty years, Christians have fallen from grace and from prominence of voice in the American culture. What Lyons did in this book is capture the heart of the movement of Christianity in America that will carry it into the future. It’s the type of movement that restores grace and gives Christians a voice. What makes it awesome is that Lyons gives words to the movements and changes that Christian leaders who work among teens and young adults have been seeing for the past several years.
So what’s so different about these “new” Christians? To describe them in a single word, restoration marks these new Christians. They are moving away from a “Me”-centered faith to a faith that recognizes how they fit in the world. When these new Christians find problems with their world, instead of withdrawing into themselves or deciding to just go with the flow and live among the failures of the world, they take action. They recognize that the Gospel does not start with their sin and does not end with their salvation, but that a grander plan is at work. They start at the beginning, with the created, perfect world, and end with that perfect world being restored, and they realize that THEY have an active role in creating that restoration.
In his book, Lyons talks about six dimensions of this new Christian, contrasting them with past generations of Christianity and giving living, vibrant examples of people who have put his dimensions into practice. He gives real examples, like the non-profit organization To Write Love On Her Arms (TWLOHA), whose t-shirt design was one of Hot Topic’s best sellers for quite some time, and Paste magazine, whose founders chose to evaluate contemporary and pop art based on its artistic quality, not on the artist’s character or social faux paux.
While the book often seems to lack the scriptural references that are expected of any book in the “Christian” section of your local bookstore, Lyons does insert scripture at strategic points. He uses scripture less as the recipe, forming the definition of Christianity, instead focusing on movements in Christianity and showing how they are re-conforming themselves to scripture. This creates an interesting dynamic, because he explains where these new Christians are going, then anticipates people taking offense and correctly invokes scripture to affirm the offensive movements. In fact, for a sociologically-minded, rather than a discipleship-minded, perspective, he does, in fact, make the correct choice in using less scripture, thus creating a book that is more accessible to a secular audience, because it becomes a book about what Christianity IS instead of what it is supposed to be.
Despite the incredible strengths and occasional weak points in this book, I fell in love with it and with Lyons’ message for two reasons. First, I have seen countless numbers of his points proven true in both my own life and the lives of my friends, thereby giving confirmation to the movement he is recording. And second, as a campus minister working with the same population on which his research is based, I began to recognize the grand opportunity I have to bring this movement of restoration in Christianity to my students, specifically to my Mexican students. For so many years, the reason I ran from faith was because I recognized that the Bible spoke of active faith, yet everywhere I turned, faith was presented to me as passive and without lasting impact. My faith became my own when I finally encountered restoration-minded Christians, whose faith lead to real, tangible action. Now, my act of restoration is to pass on the restoration mind-set to my college students, who can take that restoration to so many more corners of the world and of Mexico than I could ever dream of gaining access to.
