No stranger to Modern Reformation readers, Dr. Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville, is a well-known conference circuit speaker, frequent guest on the Larry King show, and one of the few bloggers worth reading. He is also a key leader of conservative evangelicalism in America and an articulate spokesman for the cause. Thus, it is a delight to have a collection of his thoughts on a variety of topics conveniently put together in this small but densely packed collection.
While much of Mohler's book is occupied with criticism of contemporary culture, it is worth noting at the outset that the book itself is something of a useful accommodation to that culture. Small in physical size, with twenty brief essays, I would suggest that it is ideally suited to the commuter/iPod lifestyle-you can carry it without inconvenience; and on a twenty-minute train journey or while waiting for a bus, you can read just one or two of the pieces and still find yourself intellectually and spiritually challenged. Books like this make reading palatable-and beneficial-to those who cannot face the full 1,000 pages of, say, Augustine's City of God. An accommodation to the culture of which Mohler is suspicious, perhaps; but a useful and indeed subversive one at that.
The essays cover a wide variety of topics, from the relationship of faith and politics, to Supreme Court rulings on religion to abortion to Martin Luther King, Jr. Given the distinctive role each of these plays in American culture, this book will be of limited immediate interest to those outside of the United States; although, of course, it is always useful to see how Christians in different cultures relate their faith to the wider social and moral context.
In commenting on specifics, I will confine myself to some of the more provocative essays (I say more because Mohler is rarely less than provocative!). The essay on the use of torture in the war on terror is brilliant. Mohler understands the world is fallen; he also understands the pragmatic nature of much that goes on in politics, particularly during times of conflict and fear; yet he makes a good case for a categorical ban on the use of torture, even as he concedes that, in extreme cases, such a ban might have to be transgressed. We will inevitably have dirty hands, he says; but we should not compound that fact by adopting dirty rules, as advocated by legal thinkers such as Alan Dershowitz. Rules express aspirations and shape society; they speak of the deepest values; to break rules in extremes is one thing, but to institutionalize dirt is quite another. While Mohler does not make further applications, what he says here could clearly be applied to a number of pressing issues in modern society.
I confess that the essay where I found myself most in disagreement with the author was that on public schooling. Mohler is committed to the position that sees it as important for Christians to withdraw from the public school system, which he regards as under the control of secularists with a clear agenda for subverting the minds and morality of the nation's youth. He supports this with various examples: the impact of Dewey's pragmatic secularism on educational philosophy and policy, and a number of cases involving sex education in school. As one committed to the public school system, all I can say is that the picture painted here has not been my experience as a parent; and as for shocking headlines of discipline breakdown-the most notorious near-massacre in my area was planned by a homeschooled child. The bottom line is that one could trade anecdotes about education all day long: the situation is simply too complicated and too variegated across the country to allow for sweeping generalizations. But even here, as I found myself in strong disagreement with the author, I confess that his approach challenged me to think more deeply about my own commitments.
Perhaps the most moving essay is the final one: a reflection on the famous 1963 speech by Martin Luther King, Jr. in Washington. Here, Mohler reflects not simply on the aspirations of King but on his own Southern childhood and on the changes he has witnessed in his own life, vis–vis race relations in the United States. He also points to the special and unhappy role that Southern conservatives historically played in matters of race. He closes with an appeal to acknowledge that only the transforming power of Christ can bring about true and ultimate reconciliation of the races.
This is a great little book. As a card-carrying European, I do not share Dr. Mohler's conservative politics, which do undergird much of what he says at points; but I do share his belief in the authority of Scripture, in a Pauline understanding of humanity, in the transforming power of Christ, and in the need for Christians to engage thoughtfully with the pressing needs of the day. This book has helped me immensely in the way it has stimulated me to think-even or perhaps especially at those points where I disagree with the author. Every thoughtful Christian should buy it and read it-even if the only time you have in your day is the twenty minutes when you are waiting for a train.
