The New Evangelical Influencers

Each generation of evangelicals has looked to certain thought leaders for direction and inspiration.  Whether it was Wesley, Whitfield and Spurgeon or Billy Graham, James Boice and John Stott, these people had an outsized influence on the evangelicals of their day.  In my formative years, the voices of James Dobson, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson defined the culture wars that shaped a generation.  These days, there are many new voices that are influencing evangelicals in ways both big and small.   I realize that any attempt to create list like I have done is always nuanced by one’s own perspective and seat in the evangelical big tent.  With that caveat stated, I do believe that these voices are having a broad influence today across denominational lines and previously established boundary lines.

Al Mohler is the President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and prominent blogger at www.albertmohler.com.  He is a part of a group of significant reformed Baptists who are making an impact far outside of their own circles of influence.  Despite being a theologian, he also writes in an accessible way for the lay person and his blog is read by people all across the evangelical spectrum.  He is also a significant voice into the wider secular culture and while taking on some of the same issues from the past, he is doing so in a more thoughtful and respectful way.  Just this past week, he wrote an insightful blog post for Christianity Today on the impact of Tim Tebow’s decision not to speak at First Baptist in Dallas.

Ann Voskamp is a Canadian farmer’s wife who exploded onto the larger evangelical stage with the publication of her best-selling book, One Thousand Gifts.  Her blog, www.aholyexperience.com is widely read and is now one of the most popular evangelical blogs on several ranking systems.  Her highly literate and unique writing style is simple and complex at the same time and is considered an acquired taste by some.  Her focus on the beauty of some of the most mundane aspects of life have deeply influenced her writing and brought a new emphasis on gratitude as a key element in worship and daily Christian experience.

Mark Driscoll is the founder and current preaching pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, Washington, co-founder of Churches Helping Churches and the Acts 29 Network.  He is a prolific speaker and writer and has been at the forefront of new preaching style that has been described as casual, but direct.  Some have attributed his success to his direct answers to complicated spiritual questions.  He has drawn some controversy due to his style of preaching and his outspoken complementarian views of gender roles.  At times, his statements have been a lightning rod for the more progressive elements of evangelical Christianity.

John Piper is a reformed Baptist preacher and prolific writer.  His Desiring God Ministries and widely popular blog www.desiringgod.org/blog have had an international influence that is continuing to grow.  His writings have significantly influenced this generation of preachers and he is often quoted in sermons around the country.  His influence extends through conferences like Together for the Gospel and his affiliation with the Gospel Coalition.  Like others in this list, he has occasionally been controversial, particularly in the recent debate about Rob Bell when he famously tweeted “Farewell Rob Bell” regarding the publication of the book Love Wins.

David Platt is the head pastor of The Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, Alabama, and he is also the author of the New York Times Best Seller Radical: Taking Back Your about Faith from the American Dream.  Like Ann Voskamp, he exploded onto the evangelical scene more recently and almost exclusively due to the success of his first book.  As a younger evangelical, he has a broad appeal to the next generation.  I had the privilege of hearing him speak at the Urbana Student Missions conference in December and have never seen someone who was so passionate that they seemed out of breath before they even started speaking.  His orthodox Christian teaching combined with a strong appeal to mercy and justice in the here and now for the least of these is a compelling message.  His approach seems to be very effective in bridging the gap from the evangelists and culture warriors of previous generations to those who see social justice as a key component of evangelical Christianity today.

 Francis Chan is the former teaching pastor of Cornerstone Community Church in Simi Valley, CA; a church he and his wife started in 1994.  He is also the author of the best-selling book Crazy Love and popular conference speaker.  As a widely respected younger evangelical voice, he has been able to present gospel centered, orthodox Christian teaching in refreshingly new and accessible ways to a generation of evangelicals that have become cynical about the consumeristic faith often found in mega churches.  This was particularly helpful when he wrote the book, Erasing Hell as a counterpoint to Rob Bell’s controversial book Love Wins. 

Rachel Held Evans is one of the most prominent voices among progressive evangelicals these days.  Her blog www.rachelheldevans.com is extremely popular and she is the author of the books Evolving from Monkey Town and the recent best seller, A Year of Biblical Womanhood.  She is an outspoken proponent for an egalitarian view of gender roles and has drawn controversy for her views on science and faith, and a desire to see evangelicals approach homosexuality from a more charitable perspective.  While many conservative evangelicals will struggle with her perspectives, she maintains that her views are orthodox and has a significant influence on thought leaders in the next generation.

 Justin Taylor and the Gospel Coalition – Justin Taylor is the writer of the Between Two Worlds blog that is now hosted by the Gospel Coalition Website.  He is a VP for Editorial at Crossway books and a very influential behind the scenes evangelical.  His blog was regularly ranked as the most popular evangelical blog for a number of years and is still very popular.  Through his blog and his work at Crossway, he has been a voice for the new young reformed writers and speakers that have had a major influence on this generation of evangelicals.  He may be best known in recent years for doing a critical review of Rob Bell’s Love Wins book prior to its publication and identifying Rob as a Universalist in his blog post.  The Gospel Coalition is now the most prominent voice for these young reformers and Justin is making sure that their views are heard.

Tim Challies – is a Canadian blogger (www.challies.com) and book reviewer.  His tag line on his blog is “informing the reforming” and that has been his calling card for many years.  Aside from Justin Taylor, Tim may be the most prominent voice in the young reformed movement and his blog is certainly one of the most widely read.  Well known for his extensive book reviews, he is both loved and hated for his critiques.  He has become known is some circles as the gatekeeper of orthodoxy for the reformed reader and thinker.  This has led to his panning some very popular Christian books like The Purpose Driven Life and Heaven is for Real while championing some lesser known authors.  His views led him to criticize Ann Voskamp’s book One Thousand Gifts, but also resulted in an apology to her in a later blog for the tone of his original blog post.

Tim Keller – is the founder and senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City.  He is also the author of several best-selling books including the deeply influential The Reason for God.  His passion for urban ministry and willingness to deal with the hard questions has helped his ministry to grow dramatically.  Today, he is a world renowned figure in evangelicalism and speaks across the globe.  Many consider him a modern day successor to C.S. Lewis and one of the most lucid apologists for the Christian faith in this generation.  He is a co-founder of the Gospel Coalition and a regular speaker at major evangelical conferences.

The Reading Gap

There is something about listening to public radio that I really love.  Very often they have chosen surprising or interesting topics and best of all they give time to the presenter or interviewer to really unpack the subject.  While I am certainly aware of the liberal bias in most secular media and even more so on PBS, I also recognize that they are often tackling subjects that no one else is.  Recently, I listened to an interview on Radio Times with Marty Moss-Coane that brought me to tears as I heard a story about children and books.

She was interviewing education researchers, Donna Celano and Susan Neuman about their newly-published book, Giving Our Children A Fighting Chance, in which they studied two Philadelphia neighborhoods — one in Chestnut Hill and the other in North Philadelphia — and found that children living in poverty have significantly less access to materials like books, magazines and computers that help them learn to read. They made the case that it is this early disadvantage that follows children through the years and has serious implications for their economic prosperity and social mobility contributing to a cycle of poverty.

What was so interesting about this interview was their focus on the public library as the locus of their research.   While there are libraries in both North Philly and Chestnut Hill and both have lots of kids in them, there were some stark differences as well.  One of the main differences they pointed out was the interaction of parents and other adults with the books and the children.  In Chestnut Hill, parents were frequently reading to and with the younger children and in many cases helping them to select books that were age appropriate and also challenging the kids to read harder books.  In North Philly, no one was reading to or with the kids and in most cases they were left to fend for themselves.  In addition to this clear difference, there was a stark contrast in the number of books being checked out to be taken home.  Many more books, on average, were being checked out by patrons in Chestnut Hill than in North Philly.

As they continued the interview and discussed the importance of books and reading in the early educational process, they also took calls and discussed these issues with the public.  One caller made the point that even libraries were being made less available to impoverished neighborhoods as budget cuts in the cities took hold.  They went on to claim that there were now no public libraries in the city of Camden (queue the tears from me).  Ironically, a few days later, Marty’s team on Radio Times, corrected this claim with information that there were still two libraries open in Camden – as if that is so much better.

While pondering this story, I could not help but reflect on my own childhood which was filled with books, reading and the wonder of learning.  Our home was packed with the Hardy Boy’s mysteries, Sugar Creek Gang books, Little House on the Prairie series and of course the Narnia books by C.S. Lewis.  While we may not have had a lot of things as missionary kids, we always had books.  This legacy of reading is something that my parents passed on to me and is one that I treasure to this day.  I cannot imagine how impoverished my world would have been without them.

This contrast of two neighborhoods just a few miles apart on Germantown Avenue was so startling and yet only a reflection of a wider global challenge.  When I went to Liberia last year, I discovered an entire country desperate for good quality reading materials after years of devastating war.   This was true for both adults and children.  How could parents even conceive of reading to their children if they did not have books themselves and might not have been able to read because schools were closed during their formative learning years?  What a travesty.  This is also a devastating problem in parts of the world where religious and cultural intolerance prevents girls from going to school at all and reading is considered a great luxury.

As I considered what to do about this problem that seems so overwhelming, it seemed like one of the solutions was right in front of me.  I could donate children’s books myself and work to encourage our organization to do the same.  Interestingly, CLC has already done some great work in providing children’s libraries in Sierra Leone.  That, however, did not feel like a sufficient response.  Then it hit me.  Maybe I could find some kids to read to and pass on this passion for reading that was instilled in me.  So, look out – the reading time in your local CLC bookstore in Philly may be brought to you at times this summer by a short, balding white guy who cries too easily while listening to public radio.

 

What Goes Into the Mind?

There are some things that are simply distractions to me when I am driving and then there are some things that cause me nearly drive off the road.  The billboard you see in this post was one of those near accident causers.  When I thought I had seen it all (and clearly I have not), this appeared ahead of me as I was driving north on I-95. While it may be hard for me to make a direct connection from this billboard to specific marital infidelities, it is not hard for me to connect the dots from what goes in the mind to what comes out in a life.  This kind of “mind pollution” is all to common in America these days and does not even require a billboard.  For many of us, these kinds of salacious suggestions occur in the average television show, most movies and on the internet.

To avoid these kinds of mind pollution is nearly impossible unless you are Amish or dead and these days, even the Amish minds are under attack.  It is very clear to me that avoiding the culture is not a real option, but changing it is.  The culture I am referring to though, is not the broader culture, but the culture of our minds, our homes and our lives.  An old saying says, “Change begins with us.” and I believe that now is the time for some of us in the evangelical community to take that seriously.  We need to stop trying to change those around us and start working on ourselves first.

One of the best ways that I know to begin this is to be intentional about what goes into our minds.  It is like any diet – what we feed ourselves changes the way we look, act and feel.  So what are we feeding ourselves?  This would be the point in the blog where I could take pot shots at all media and suggest you stop watching TV, going to movies or using the internet and simply start reading books.  That however, is too easy, and too self serving for a guy who loves and sells books.  The reality is that we need a gospel transformed media consumption plan.  We need to pass all our media through the grid of the gospel and ask the right questions.  Is this helpful, useful, edifying or entertaining (and yes I do believe that Christians are allowed to enjoy wholesome entertainment)?  Simply asking yourself, “Why am I watching or looking at this?” is a great diagnostic question to begin with.  Far too often we become media zombies that are simply numbed to reality of what we are letting into our minds.

With that said, I do believe that there is a vital place for books in your gospel transformed media consumption plan.  If you make the effort to simply list books that you plan to read and then begin doing it one at a time, you will be amazed at the difference it will make in your life.  Recently, I have begun setting aside specific times in the day when the only thing I allow myself to do is to read the current book that I am working on.  This can be over a lunch break or before bed in the evening.  I am a firm believer that what goes into your mind right before you go to sleep can even impact your subconsciousness and your dream life.  The investment of time to feed your mind the right things is at least as important as making an effort to choose healthy food to eat.  If you care about your body, you should care about your mind even more because, “What goes into the mind comes out in a life.”

 

The Ten – Recommended New Books to Read this Spring

1. Iscariot by Tosca Lee – I am starting my recommendations list with a fiction title that was a startling read from beginning to end.  It was on the “must read” list of several of my friends and I recently got an advance copy.  Tosca Lee is known for her exploration of maligned characters, strong prose and solid research.  She has previously co-written with Tedd Dekker and this made me a little suspicious of the content and how graphic it might be.  While she certainly does portray the gritty side of life at the time of Christ, she does an amazing job of sticking to the story of Judas as she envisioned it.  I had never spent much time thinking about the context of the times in which Judas was raised and the extent of Roman oppression that he and the Jews lived under at that time.   Her description of his baptism and meeting Jesus is worth the price of the book alone.  The ending is a surprising, but believable interpretation of what may have led Judas to betray Jesus that will keep me pondering for a long time to come.

2.  Unstoppable by Nick Vujicic – After seeing Nick on Oprah’s Master Class show recently where he was featured along with Rick Warren, I knew that I would want to read this book.  Having recommended his last book in the fall, I can’t wait to spend some time being blown away again by a person who should not be so joyful.  By any definition, without arms and legs, he could be very bitter and withdrawn.  Instead, he is one of the most outgoing, popular and motivating people in the world.  His ability to accept the circumstances he has been dealt and still love and praise God is simply amazing.  As Oprah said, “His story will shut you up”.  I am particularly glad that he has used his massive worldwide platform to give glory to the God who made Him and loves him.  What an incredible testimony.

3. God on Fire by Fred Hartley – this is a CLC book and I am the publisher so I need to start with that disclaimer.  That said, this is one of the most impactful books that I have ever been involved with in my time with CLC and that includes a lot of books and authors.  Fred is a lead pastor in Atlanta and President of the College of Prayer International.  This book unpacks the concept of experiencing God for real – his tangible presence, not just a head knowledge that he is everywhere.  It’s premise is that so many Christians and churches today understand God in the big sense (his omniscience) but have never actually encountered him the way that Moses did in the burning bush or the disciples did at the day of Pentecost.  This is not a book of extremist Charismatic motivational principles, but a book that challenged me to my very core.  Do I really long for the tangible presence of God and am I ready for what can happen when God makes Himself real in this way?  This is a book that should be read by anyone who is interested in revival either personally or in the life of the church. 

4. Thoughts to Make Your Heart Sing by Sally Lloyd-Jones is the new book by the best selling children’s author of the Jesus Story Book Bible.  It is illustrated again by the amazing artist Jago and is a wonderful to read to a with your young kids.  It is a gorgeous and innovative collection of 101 simple-yet- profound thoughts on faith. Thoughts to Make Your Heart Sing shares profound spiritual truths from the Bible told in a conversational tone—drawing insights from creation, history, science, the writings of great thinkers and preachers and writers, and more—to turn the reader’s eyes toward the God who loves them with a Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always and Forever Love.

5. Follow Me by David Platt is his follow up to the best selling Radical that so deeply affected me and others all over the world.  In this new book, Platt, contends that multitudes of people around the world culturally think they are Christians yet biblically are not followers of Christ.  He deals head on with the question, “What did Jesus really mean when he said, “Follow Me”?  I just got my copy of this book and am almost afraid to open it as I know that it will be very convicting just like his first one.  Somehow, though, I know I need to read it as my heart is so often drawn to the things of this world and biblical truth is the only antidote.  

6. Desperate by Sarah Mae and Sally Clarkson is a book written for moms, but should probably be read by dads as well.  I love the subtitle – Hope for Mom’s Who Need to Breathe (though it should say parents).  It is endorsed by Ann Voskamp and described as for those who love their children to the depths of their souls but who have also curled up under their covers, fighting back tears, and begging God for help. It’s for those who have ever wondered what happened to all their ideals for what having children would be like. For those who have ever felt like all the “experts” have clearly never had a child like theirs. For those who have prayed for a mentor. For those who ever felt lost and alone in motherhood.  I need this book and I am not a mom – though I might share it with one who is.

7. RELAUNCH by Mark Rutland is a very interesting book that I have just finished reading.  Mark is considered a turn around expert in evangelical circles and has been responsible for bringing new vitality to a megachurch and two colleges.  His most recent claim to fame is taking the helm at ORU (Oral Roberts University) after Oral Roberts’ son Richard Roberts resigned from the presidency of ORU on November 23, 2007 after being named as a defendant in a lawsuit alleging improper use of university funds for political and personal purposes, and improper use of university resources.  The principles in this book are very similar to the ones first presented by Jim Collins in his seminal book, Good to Great.  The difference, however, is how he applied many of them to a not-for-profit Christian context.  I highly recommend this to any Christian leader facing challenging circumstances in their organization.

8. Dangerous Calling by Paul Tripp came out last fall, but I am including in this list as I am just getting around to reading it and I think it is a very important book for all pastors.  Paul Tripp is a world renowned speaker, author and conference presenter who has written a lot on parenting and marriage.  His global platform has enabled him to interact with many pastors over the years and this books is written for them.  He has discovered a serious problem within pastoral culture.  He is not only concerned about the spiritual life of the pastor, but also with the very community of people that trains him, calls him, relates to him, and restores him if necessary.  Dangerous Calling reveals the truth that the culture surrounding our pastors is spiritually unhealthy—an environment that actively undermines the wellbeing and efficacy of our church leaders and thus the entire church body.  It is a book that both diagnoses and offers cures for issues that impact every member and church leader, and gives solid strategies for fighting the all-important war that rages in our churches today.

9. God’s at War by Kyle Idleman is my second follow up book that I am recommending in this list.  Kyle’s first book, Not a Fan, challenged readers to take a hard look at why they were following Jesus.  In this new book, Idleman helps every believer recognize there are false gods at war within each of us, and they battle for the place of glory and control in our lives. What keeps us from truly following Jesus is that our hearts are pursuing something or someone else. While these pursuits may not be the ‘graven images’ of old, they are in fact modern day idols. Behind the sin we’re struggling with, the discouragement we’re dealing with, the lack of purpose we’re living with is a false god that is winning the war for our hearts.  Idleman is the Teaching Pastor at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky, the fourth largest church in America.

10. Dirty God by Johnnie Moore.  Moore is an author, pastor, advisor, professor of religion, and a vice president of Liberty University.  He is young and Dirty God is sure to establish him as an emerging voice for Millennial and Gen-X evangelicals for years to come. In this book,  he draws on both Scripture and his extensive experience with other cultures and religions to show how the God of the Bible is unique in his willingness to be near us in all of our messiness. Moore outlines the central importance of the doctrine of grace while introducing readers to a humble and human Jesus who reaches out to us at our worst and pulls us up to our best.