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It is not very often that I read a book that I think every Christian must read, but occasionally I do.  This week I picked up a book I could not put down. When I finished it I thought every Christian serious about maintaining a Biblical faith in today’s world needs to read this.  The book is Albert Mohler’s latest work, We Cannot Be Silent.

We live in a culture that is redefining sex and morality.  Not only are they redefining morality, but they are beginning to ostracize and in some cases punish people who refuse to endorse the new morality.  The church is facing a choice: go the way of the culture or stand firm for God’s truth.  Many mainline churches are opting to go the way of the culture, but for any Christian who believes that the Bible is God’s inspired, inerrant, and authoritative Word that sufficiently tells us everything we need to know for life and godliness, there is no choice.  We must stand on God’s word and stand up for truth.  As the title of the book suggests, we cannot be silent.

The challenge is that for the better part of a century, large portions of the church have simply drifted along with the culture.  This worked because the culture made it comfortable for us.  But the moral revolution of our day is changing that.  Nominal Christians are questioning if they can continue to drift along with a culture that is overturning foundational truths like the definition of marriage…a definition that has stood for Christians and pagans alike for thousands of years.  Yet because we have grown so accustom to cultural comfort, Christians are finding it hard to stand firm in the face of mounting pressure to ignore God and embrace the new sexuality.

If the moral revolution of homosexuality and the transgender movement has not touched you or your church personally yet, it is only a matter of time. It is the world we live in.  The question we must ask is how do I faithfully minister the gospel to this culture?  That has always been the question, but for a long time, doing so did not cost North American Christians anything. The moral revolution is changing that.  Many churches are ill-prepared for this challenge. If you feel this way, then We Cannot Be Silent is for you.

Al Mohler is one of the best Christian thinkers of our day and he as helped the church immensely with this book.  The book begins by tracing the history of the moral revolution, recognizing that what we are seeing today is did not happen in a vacuum.  The capitulation happened long before the US Supreme Court redefined marriage.  For generations our culture has been chiselling away at the foundation of Biblical morality and marriage. The young generation is simply finishing what their grandparents started.  In doing this, Mohler identifies a larger issue than the sexual sin we see rampant today.  That is just a symptom.  The real issue is the relationship between God’s revealed truth, sinful man’s rejection of it, and the church’s unwillingness to stand firm on it. 

After helping us to understand how we got to where we are today, Mohler reminds us why God created marriage and calls us to maintain it even though it will cost us.  But what makes Mohler’s approach so helpful is that he calls us to not simply to stand up for the truth, but to do so in a loving and gracious way.  Our primary goal is not to stop the moral slide of our society.  Our goal must be to see lives transformed by the gospel of Jesus Christ.  To that end he helps us think though not only maintaining Biblical truth, but how truth can be graciously shown to non-Christians who are fully embracing the moral revolution and to those followers of Christ who are striving for victory over their sin. 

The sexual revolution is far from over.  If it hasn’t affected you yet, it will.  Faithful followers of Christ must be committed to maintaining God’s standards and communicating God’s truth to sinners, while remembering that we are sinners too.  Today’s culture demands that we think through these issues.  Need help?  Get your hands on a copy of We Cannot Be Silent and read it.