Losing Our Religion - by Russell Moore (Hardcover)

About the Book

"Former Southern Baptist pastor and Christianity Today editor-in-chief Russell Moore calls for repentance and renewal in American evangelicalism American evangelical Christianity has lost its way. While the witness of the church before a watching world is diminished beyond recognition, congregations are torn apart over Donald Trump, Christian nationalism, racial injustice, sexual predation, disgraced leaders, and covered-up scandals. Left behind are millions of believers who counted on the church to be a place of belonging and hope. As greater and greater numbers of younger Americans bleed out from the church, even the most rooted evangelicals are wondering, "Can American Christianity survive?" In Losing Our Religion, Russell Moore calls his fellow evangelical Christians to conversion over culture wars, to truth over tribalism, to the gospel over politics, to integrity over influence, and to renewal over nostalgia. With both prophetic honesty and pastoral love, Moore offers a word of counsel for how a new generation of disillusioned and exhausted believers can find a path forward after the crisis and confusion of the last several years. Believing the gospel is too important to leave it to hucksters and grifters, he shows how a Christian can avoid both cynicism and complicity in order to imagine a different, hopeful vision for the church. The altar call of the old evangelical revivals was both a call to repentance and the offer of a new start. In the same way, this book invites unmoored and discouraged Christians to step out into an uncertain future, first by letting go of the kind of cultural, politicized, status quo Christianity that led us to this moment of reckoning. Only when we see how lost we are, we can find our way again. Only when we bury what's dead can we experience life again. Only when we lose our religion can we be amazed by grace again"--

Book Synopsis

Former Southern Baptist pastor and Christianity Today editor-in-chief Russell Moore calls for repentance and renewal in American evangelicalism

American evangelical Christianity has lost its way. While the witness of the church before a watching world is diminished beyond recognition, congregations are torn apart over Donald Trump, Christian nationalism, racial injustice, sexual predation, disgraced leaders, and covered-up scandals. Left behind are millions of believers who counted on the church to be a place of belonging and hope. As greater and greater numbers of younger Americans bleed out from the church, even the most rooted evangelicals are wondering, "Can American Christianity survive?"

In Losing Our Religion, Russell Moore calls his fellow evangelical Christians to conversion over culture wars, to truth over tribalism, to the gospel over politics, to integrity over influence, and to renewal over nostalgia. With both prophetic honesty and pastoral love, Moore offers a word of counsel for how a new generation of disillusioned and exhausted believers can find a path forward after the crisis and confusion of the last several years. Believing the gospel is too important to leave it to hucksters and grifters, he shows how a Christian can avoid both cynicism and complicity in order to imagine a different, hopeful vision for the church.

The altar call of the old evangelical revivals was both a call to repentance and the offer of a new start. In the same way, this book invites unmoored and discouraged Christians to step out into an uncertain future, first by letting go of the kind of cultural, politicized, status quo Christianity that led us to this moment of reckoning. Only when we see how lost we are, we can find our way again. Only when we bury what's dead can we experience life again. Only when we lose our religion can we be amazed by grace again.

Review Quotes

"Russell Moore tells it straight about how the church has lost its way. Then he shows a path forward, to a Christianity that's not about fear or anger or political power but about really Good News for all people. This book can help a new generation find the way back to what really matters." --John M. Perkins, civil rights activist, minister, author, One Blood: Parting Words to the Church on Race

"Russell Moore's gentle, courageous voice has a way of cutting through the clamor of the age, right down to the marrow of what matters--and it's clear that what matters to Moore, whether he's writing about theology or politics, comic books or country songs, is Jesus." --Andrew Peterson, singer/songwriter and author of Adorning the Dark: Thoughts on Community, Calling, and the Mystery of Making

"Russell Moore's Losing Our Religion is head-shakingly good. By the time I'd underlined at least one sentence in every paragraph of the first two chapters, I knew I was reading a book I'd keep within easy reach for years to come. Russ writes with a remarkable blend of clarity, color and candor. More importantly, the ink on these pages is drawn from a deep well of biblical conviction that drives the author's decisions. Here you go: a gift of gospel-centered sanity in a culture gone utterly mad." --Beth Moore, author of All My Knotted-Up Life: A Memoir

About the Author

Russell Moore is the editor-in-chief of Christianity Today and former president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. He lives in Brentwood, TN.