This book is written from the conviction that no time in this century has been more ripe with opportunity for Christian faith. But instead, the Church is experiencing the erosion of its theological character, an unwitting worldliness, and an inability to think clearly and incisively about the culture. Evangelical churches have grown in numbers and size, but there has nevertheless come a hollowing out of evangelical conviction, a loss of the biblical Word in its authoritative function, and an erosion of character to the point that today, no discernable ethical differences are evident in behavior when those claiming to have been reborn and secularists are compared. Modernity has intruded on the evangelical Church---refocusing its interests, displacing the moral by the therapeutic, the divine by the human, truth by intuition, and conviction by technique. As a result, we have not only secular humanism in our society but also secular evangelicalism. Such religion is trivialized and quickly diminishes into an indoor pleasure, a kind of hobby.

This book explains the changing spiritual topography of our time and why the Church must recover its moral vision. In our culture all of the older models of self-understanding are being shelved. We are now framing life in such a way that the most important aspect, that we are moral beings, has been removed from the equation. The fact is that the enculturation of the evangelical world and its self-betrayal through its theologically emptied-out faith is the reason why the Church has no answer to the national crisis of character. But there is an apologetic which is peculiarly fitted to our circumstances of the postmodern world. It arises from our experience of ourselves as moral agents whose problems are resolved nowhere but in the Cross. The Church must regain its distinction so that, "in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation," its members will be able to "shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life."

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