The Gathering Storm gives allusion to Sir Winston Churchill’s calls to bring attention to the gathering storm of Germany during WWII. Likewise, R. Albert Mohler Jr, in his most recent book, calls the church to wake up to the rising danger of secularism and culture. The wartime language alerts the reader to the fight on the main cultural fronts of abortion, marriage, family, gender, and sexuality.
Molher warns of a growing passive secularism, as well as a militant active secularism. The culture that we live in has a constant pressure towards the church and the pressure of the worldly expectation and beliefs drag everything and everyone along with it. Mohler rightly warns that if churches continue in their passivity towards secularism, churches will look less and less like churches and more and more like the secular world around them.
In addition to the passive indoctrination of secularism, the world is actively arguing for the end of religious freedoms for churches, religious organizations and even individuals. They must either surrender to the moral, secular revolution or face being forcibly shut down; there is no middle ground. The current culture argues that churches, religious organizations and individuals must fully submit to a secular worldview or incur its full wrath. In this, they target both theological truth claims and all expressions of them in the public sphere.
Mohler boldly maintains that the church must uphold and defend an inerrant view of the Bible and its teachings. Any giving way to secularism leads to the undoing of all the Bible teaches. Where the Word of God is not rightly preached, there is no church.
“Capitulation on first things sows capitulation for all things. When a church jettisons the fundamental doctrines of the faith, it will allow for any cultural anomaly to enter through its doors; all in the name of relevance.”
The Gathering Storm, Page 33
Mohler isn’t so much against culture, its that he is so much in favor of the authority and inerrancy of Scripture as God’s true revelation. Likewise, churches must not be know for what they are against. Rather, churches must be known for what we are for and boldly articulate the truth of Scripture. Mohler does not just point out the growing danger, he provides actionable, biblical responses Christians must undertake and articulates the hope that is within them.
Where the culture conflicts with Scripture, we should trust in the wisdom of the creator rather than the fallible, fleeting opinions of sinful humans. The warning against secularism is one that all generations must deal with, though it comes by differing means. I believe that the church will weather this storm just as Christ proclaimed to Peter, “on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18 ESV).
Every church member and leader should read this book. The church must actively fighting to preserve it’s orthodoxy against the growing secularism advanced by culture. It must hold fast to the convictions of Scripture and be ready to defend them in love and with truth.
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The Gathering Storm: Secularism, Culture, and the Church By R. Albert Mohler, Jr. |