Book Review: The Next Christians

I can sum up Gabe Lyon's book The Next Christians in one word: disappointing

I found it disappointing because I was really looking forward to it. I had reserved it from the library before I got my copy from Blogging for Books. I was hoping for an interesting look at Christian discipleship in a post-“Christian America” setting. What I found instead was a fairly typical “This is not your father’s Oldsmobile, the youngsters have it all figured out and are gonna fix what the old fogies messed up" book.

I can’t stand name dropping. I also can’t stand Christians who go to great efforts to demonstrate how hip and culturally attuned they are. Both of these are in The Next Christians in copious quantities. I am frankly completely disinterested in the famous people you have met, the fabulous places you have visited or the cutting edge cultural sensitivity that you possess. Make your case from Scripture and from plain logic. I am not impressed by the rest of that stuff and there was way too much in the way of fluff, self-promotion and meandering anecdotes for such a small book.

There is a powerful case to be made about the role of the Church is a culture that is no longer culturally accepting and embracing of a vague form of tradition-laden Christianity. I have a great deal of sympathy for the idea of ministering to unbelievers in a “post-Christian America” and I not only don’t lament the end of civic religion, I embrace and cheer it. This book could have been a great platform for starting a real and honest conversation about it. Alas, that was not what I found.

I found The Next Christians to be a laborious read. Not that it was a long book or especially meaty or difficult but because there was so much that was repetitive or simply uninteresting. It was a chore to read and that for a book this small that is not a good thing. It is doubly disappointing because I really was looking forward to this book and came away discouraged. Would I recommend it to you? Not really.


(I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review as part of their Blogging for Books program)