When Did We Start Forgetting God?: The Root of the Evangelical Crisis and Hope for the Future

by Mark Galli

The editor in chief of the acclaimed magazine Christianity Today offers a compelling look at the state of evangelicalism today and offers hope for the future.
In arguably one of the most divisive and polarizing eras, evangelicals are faced with a profound crisis of confidence. It is a crisis that has many dimensions--political, biblical, and theological--as well as a crisis of spiritual formation and discipleship.

What ultimately is at the root of this crisis?

Mark Galli encourages us to turn our attention away from the politics of the moment, the social issues being discussed online, and the debate du jour among Christians. He asks us instead to take a long and hard look at what's missing in our spirituality. In an incisive and thought-provoking book, Mark Galli helps us slow down and spend time reflecting on our ultimate priority.

A must-read for everyone interested in contemplating the future of the church.

Genres: Theology, Nonfiction, Christian

256 pages, Paperback

Published April 7, 2020

Reviews

[Justin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'll have a proper review out soon, but for now I'll just say that it's been a while since I've marked up a book as much as I have this one.

[Conrade Yap · Rating 5 out of 5]

Evangelicalism is in a crisis. The original movement that has united believers in all things Bible, all things Cross-centered; all things conversionism to Christ; all things Christian activism is now deeply divided. Many believe that the chief reason is politics and the way evangelicals align their identities according to which political power they support. Thomas Kidd of Baylor University has singled this factor out, saying that historically this has never been the case. It is no longer about biblical doctrine but about political allegiances. Journalist and cultural critic, Mark Galli takes this a little further toward spirituality. He notes that evangelicalism has lost its soul because it has forgotten God. In order to find out how to restore hope for the future, we need to go back to the root of the problem to ask the question: "When Did We Start Forgetting God?" Thus, the title of the book is the author's quest to understand the background behind the escalating divide of the different camps, and the deteriorating spiritual climate of the movement. This has led to many evangelicals who think they are devoted Christians when they are actually "practical atheists!" In fact, Christians can easily continue to live with the label outside but on the inside, they are far from the spiritual being they were perceived to be. The heart of the question is this: Are we more in love with God, or are we more in love with ourselves? The lack of congruence between these two is the source of our crisis. This single factor has precipitated other crises such as family, social justice, evangelism, racism, theology, and many more. If only we can get back to restoring our desire for God, things will get better. Much better for the Christian witness.

In Part One, Galli takes pains to explain the origin of these problems by tracing back to Scripture. King David is a man devoted to God. In the Psalms, we see how he laments, rejoices, and relates to God in the most intimate ways. Do we thirst and hunger for God like David? Then we have the Church Fathers such as Bernard of Clairvaux, who expresses his love for God in profoundly captivating ways in his writings on "Loving God." Following these broad strokes, the author looks at the way American awakening ignited the spiritual passion of people, that everything stem from the desire for God and to make God known. Then there is the Pentecostal movement that marks another chapter of the history of spiritual revival in the Church. Nowadays, there is that focus on spirituality and transformation, to the point that transformation per se becomes the overriding interest instead of God! He writes:
"It’s my impression that much of the talk about transformation in evangelicalism is more interested in transformation than in God, or interested in God mostly because of how he can change people’s lives, families, and communities."
It is so easy to be distracted by the things of the world. If the heart is no longer focused on God, one becomes easy pickings for falling into these potholes of distraction. Galli shares the example of a man intent on wanting to pray but ends up forgetting to pray as he was distracted by many things he wanted to do throughout the day.

If Part One tackles the problem at a personal level, Part Two raises the bar to look at the corporate level: The Church. Some Christian leaders have also substituted the vertical for the horizontal, preferring to make this world a better place instead of reminding people that heaven is a much better place to hope for. Whether it is the social gospel or the missional movement, the disconcerting thing is that people tend to forget God as they focus on trying to save the world, when the world has already been offered the Hand of Salvation in Christ! Moreover, Galli notes that the modern church's perspectives of the world has become more unbiblical than before. One of the reasons is the church behaving as if the world was created for her, when the fact is that the Church is meant to serve the world and to make Christ known to the world. The focus must not be "making this world a better place" but to "live together in love in Christ" for the glory of God. Failure to do so would be signs of forgetting God. So Galli leads us through the need to focus on worship; to let the celebration of the sacraments be a reminder of our love for God and God's love for us; the return to the Bible; and to re-ignite small groups' passion for God.

Part Three comprises ten chapters of how to do just that, to deepen our desire for God. Recognizing what needs to be changed is key to getting back to God. I loved the way he leads us through the prayer of Rafael Cardinal Merry del Val, which really hits the core of our distractions: Desire and fear of the secondary things in life. He gives us biblical examples of people seeking God. He also reminds us about the threats of the spiritual forces of darkness, something that CS Lewis's Screwtape Letters constantly warns us. Galli then goes for the spiritual jugular, to move our focus back to the Torah, to the very commandment that we are supposed to follow in the first place: No other gods before the LORD. Keeping the Sabbath keeps us from being constantly engaged in the things of this world. Cultivate contemplative prayer. Let our desire for God be larger than fear of suffering. Let the Spirit of God show us how we have allowed sin to destroy our relationships.

Three Thoughts
=================
Firstly, this book is a necessary call for evangelicals to go back to the basics of loving God. This is the greatest commandment and all things must flow from this. The moment we lose this focus, we have essentially forgotten God. I believe this is a timely message for all Christian leaders to listen to. Far too often, people have great ideas and eloquent communiques that talk about love. Unfortunately, many of these 'love-talk' have become hauntingly similar to the way the rest of the world practice it. Many talk more than actually putting it to action. What does it mean to love God? What is our central purpose as a believer in Christ? What is our calling as a people of God? The answers to these questions will give us a fairly accurate snapshot of our present state of spirituality.

Secondly, the book is relatively stronger on observing cultural trends. As for the historical and theological basis, it tends to be too brief. Perhaps, the author is more interested in reaching out to the general audience rather than seminarians or theologians. That is fair enough as he is writing to evangelicals in general. Written by one who has led a prominent Christian magazine of observing trends, this is not surprising. In fact, portions of this book has appeared in "Christianity Today" as well. The title is a powerful lead to the main reason for the problem of evangelicalism. By recognizing the potholes that have derailed our focus, hopefully, this observation will stop the Church from deteriorating much further. At the least, stop the rot! If the message in this book can enable the Church to pause its fall, that would be most helpful.

Finally, is the problem of evangelicalism as mentioned by Galli really that simple? Is forgetting God the root of our present confusion? I shudder when I think of it. This reminds me of the letter to the Church of Ephesus in Revelation 2, the Church that had forgotten her first love. We need reminders all the time about the need to go back to the fundamentals of our faith. This is a universal problem that is a familiar pattern from ancient times to now. Given the history of how many have fallen by the wayside, we have the opportunity to make things right, not only for this generation but for many more to come. Some of the world's biggest problems have the simplest of solutions. Perhaps, the problem of forgetting God and its corresponding call to return to loving God may seem too simple to be true. We may debate on the semantics or the different expressions of doing God's work. One thing remains clear: Regardless of what is happening now, the two greatest commandments must still be heard, obeyed, and put into practice.

Mark Galli recently retired from senior managing editor of Christianity Today magazine. He was previously an editor with Christian History and Leadership magazines. He is a graduate of Fuller Theological Seminary (MDiv) and was a pastor for 10 years.

Rating: 4.5 stars of 5.

conrade
This book has been provided courtesy of Tyndale House Publishers and NetGalley without requiring a positive review. All opinions offered above are mine unless otherwise stated or implied.

[Danielle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was interested in this book for two main reasons— 1) I have read Mark Galli’s weekly newsletter for some time now and respect him as a Christian thinker; 2) I’m coming out of 5 years in a Southern Baptist context that was more intensely focused on evangelism and “mission” than any other church or denomination I have spent time in. Galli’s argument in this book is that the evangelical church has lost sight of the “greatest commandment” in a fundamental way (“love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength”) and has become largely consumed with the “horizontal” rather than the “vertical.” I.e., we have over-indexed toward emphasis on mission and the secondary commandment to “love your neighbor as yourself” and have also become obsessed with personal transformation (God and faith as means to an end that is all about us).

Galli argues that the primary marker of a Christian is deep and single-minded desire for God himself, and he suggests that “the funnel of history is not that the church pours itself into the world to redeem it but that the world—at least those in the world who trust in Christ—is poured into the church. [...] In other words, the world comes to Jerusalem. Israel does not go out to the world missionally to transform the world, but at the end of history, the world comes to Mount Zion to worship and learn from God.” The latter part of the book focuses on Galli’s ideas for how we can deepen our desire for God. Certainly, Galli does not suggest that as Christians we aren’t called to actively loving our neighbors or sharing the Gospel, but rather that we have made secondary things primary and we risk that “life will degenerate into an active and busy religious life devoid of God.”

I thought the early part of this book was very thought-provoking and helpful. The middle and latter parts of the book felt like such a scattered hodge podge of topics. Yes, they were loosely strung together under the concept of deepening our desire for God, but they had a scattershot feeling that made the book feel rushed to publication or maybe just lacking in tight organization. I was sympathetic to his overarching thesis but felt like the book lost steam during the latter part—thus the 3 stars.

[Kelly]

Some preliminary essays that seem to be underpinning this upcoming book are on Christianity Today. They are intriguing and I like his blunt style. E..g., see
https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/....

[Larry White · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Postmodern Dilemma in the Church

In his 1983 acceptance speech for the prestigious Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion, novelist, essayist, and critic of Soviet communism, Alexander Solzhenitsyn related that the old men had an explanation for the calamities that had struck mother Russia: “It is because men have forgotten God.” Any examination of history, even and perhaps especially Old Testament Biblical history, reveals that this is as much condition of all mankind as it was for the USSR. Not surprisingly, therefore, the lessons of this forgetfulness (rejection even) should be important to anyone considering the rapidly developing calamites in our postmodern world, as well as the church.

Mark Galli, former editor of “Christianity Today”, uses this premise in his examination of the crisis in the evangelical church. “When Did We Start Forgetting God?” is an effective and provocative evaluation of the roots of and solutions to the crisis in so many denominations. Galli argues for a return to the basics, observing that “American Christianity has been less and less interested in God and more and more in doing good things for God.” He doesn’t argue that good works are unimportant, but rather that the church’s motivation has become increasingly misplaced. As James counsels in the epistle, “faith by itself, if not accompanied by action, is dead.” But unless those works are grounded in faith, they too are dead. And the dilemma, according to Galli, is that a well-meaning church increasingly puts its own accomplishments ahead of evangelizing to the glory, sovereignty and primacy of God. It has become about us, not about God. The solution, according to Galli, is a return to emphasis on Biblical teaching about God so that we might rejoice in the grace we have through faith and offer good works as an expression of gratitude rather than as the church’s sole purpose. The church must lead people first to salvation. It’s about God’s glory, not our virtue.

This is a worthwhile read in perplexing and divisive times.

[Evan Steele · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mark Galli presents some insightful and helpful critiques of the modern evangelical church, but his critiques are so varied, so scattershot, that by the end you are left with no where to go. What I mean by scattershot and varied is that he makes lots of small cogent critiques. Each one sounds helpful. But then two chapters, and seven other critiques later he will make nearly the opposite critique. And, yes both critiques are true, but it's awful hard to make positive headway in two opposite directions. By the end of this book, I was just looking forward to being done. That's not to say this book wasn't enlightening and helpful at times, but this calling out everyone for every little error stick started to feel like whining. My guess is his desire to make sweeping critiques over all of evangelicalism is what lead to the books failure. Had he either focused on Anglicanism or Big Eva Megachurches or limited his critiques to the largest and most concerning issues it probably would have been more helpful and cogent.

If you are looking for a similar book in this vein, I would recommend Francis Chan's Letters to the Church. Much more straight forward, actionable, and understandable. And if you have read this book and enjoyed it, that makes sense too, I enjoyed some of the insights, just disappointed with the final result. Ultimately I wont remember much from this 6 months from now. And my guess is neither will you.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book challenging in many respects. I am not quite the target audience (American Evangelicals) and yet there was enough to hold me, provoke me, cause me to question long-held beliefs, reflect and repent, and challenge the author that I can't dismiss it.

It is well written and easy to read, forceful in language yet apologetic (at times) for that very thing. Parts 1 and 2 were familiar to me through the author's series of articles The Elusive Presence which he adapted for the book. I really appreciated Part 3 ("Deepening Desire") which was new (to me) material and very thought-provoking.

On the whole while there were places that I disagreed or argued with the author, I found the book a compelling call not to "neglect our first love" and I am grateful for it.

[Tyler Hurst · Rating 2 out of 5]

While I agree with much of the criticism that Galli levels at Big Eva, it seems to me that he offers poor solutions to the problems therein. The answers he gives are almost all individualistic spirituality (which is promoted in Big Eva) and Big Eva programs like retreats. At no point does he consider the opportunities afforded by reconsidering the pastorate (which Big Eva has bastardized) and looking back to the days of visitations and more robust examination of the sermon within the family unit.

It is no wonder that the journey Galli is on as represented by this book has lead him into the Roman Catholic Church rather than into more profound evangelical roots.

[Радостин Марчев · Rating 4 out of 5]

Лека за четене, много достъпна книга. Макар да има части, в които не съм съгласен - главно в това, че според мен авторът пресилва нещата и критиката, аз напълно приемам основната му идея. Както и насоката, е истинското сърце на християнството не може да бъде търсено по "хоризонтала" - това, което ние правим и активностите, които развиваме, а е във "ветикала" - степента, в която желаем Бога на първо моясто, повече от всичко и като висше благо.

[Ryan Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think the author — as the former editor in chief of Christianity Today — has a really interesting perspective. He makes some really good thoughts, especially at the beginning of the book. However, the end felt a little all over the place, and there were a couple points that I theologically disagree with. Still a good read.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found the first half of this book quite compelling g with its call to put God at the centre of why and how we do what we do in church. The second half I skimmed, but didn’t find so helpful.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

See the review on my blog:
https://beyegladblog.wordpress.com/20...