The Next Christians: The Good News About the End of Christian America
Gabe Lyons
Doubleday Religion, 2010, 208 pp., $19.99, RandomHouse.com
In The Next Christians, Gabe Lyons picks up where he left off in 2007’s UnChristian, a book describing the trend of young people being turned off by the church-as-usual mindset. Despite this trend, Lyons’ years of interviews and research have shown that there is a thriving movement of the next Christians who are following Christ in a way that resonates with today’s young people.
What do these next Christians look like? Rather than being relevant, they are countercultural. Instead of being offended by societal problems, they are provoked to create cultural goods to solve them. Dozens of next Christians are described throughout the book.
At the core of the next Christians is a fourfold gospel: creation, fall, salvation and restoration. Lyons explains that the next Christians aren’t engaged only with the half-story gospel—that people are sinners going to hell, but Christ’s death offers the way to eternal life. Lyons faithfully affirms the importance of these parts of the gospel, but he says the next Christians are interested in living out the whole story.
Youth workers will be well-served by this book, because it gives insight into the themes that are drawing contemporary youth into the flock of Christ.
