While the previous Christian generation often engages the world by boycotting, condemning or separating, the Next Christians live “dangerously on the front edges of pain in the world” to offer comfort and restoration to the hurting.
As a product of separatist Christianity, young evangelical leader Gabe Lyons says he is excited about the death of the current American Christianity and the rise of the “Next Christians” that will replace it.
In his new book, The Next Christians: The Good News About the End of Christian America, Lyons paints an optimistic future for Christianity in America. While the current system of Christianity in America is dying, he writes, a new generation of Christians that seeks to restore the world as God intended is rising.
These “restorers” see the whole Bible story: creation, fall, salvation, and kingdom of God. For too long, Lyons contends, Christianity in America has only told part of the story – the fall (sin) and salvation – but failed to tell the grand narrative.
As a result, Christianity in America has been dominated by a sense of us (Christians) against them (secular world), and promotes the narrow view that conversion is the only mission on Earth. While saving souls is indisputably important, Lyons contends, Jesus also calls on Christians to restore the broken things to how it ought to be.
“The next generation [of Christians] understands restoration as connected to the Gospel. They are motivated by the fact that Jesus restored their own soul and is constantly in the process of restoring them…”
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