Understanding the times

WORLD’s Book of the Year in the Christian nonfiction category is Aaron Renn’s Life in the Negative World (Zondervan, 272 pp.). Renn’s division of the experience of American Christians into the positive, neutral, and negative worlds has proven to be a stimulating way for contemporary believers to think through their assumptions about ministry and how to navigate the challenges of today’s culture.

Renn’s life experience makes him a unique analyst. One might expect a book of this type to be written by a Christian pastor, theologian, or academic. Instead, Renn is a former management consultant who then became an expert on urban policy with the Manhattan Institute think tank.

Improbably, Renn began writing a newsletter for Christian men he originally called The Masculinist. With a boost from Rod Dreher, the newsletter picked up readers and eventually branched out into broader topics. In the course of writing the newsletter, Renn developed the idea of the positive, neutral, and negative worlds. These categories became a useful contribution for thinking through Christianity and culture.

Renn divides American history into three eras: the first, positive toward Christians, 1964–1994; the next, neutral, 1994–2014; and the third, negative, 2014–present. He then describes three methods of participation for Christians living in the negative world: culture war, seeker sensitivity, or cultural engagement. These categories will cause ­readers to think through their own relationship to the surrounding culture.

Like Dreher’s The Benedict Option, Life in the Negative World has prompted much debate, discussion, and disagreement, but there is little doubt that it is constructive in nature. Very much like H. Richard Niebuhr’s Christ and Culture, the book has given Christians the opportunity to think through how they operate in different contexts and what kinds of models might be available to them as they navigate the era in which they live. Some might find themselves in mind of 1 Chronicles and the men of Issachar who understood the times and knew what Israel should do.

In the wake of a Donald Trump popular vote and Electoral College victory in 2024, which seemed spectacularly unlikely in 2020, one might wonder how the political turn affects Renn’s thesis going forward.

Whether evangelicals desire the affiliation or not, the political fortunes of both Donald Trump and the Republican Party travel together in the public mind with the status and reputation of evangelical Christians. Does a Trump and Republican win refute the idea of Christians living in a negative world and thus curtail the usefulness of Renn’s argument?

The answer is no. While it is true that Trump won the election and banished the progressive forces of San Francisco’s Kamala Harris, there is little to cause Christians to see Renn’s description of the world of 2024 as outmoded.

Trump won, in part, by significantly weakening his pro-life commitment. In fact, he managed to win while the pro-life case continues to struggle in various states’ contests. In addition, Trump, a thrice-married former casino owner, is hardly a normal standard-bearer for evangelicals. The Republican Party appears to be drifting toward a post-­Christian right in parallel with similar movements elsewhere.

So, is WORLD’s choice for Book of the Year still relevant? It will be for decades, no question about it. Read and consider the implications.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

• What It Means To Be Protestant: The Case for an Always-Reforming Church
  by Gavin Ortlund (Zondervan, 288 pp.)

• Daily Doctrine: A One-Year Guide to Systematic Theology
  by Kevin DeYoung (Crossway, 432 pp.)

Next in this 2024 Books of the Year special issue: “More than can be measured.”