Social & Cultural Issues

Chaos. Violence. Confusion. Anxiety. How do we know what’s true when there are so many differing voices telling us what to do? After traveling the world for 23 years in a rock band, John L. Cooper has noticed one consistent issue: people are desperately confused. Awake and Alive To Truth tackles the reigning philosophies of our day of post-modernism, relativism, and the popular view of the goodness of man-and combats these viewpoints by standing on the absolute truth of the Word of God. Awake and Alive To Truth answers some of the most asked questions in modern culture. We will go on a journey through some of the author’s personal stories, the doctrine of original sin, the authority of Scripture, the danger of trusting your emotions, and end with the greatest news possible: God wants to rescue you from the chaos and the darkness and bring you into His glorious light.

Pro-life Advocate Scott Klusendorf Explains the Pro-life Argument and Why It Matters

Pro-life Christians, take heart: the pro-life message can compete in the marketplace of ideas if Christians properly understand and articulate that message. In light of the 50th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, too many Christians do not understand the essential truths of the pro-life position, making it difficult for them to articulate a biblical worldview on issues like abortion, cloning, and embryo research.

This second edition of The Case for Life, now with a substantial amount of additional and updated content, provides intellectual grounding for the pro-life convictions that most evangelicals hold. The debate turns on one key question: What is the unborn? In this timely book, author Scott Klusendorf teaches readers what the role of the pro-life Christian should be and how to lovingly and winsomely engage in questions and objections.

Features New Content: Includes 8 new chapters and a new section titled “Pro-Life Christians Survey the Major Thinkers”

Timely: Covers current hot-button topics related to abortion, cloning, and embryo research

Ideal for Christians or Anyone Curious about the Pro-Life Movement: Written for those looking to learn more about the pro-life argument and why it matters 

Logically Grounded: Klusendorf explains the core of the argument and how to engage in a thoughtful and loving way

Where Are Critical Theory and the Social Justice Movement Taking Us?

Critical theory and its expression in fields such as critical race theory, critical pedagogy, and queer theory are having a profound impact on our culture. Contemporary critical theory’s ideas about race, class, gender, identity, and justice have dramatically shaped how people think, act, and view one another—in Christian and secular spheres alike.

In Critical Dilemma, authors Neil Shenvi and Pat Sawyer illuminate the origins and influences of contemporary critical theory, considering it in the light of clear reason and biblical orthodoxy. While acknowledging that it can provide some legitimate insights regarding race, class, and gender, Critical Dilemma exposes the false assumptions at the heart of critical theory, arguing that it poses a serious threat to both the church and society at large.

Drawing on exhaustive research and careful analysis, Shenvi and Sawyer condemn racism, urge Christians to seek justice, and offer a path forward for racial healing and unity while also opposing critical theory’s manifold errors.

Welcome to Your Place in a Worldview Minority

In an increasingly secular society, those who have a biblical worldview are now a shrinking minority. As mainstream culture grows more hostile toward the Bible’s truths and those who embrace them, you’ll face mounting pressures—from family, friends, media, academia, and government—to change and even abandon your beliefs. But these challenges also create abundant opportunities to stand strong for Christ and shine light to those hurt by the darkness of our day.

In Faithfully Different, author and apologist Natasha Crain shares how you can live out your faith with conviction, discernment, and courage. You’ll be equipped to

• identify and respond to today’s most significant worldview pressures, such as cancel culture, secular social justice, progressive Christianity, deconstruction, virtue signaling, and more
• engage effectively with a world that ridicules biblical truths
• defend your faith from misguided influences and live as a bold witness for the Lord

As the standards of our day mutate and devolve, Faithfully Different will give you the insight and encouragement you need to believe, think, and live biblically no matter what you face in these turbulent times.

The Ground Is Moving
The death of George Floyd at the hands of police in the summer of 2020 shocked the nation. As riots rocked American cities, Christians affirmed from the pulpit and in social media that “black lives matter” and that racial justice “is a gospel issue.”

But what if there is more to the social justice movement than those Christians understand? Even worse: What if they’ve been duped into preaching ideas that actually oppose the Kingdom of God?

In this powerful book, Voddie Baucham, a preacher, professor, and cultural apologist, explains the sinister worldview behind the social justice movement and Critical Race Theory—revealing how it already has infiltrated some seminaries, leading to internal denominational conflict, canceled careers, and lost livelihoods. Like a fault line, it threatens American culture in general—and the evangelical church in particular.

Whether you’re a layperson who has woken up in a strange new world and wonders how to engage sensitively and effectively in the conversation on race or a pastor who is grappling with a polarized congregation, this book offers the clarity and understanding to either hold your ground or reclaim it.

From the origins of critical theory in the bowels of the academy to its use in justifying rioting and arson in the name of a dubious equity agenda, an eminent philosopher unmasks the intellectual origins of this mental virus, and details steps rational thinkers can take to combat its insidious spread.

What can we do amidst all the controversies over race and gender in society today? Do we have anything constructive to offer the world? As Jesus followers, we do, and this book shows the way.

A dangerous and revolutionary philosophy is responsible for the street fires in America. It fuels the actions of Black Lives Matter and Antifa. It invades curricula in public schools and in our military. It is in our churches. You have heard the phrase “white privilege,” the need for “safe spaces” on campuses, and perhaps the tongue-twister “intersectionality.”

Behind all of these is an ideology called critical theory, which is a form of cultural Marxism that divides society into the oppressed and the oppressors. It claims that America is “systemically racist” and founded on slavery. It believes that the voices of the minorities should trump the perspective of the dominant (and oppressing) culture. Unfortunately, this flawed perspective is overtaking our culture and infiltrating many of our churches.

In this book, we consider the importance of critical theory, explain its origins, question its aims, and subject it to a logical critique. Readers will:

• Gain a better understanding of critical theory
• See how it is permeating many aspects of society
• Discover how it opposes a Christian worldview
• Learn how to counter it constructively

A biblical alternative to matters of justice and politics is available. One that is right and true. One based on the ideals of the American founding. Find it in these pages.

Bestselling Author Rosaria Butterfield Confronts 5 Cultural Lies She Once Believed

Modern culture is increasingly outspoken against a biblical understanding of what it means to be a woman. Even some Christians, swayed by the LGBTQ+ movement, have rejected God’s word on issues of sexuality and gender in favor of popular opinion. In light of these pressures, it’s more important than ever to help women see the truth about who God created them to be.

In this powerful book, Rosaria Butterfield uses Scripture to confront 5 common lies about sexuality, faith, feminism, gender roles, and modesty often promoted in our secular culture today. Written in the style of a memoir, this book explores Butterfield’s personal battle with these lies―interwoven with cultural studies, literary criticism, and theology―to help readers see the beauty in biblical womanhood, marriage, and motherhood.

The president of Southern Seminary reveals how secularism has infiltrated every aspect of society and how Christians, equipped with the gospel of Jesus Christ, can meet it head on with hope, confidence, and steadfast conviction.

A Storm Is Coming

Western civilization and the Christian church stand at a moment of great danger. Facing them both is a hurricane-force battle of ideas that will determine the future of Western civilization and the soul of the Christian church. The forces arrayed against the West and the church are destructive ideologies, policies, and worldviews deeply established among intellectual elites, the political class, and our schools. More menacingly, these forces have also invaded the Christian church.

The perils faced by the West and the church are unprecedented:

• threats to religious liberty
• redefinitions of marriage and family
• attacks on the sacredness and dignity of human life

How should Christians respond to this multifaceted challenge?

Addressing each dimension of this challenge, The Gathering Storm provides answers and equips Christians both to give an answer for the hope that is within them and to contend for the faith that was once and for all delivered to the saints.

Until just a few years ago, gender dysphoria—severe discomfort in one’s biological sex—was vanishingly rare. It was typically found in less than .01 percent of the population, emerged in early childhood, and afflicted males almost exclusively.

But today whole groups of female friends in colleges, high schools, and even middle schools across the country are coming out as “transgender.” These are girls who had never experienced any discomfort in their biological sex until they heard a coming-out story from a speaker at a school assembly or discovered the internet community of trans “influencers.”

Unsuspecting parents are awakening to find their daughters in thrall to hip trans YouTube stars and “gender-affirming” educators and therapists who push life-changing interventions on young girls—including medically unnecessary double mastectomies and puberty blockers that can cause permanent infertility.

Abigail Shrier, a writer for the Wall Street Journal, has dug deep into the trans epidemic, talking to the girls, their agonized parents, and the counselors and doctors who enable gender transitions, as well as to “detransitioners”—young women who bitterly regret what they have done to themselves.

Coming out as transgender immediately boosts these girls’ social status, Shrier finds, but once they take the first steps of transition, it is not easy to walk back. She offers urgently needed advice about how parents can protect their daughters.

A generation of girls is at risk. Abigail Shrier’s essential book will help you understand what the trans craze is and how you can inoculate your child against it—or how to retrieve her from this dangerous path.

In an earnest and searing wake-up call, the author of the bestseller Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy warns of the haunting similarities between today’s American church and the German church of the 1930s. Echoing Bonhoeffer’s prophetic call, Eric Metaxas exhorts his fellow Christians to repent of their silence in the face of evil before it is too late. Now in paperback!

“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil.
Not to speak is to speak.
Not to act is to act.
God will not hold us guiltless.”

Can it really be God’s will that His children be silent at a time like this? Decrying the cowardice that masquerades as godly meekness, Eric Metaxas summons the Church to battle.

The author of a bestselling biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Metaxas reveals the haunting similarities between today’s American Church and the German Church of the 1930s. Echoing the German martyr’s prophetic call, he exhorts his fellow Christians to repent of their silence in the face of evil.

An attenuated and unbiblical “faith” based on what Bonhoeffer called “cheap grace” has sapped the spiritual vitality of millions of Americans. Paying lip service to an insipid “evangelism,” they shrink from combating the evils of our time. Metaxas refutes the pernicious lie that fighting evil politicizes Christianity. As Bonhoeffer and other heroes of the faith insisted, the Church has an irreplaceable role in the culture of a nation. It is our duty to fight the powers of darkness, especially on behalf of the weak and vulnerable.

Silence is not an option. God calls us to defend the unborn, to confront the lies of cultural Marxism, and to battle the globalist tyranny that crushes human freedom. Confident that this is His fight, the Church must overcome fear and enter the fray, armed with the spiritual weapons of prayer, self-sacrifice, and love.

he New York Times bestselling author of The Benedict Option draws on the wisdom of Christian survivors of Soviet persecution to warn American Christians of approaching dangers.

For years, émigrés from the former Soviet bloc have been telling Rod Dreher they see telltale signs of “soft” totalitarianism cropping up in America–something more Brave New World than Nineteen Eighty-Four. Identity politics are beginning to encroach on every aspect of life. Civil liberties are increasingly seen as a threat to “safety”. Progressives marginalize conservative, traditional Christians, and other dissenters. Technology and consumerism hasten the possibility of a corporate surveillance state. And the pandemic, having put millions out of work, leaves our country especially vulnerable to demagogic manipulation.

In Live Not By Lies, Dreher amplifies the alarm sounded by the brave men and women who fought totalitarianism. He explains how the totalitarianism facing us today is based less on overt violence and more on psychological manipulation. He tells the stories of modern-day dissidents–clergy, laity, martyrs, and confessors from the Soviet Union and the captive nations of Europe–who offer practical advice for how to identify and resist totalitarianism in our time. Following the model offered by a prophetic World War II-era pastor who prepared believers in his Eastern European to endure the coming of communism, Live Not By Lies teaches American Christians a method for resistance:
  •  SEE: Acknowledge the reality of the situation.
  •  JUDGE: Assess reality in the light of what we as Christians know to be true.
  •  ACT: Take action to protect truth.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn famously said that one of the biggest mistakes people make is assuming totalitarianism can’t happen in their country. Many American Christians are making that mistake today, sleepwalking through the erosion of our freedoms. Live Not By Lies will wake them and equip them for the long resistance.

Are you tired of feeling like you have to check social media to find out what you’re supposed to think? Are you weary of the latest self-help books that promise to set you free but only imprison you with laundry lists of studies to consider, positive affirmations to recite, and Facebook groups to join?

We’ve all seen the memes that populate the internet: live your truth, follow your heart, you only have one life to live. They sound nice and positive. But what if these slogans are actually lies that unhinge us from reality and leave us anxious and exhausted? Another Gospel? author Alisa Childers invites you to examine modern lies that are disguised as truths in today’s culture. Everyday messages of peace, fulfillment, and empowerment swirl around social media. On the surface, they seem like sentiments of freedom and hope, but in reality they are deeply deceptive.

In Live Your Truth (and Other Lies), Alisa will help you to:

• uncover the common lies repeated within progressive circles
• hold on to the soul-restoring truths that God’s Word offers
• be empowered to live the way your Creator designed you

Being the captain of your own destiny and striving to make your dreams a reality is a huge burden that you were never meant to bear. Discover true freedom instead.

Why the call to Love Thy Body? To counter a pervasive hostility toward the body and biology that drives today’s headline stories:

Transgenderism: Activists detach gender from biology. Kids down to kindergarten are being taught their body is irrelevant to their authentic self. Is this affirming–or does it demean the body?

Homosexuality: Advocates disconnect sexuality from biological identity as male or female. Is this liberating–or does it denigrate biology?

Abortion: Supporters say the fetus is not a person, though it is biologically human. Does this mean equality for women–or does it threaten the intrinsic value of all humans?

Euthanasia: Those who lack certain cognitive abilities are said to be human but not persons. Is this compassionate–or does it ultimately put everyone at risk?

In Love Thy Body, bestselling author Nancy Pearcey goes beyond politically correct slogans with a riveting exposé of the dehumanizing worldview that shapes current watershed moral issues, arguing that a holistic Christian view sustains the dignity of the body and biology. Throughout the book, Pearcey entrances readers with compassionate stories of people wrestling with hard questions in their own lives–their pain, their struggles, their triumphs.

#RoarLikeAMother

The problem with lies is they don’t often sound like lies. They seem harmless, and even sound right. So what’s a Mama Bear to do when her kids seem to be absorbing the culture’s lies uncritically?

Mama Bear Apologetics® is the book you’ve been looking for. This mom-to-mom guide will equip you to teach your kids how to form their own biblical beliefs about what is true and what is false. Through transparent life stories and clear, practical applications—including prayer strategies—this band of Mama Bears offers you tools to train yourself, so you can turn around and train your kids.

Are you ready to answer the rallying cry, “Mess with our kids and we will demolish your arguments”?  Join the Mama Bears and raise your voice to protect your kids—by teaching them how to think through and address the issues head-on, yet with gentleness and respect.

Following Jesus has never been harder. In a culture that glamorizes sex, chases fame, and shames those who don’t fall in line, it takes a rebel to be a Christian.

In this book, Sean McDowell aims to encourage and inspire a generation of rebels who will dare to stand up to the madness in a just and loving manner.

A Rebel’s Manifesto offers clear guidance to help people navigate the many moral issues that plague this generation. Students today are oriented toward action on ethical issues, and Sean will not only help them think biblically about various ethical issues, but he will also offer practical steps to make a positive difference in this world. In this book, Sean covers

• navigating bullying and social media;
• handling loneliness, pornography, and sex;
• approaching various conversations around climate change, race, and other controversial issues; and
• articulating and defending biblical views at school, online, and with friends.

Life doesn’t need to devolve into an online shouting match. Sean proposes a better way: to live a life calmly and confidently grounded in biblical truth.

Modern culture is obsessed with identity. Since the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court decision in 2015, sexual identity has dominated both public discourse and cultural trends—yet no historical phenomenon is its own cause. From Augustine to Marx, various views and perspectives have contributed to the modern understanding of the self.

In this timely book, Carl Trueman analyzes the development of the sexual revolution as a symptom—rather than the cause—of the human search for identity. Trueman surveys the past, brings clarity to the present, and gives guidance for the future as Christians navigate the culture in humanity’s ever-changing quest for identity.Life doesn’t need to devolve into an online shouting match. Sean proposes a better way: to live a life calmly and confidently grounded in biblical truth.

From Philosophy to Technology, Tracing the Origin of Identity Politics

How did the world arrive at its current, disorienting state of identity politics, and how should the church respond? Historian Carl R. Trueman shows how influences ranging from traditional institutions to technology and pornography moved modern culture toward an era of “expressive individualism.” Investigating philosophies from the Romantics, Nietzsche, Marx, Wilde, Freud, and the New Left, he outlines the history of Western thought to the distinctly sexual direction of present-day identity politics and explains the modern implications of these ideas on religion, free speech, and personal identity. 

How to engage in productive conversations with those who challenge your Christian convictions.

Gregory Koukl’s best-selling book of practical apologetics, Tactics, wrote the game plan for discussing your Christian convictions with skeptics. In this follow-up, Koukl—a leader of clear-thinking Christianity—reveals the fundamental flaws in common, current challenges to Christian beliefs and values and provides step-by-step strategies to question and reveal those shortcomings.

Street Smarts offers model questions and sample dialogues to help guide believers in persuasive conversations about hot-button issues like:

• Relativism
• The trustworthiness of Scripture
• The claims of the Gospel
• Abortion
• Marriage, sex, and gender

This book will teach you how to tackle those discussions that believers often avoid because they feel out of their element, vulnerable, or exposed. Lucid, well-organized, and easy-to-follow, Street Smarts provides a specific set of questions—the same questions Koukl uses in his own encounters—that are embedded in sample mini-dialogues that you can use to have fruitful debates with non-believers.

Tactics provides the game plan for defending your faith and artfully communicating the truths of Christianity with confidence and grace.

This expanded anniversary edition of the classic book of Christian apologetics includes updates and expansions of existing tactics, as well as the addition of an all-new tactic and a chapter on Mini Tactics filled with simple maneuvers to aid in discussions.

In a culture increasingly indifferent or even hostile to Christian truth, followers of Christ need to be equipped to communicate with those who do not speak their language or accept their source of authority.

In Tactics, 10th Anniversary Edition, Gregory Koukl demonstrates how to artfully regain control of conversations, keeping them moving forward in constructive ways through thoughtful diplomacy. You’ll learn how to:

• Meet challenges, questions, and provocations with poise and conviction.
• Effortlessly start your own evangelical conversations.
• Present the truth clearly, cleverly, and persuasively.
• Graciously and effectively expose faulty thinking and logical fallacies.
• Most important, you’ll learn how to get people thinking seriously about Jesus.

Drawing on extensive experience defending Christianity in the public square, Koukl will not only walk you through effective arguments to defend why you believe what you believe, but he’ll teach you methods for engaging in meaningful dialogue and debate.

Step-by-step, you’ll learn the tactics of good persuasion and defense, how to identify the tactics of your opponent, and how to build your case, patiently and practically.

“Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed,
for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go” (Joshua 1:9).

Each day, you watch America turn further from Christian values and the core principles of liberty. It’s frustrating to feel you can’t assert biblical truth without facing condemnation, and fearful to witness outrage and victimhood replace respect and reason. Amidst this dissent, how can you not only stay rooted in your own faith, but continue publicly testifying for Jesus?

In We Will Not Be Silenced, Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer prepares you to live out your convictions against a growing tide of hostility. Gain a better understanding of nonbelievers’ legitimate hurts and concerns regarding issues like racism, sexism, and poverty—and identify the toxic responses secular culture disguises as solutions. In the process, you’ll see how you can show compassion and gentleness to those outside of the faith without affirming their beliefs.

We Will Not Be Silenced will ready you to move beyond fear and boldly accept the challenge of representing Christ to a watching world that needs Him now more than ever before.