Every now and again I sit down to write a review for a book and realize I am really under-equipped to review it well. I might have read it, enjoyed it, and benefitted from it, but lack the knowledge or expertise to confidently analyze it. This is exactly the case with Andrew Wilson’s Remaking the World: How 1776 Created the Post-Christian West.

The book’s big idea is that the year “1776, more than any other year in the last millennium, is the year that made us who we are.” In this case, the “us” refers to those who live in what we might call the modern, industrialized West. Of course when we hear “1776” we probably think first of the American Revolution. And when we learn that the author is an Englishman we might think we know what he is going to say. But we would be misled, for his point is not to argue that everything went wrong when America threw off its loyalty to the crown. What he argues is that if we want to understand who we are, we need to understand that year, for “it was a year that witnessed seven transformations taking place—globalization, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, the Great Enrichment, the American Revolution, the rise of post-Christianity, and the dawn of Romanticism.” Together these transformations “remade the world and profoundly influenced the way we think about God, life, the universe, and everything.” Of course each of the transformations has roots that extended much deeper in history and none of them took place neatly between January and December of that year. Yet each of them has some distinct connection to 1776.
As for those of us who live in the modern, industrialized West, Wilson describes this society as one that, “relative to others past and present, is … WEIRDER: Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic, Ex-Christian, and Romantic.” In each of these seven descriptions, we are outliers compared to the great majority of people past or present who have lived in non-WEIRDER times and places. “The vast majority of people in human history have not shared our views of work, family, government, religion, sex, identity, or morality, no matter how universal or self-evident we may think they are.”
The book means to prove that our WEIRDER society can best be understood, or perhaps only be understood, in light of the year 1776. To do that Wilson first defends his use of WEIRDER as an apt description of you and me and the people around us. And I think few of us would seriously argue that our society is anything but Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic, Ex-Christian, and Romantic (provided we understand “romantic” in the sense he means it rather than assuming he means that we are obsessed with wooing and swooning in an amorous way).
Having defended his acronym, he spends one chapter on each of them, showing how that descriptor is appropriate and how it connects to 1776. He does this a little out-of-order in relation to the acronym, opting to approach them as W-D-E-E-I-R-R. And it’s right about here that I realize I am under-equipped to really provide rigorous analysis. I resonated with his descriptions and enjoyed his observations and appreciated his arguments. But in the end, I do not know enough about history, and especially Western history around 1776, to know if his arguments hold. That is a level of analysis that will need to wait for people whose historical credentials far exceed my own. And I will legitimately look forward to reading such reviews and analyses.
This would probably be an appropriate juncture to point out that the book was positively endorsed by Thomas Kidd and Mark Noll, both of whom are true historians. I will also point out that two of the book’s endorsements used the word “verve” to describe the author’s efforts—possibly a first in Christian publishing, but also a good descriptor since it really is an enjoyable and lively look at a subject that in the hands of the wrong author could easily be drab or boring.
With his analysis of each of the letters in the acronym behind him, Wilson closes with two chapters that ask and answer questions like these: “What challenges and opportunities emerge from Westernization or Romanticism or Industrialization, and what should we do about them? How should Christians act in an Ex-Christian culture? What does faithful Christianity look like in the shadow of 1776? And here, I believe, we can draw a great deal of wisdom from an obvious source: faithful Christianity in 1776. How did believers in this turbulent and transformative era respond to what was happening around them? And what can we learn?” These chapters provide a solid place to end and provide an opportunity for personal application.
I very much enjoyed reading Remaking the World. It is an enjoyable book, a well-paced book, and, dare I say it, one written with verve. It takes on an audacious thesis and, as far as I can tell (even while admitting I’m entirely unqualified to judge), one the author defends well. I think you’re likely to enjoy it just as much as I did.
Buy from Amazon

If per chance you’ve been waiting to buy Seasons of Sorrow, you’ll currently find it 25% off in Logos format and just $3.99 in Kindle format.

Thoughts on Improving Baptisms
Jim Elliff has some good and helpful thoughts on improving a church’s practice of baptism. (This one is largely for those who practice believer’s baptism.)
Why Most Anglican Clergy Now Approve Gay Marriage—and What This Means for the Future of the Church
Carl Trueman writes about new battle lines within the visible church. “To affirm the resurrection might have made you look like a benighted fool, but societies generally tolerate benighted fools. To oppose our current Western cultural regime, where sexual identity is key to personal value, is to deny the humanity of fellow citizens. The world sees that as a deeply immoral act, and not one that will likely be tolerated forever.”
Can a Christian Have Mental Illness?
“Some Christians believe that Christians cannot have mental illness. If a professing Christian is depressed, anxious, or bipolar, they think it’s because they are not a real Christian, or that there is some terrible sin they haven’t repented of, or that they need to repent of the depression or whatever the problem is. Nearly half (48 percent) of evangelicals believe that serious mental illness can be overcome with prayer and Bible study alone.”
Being Involved in Church as a Teen
Younger Christians may benefit from this one as Laura offers some ideas on being involved in church as a teen.
How to Pray in a Busy World
“The pace of life seems faster than ever. As Christians, we face increasing challenges in prioritizing our prayer life. How can we navigate the complexities of life with faithfulness in prayer? How can we pray when we are so busy?” Erik has counsel for you.
Answering Children
There is so much that parenthood teaches us about God.
Flashback: The Curse of a Godly Wife
You don’t need to be godlier than your wife. You just need to own your sin and inadequacy, and to do those things God calls you to do.

At this day God loves us and He will love us forever. He loves us infinitely and He could not love us more than that if we had never fallen. —C.H. Spurgeon

May the God of love and peace be with you today.

There’s a new Bible for young children on sale this week at Westminster Books. There are some other kids’ books discounted as well.
(Yesterday on the blog: The House Seems Large Today)
‘Christian Nation’ Puts the Bible on Trial
Joe Carter writes about that “member of Finland’s parliament [who] faces a second ‘hate speech’ trial over a Twitter post quoting the Bible.”
The Need for Precision When Quoting Scripture
I agree with David Kaywood about the need for precision when quoting Scripture (especially in the context of more scholarly works).
God’s Good Design of the Local Church
“My heart breaks for those who can’t see the beauty of the local church, or the ones who only focus on her flaws. Look at anyone long enough and you will find problems, especially if that’s your goal. No masterpiece is flawless, even God’s church bears the effects of sin . . . for now.”
Prayer Leaves An Eternal Legacy
Mothers and grandmothers may be especially encouraged by this article from Sylvia.
Tota Scriptura
This is an oldie but a goodie from R.C. Sproul. “The issue that we face in our day is not merely the question of sola Scriptura but also the question of tota Scriptura, which has to do with embracing the whole counsel of God as it is revealed in the entirety of sacred Scripture.”
Should we reject weaponized words?
Aaron writes of the importance of keeping words that have become weaponized (e.g. inerrancy).
Flashback: What Can God Do With Broken Hearts?
Where the world looks to those who are whole and strong, God looks to those who are weak and broken, for his specialty is bringing much from little, beauty from ashes, strength from weakness.

Our grip is that of a two-year-old amid the stormy waves of life. His sure grasp never falters. —Dane Ortlund

The house seems large today. Just a few years after we got married Aileen and I bought the only house we could afford at the time—a little townhouse in an older neighborhood. We never left, never moved on, never traded up. It was big enough for our needs and we happily raised our children here. Though it often seemed too small, today it seems a bit too large. What use do we have for all these rooms? What good do they do just the two of us? It seems large today—large, empty, and kind of sad.

The dinner table seems large this evening. Some of our best family memories were made right here. We gathered around this table each evening to eat, to talk, to laugh, to read the Bible, to pray. In so many ways our family life revolved around this table. Five of us would sit here, often six if one of the children from the neighborhood was joining us. It was always just a bit tight as we sat elbow-to-elbow, our feet bumping and fighting for space underneath. But it seems large this evening with just two of us sitting here, just two of us sitting down at one end. It seems large, empty, and kind of sad.
The living room seems large tonight. You might think that would be impossible when our living room is so very small. We never could fit enough chairs in here to seat all of us at once. Someone would always have to sit on a lap or lie on the floor, or three would need to squeeze onto a mere loveseat. We read so many books here, books that transported us to Middle Earth or Narnia, to the Canadian east coast or the American prairies. So many books, so many stories, so many memories in so small a place. But this living room feels too large tonight—large, empty, and kind of sad.
It all seems large tonight—large, empty, and kind of sad. But my heart feels full tonight—full, pleased, and well satisfied, for each of our children is just where the Lord means for them to be. One is at college, the next step in her growth, the next stage of developing into who God has made her. One is at her home with her husband, happily settled into her new place, her new family, her new life. One is in heaven, in the safest and best of all places, the place we all most truly wish to be. And this little house was only ever meant to be temporary for our children, only ever meant to be the place in which we would prepare them, the place from which we would launch them into the world beyond, and the world beyond that.
I’ll go upstairs now and sit beside Aileen on that little loveseat. I’ll look at the empty table, gaze at the empty chairs, listen to the silence of an empty house and praise God for all the memories, all the blessings, all the sweet pleasures we experienced in this little house that, today at least, seems so large.

Here’s your occasional reminder that the complete collection of the quote graphics I share each day is available (categorized, organized, and completely free to download in high resolution) at SquareQuotes.church.

Is pastoral work uniquely difficult?
Andrew Roycroft has a good and helpful response to a recent article that made a splash. Is pastoral work uniquely difficult? No, yes, and it’s complicated, he says. (Also, don’t forget that if pastoral work has unique difficulties it also has unique blessings…)
Remember King Jesus
Trevin Wax: “There’s a command in the New Testament we ought to lift up as the orienting aspiration for our lives. It’s from the apostle Paul just before his execution, in the last of his letters. It’s given to Timothy, his son in the faith, alongside other instructions for Christian life and leadership.”
Preemptive Parenting in Proverbs 1:
Mitchell Chase looks to Proverbs to consider the importance of preemptive parenting.
Pride will destroy you, your ministry, and people around you
This article turns to an Old Testament example to sound the warning about pride.
Concatenation
“Concatenation. When you learn a cool theological word like concatenation, you want to drop it in conversation all the time! Of course, there aren’t many contexts that concatenation fits right into. Throwing it around also sounds pretty pretentious, so I’ve contained my use of concatenation to sessions. As it represents a key aspect of growth in sanctification, it’s quite useful there.”
On Converting Our Fears into Requests and Living for God Through Christ
This is a keen observation about the verse we tend to quote when we consider our fears. “Perhaps one of the most important observations to make about this passage is that the test of someone’s faithfulness in handling fear is not in not experiencing it but in what one does with it. It is too easy to pat ourselves on the back for not being anxious about anything.”
Flashback: Parent Love and Grandparent Love
I beg you: Please pray! Please intercede before God on their behalf. Perhaps you can simply commit that you will pray for each of your grandchildren each day. And perhaps you can let them know that you have made that commitment

If we do not believe in hell—if we think the only justice and retribution to be had is in this life—then we must take revenge into our own hands. Without hell, justice must be forcibly executed by us, or it will not be executed at all. —Dane Ortlund

Grace and peace to you today.

Today’s Kindle deals include just a couple of not-all-that-exciting books (at least in my judgment).
(Yesterday on the blog: Are You a Lover of Good?)
Lifetimes in Landscapes
This is a really nice piece of writing. “His wide gait pulled him across the threshold and into the room bathed in soft blues and yellows filtering through the stained glass window. Quietly, he shuffled towards a back seat. He grew up in the foothills of the forest. Where the horizon disappeared behind the blue ridges. He’d spend his days with his eyes lifted towards the clouds that kissed the forehead of the mountaintops.”
Immature Defenses of ‘Mature’ Sexual Content in Movies
Cap Stewart writes about some of the immature ways we can respond to sexual content in our entertainment.
Stop Filling Every Quiet Moment with Scrolling
I appreciate and commend articles like this one, though I am not very optimistic when it comes to our desire to actually follow the counsel. At least, not for very long.
Standing Firm in a Culture of Gender Confusion
Chris Priestley: “I pastor a church in West Virginia, the final frontier for every trend, fad, and advance of progressivism. Yet, even out here, the confusion of gender ideology has arrived and sunk its roots deep into our culture.”
Will We Work in Eternity?
Will we work in eternity? John Piper offers six pointers and one caution as he answers the question.
The Role You Wanted vs. The Role You Got
“What makes our roles interesting as Christians, as players of God’s own script, is not our natural desire to keep on sinning, even if that makes for a more exciting or intriguing-on-the-surface character. What makes us interesting in an even more powerful sense is our long-term faithfulness, obedience, and bending to God’s will for our lives. It’s our uniquely Christian attitude toward the hand we’ve been dealt in life (our given role in this play) and our trust that the Director made the right casting decision.”
Flashback: Thank God For Your Job (Doesn’t Matter What Your Job Is!)
As you enjoy rest from your labors, why don’t you take a bit of time to thank God for your labors. No matter what they are, they are evidence of his kindness and mercy toward you.

God has given no pledge which He will not redeem, and encouraged no hope which He will not fulfill. —Charles Spurgeon

This sponsored post was provided by Burke Care, and written by Cameron Woodall , which invites you to schedule care today with a certified biblical counselor.

Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead – Philippians 3:13 ESV
Forgetting what lies behind.
At first glance, one might wonder; is Paul suggesting that we stop revisiting our experiences, memories, or past pains?  Or is he advocating us to ignore the parts of our stories that have distinctively shaped us in ways still evidenced today?  If so, perhaps Paul would look at Biblical counseling today and say, “there’s too much remembering what lies behind!”. Yet, if there was someone with a profound awareness of their own story, especially looking back, it was Paul.
He was shown that God set him apart from birth, that his exemplary endeavoring in Judaism and subsequent violent persecuting of the church were means by which to magnify the patience of God in his own life and others.  Paul was painfully aware that among sinners he was the chief. (Galatians 1:13-17; 1 Timothy 1:12-16; Acts 22; Acts 26:15-18).  Paul was a man familiar with his own story and consequently a man familiar with grace.
Larry Crabb once said, “there is no greater tragedy in human existence than an unexplored life”.  Perhaps more than anyone, Paul had an explored life and saw the hand of a gracious God from his first chapter to his last.  Being able to see the blood-soaked fingerprints of Jesus on every page of his story is precisely what helped him live without the lingering sensation of condemnation.  What lies behind was no longer a hinderance to him.  Revisiting his grace-filled story filled his sails and moved him nearer to the shore of Jesus’s eternal embrace.  His past didn’t derail his journey to the oasis of Christ, instead it filled his sails!  In his own words, he pressed “toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:14).  He knew the difference between incessantly reliving the past and viewing it through redemptive lenses as means to catapult him in the present towards Jesus his prize.
Does what “lies behind” feel like an anchor to your soul?  If you’re a believer and you don’t see the fingerprints of Jesus in the hardest parts of your story, you’re not rightly seeing your story.  If you yearn to see God with a fresh perspective and want to strain forward to what lies ahead with real hope, we at Burke Care would love to walk alongside you in that journey.
You can find more blog post like this at Blog — Burke Care.
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There seems to be something embedded within our sinful human nature that makes us quicker to see evil than good. There is something that draws our attention more naturally to sin than to righteousness, more easily to what is ugly in other people than what is beautiful. No wonder, then, that one of the qualifications for an elder is that he must “a lover of good”, a man who takes delight in the things that delight the heart of God, a man who is not known primarily for the evils he despises but for the good he loves (Titus 1:8).

In that vein, what do you suppose comes more readily to the mind of God when he considers us—the evil we have done or the good? The evidences of remaining sin or the evidences of new grace? The ways in which we have defied his will or the ways in which we have submitted to it? I hope and expect the answer is obvious. While God sees and knows all things, surely what he most readily and eagerly sees in us is all the ways in which we are becoming like him—the godly character, the acts of love, the deeds of faith. He is a proud Father.
But I wonder about you. I wonder what is in your mind and what fills your heart when you consider Christian leaders or personalities, when you consider members of your local church, when you consider your own husband or wife or children? When it comes to other Christians in the widest circle or the narrowest, are you more likely to consider their strengths or their weaknesses, their virtues or their vices?
When someone mentions that Christian leader, do you think first about his flaws or about his graces? Is the first thing that comes to your mind the position he holds that irritates you or the deed he committed that bothers you? Or is it the way the Lord has shaped him and raised him to a position of prominence and used him there to bless others? Is it his failures, however obvious they may be, or his successes?
When someone asks you about that member of your church, could you more easily recount evidences of sinfulness in her life or evidences of grace? Is what naturally pours out of your mouth a list of proofs of the old woman or the new woman? Of what she was or what she is and will be?
When you pray for your husband, are your first words to the Lord words of praise and gratitude for the way God has been working within him and doing such good through him? Or are your first words related to his flaws and your hope that God will finally correct them? Do you more naturally see what’s wrong with him or what’s right? Do you more naturally offer the Lord praise or petition when you consider him?
When it comes to your spouse, when it comes to your children, when it comes to the members of your church, when it comes to other Christians of any kind, are you more skilled at identifying good or evil, sinfulness or virtue? Does your heart more readily identify what is lovely or what is abhorrent, what pleases God or what grieves him? Is the instinct of your tongue to praise God for the work he has done or to lament the work he has not yet done? I ask you to consider: Are you, like God, a true lover of good, a true searcher for good, and a truly committed identifier of good?