“…like the ocean, culture has both seen and unseen elements. Though cultural undercurrents are invisible, they powerfully pressure us to conform to their collective assumptions about the world. Cultural issues, however, are more like waves: seen, heard, and felt. Understanding both is critically important if we’re to keep our heads above water.”
– A Practical Guide to Culture: Helping the Next Generation Navigate Today’s World, John Stonestreet and Brett Kunkle, p. 19
A little over a year ago following worship on a Sunday morning, I was given the book, A Practical Guide to Culture: Helping the Next Generation Navigate Today’s World written by John Stonestreet and Brett Kunkle. It is intended for those interested in “passing on a legacy of faith” knowing that this generational transfer is especially challenging in a culture where Christian values are no longer the center.
Stonestreet and Kunkle provide a fascinating window into culture and why it matters. They postulate four large shifts within American culture that affect Christian witness today:
- The transition from the Industrial Revolution to the Information Age;
- The change in how we define identity following the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s
and 1970s; - The impact of technology on how we relate to one another and our sense of belonging;
- The maturation process of today’s pervasive perpetual adolescence.
After observing current trends, Stonestreet and Kunkle address how these shifts have affected our culture in many of the modern debates from gender identity to addiction, entertainment to racial tension.
What makes the book greater than a mere assessment of culture is the articulation of a distinctly Christian worldview and how to pass the “baton of faith” in the midst of the “pounding cultural waters.” In particular, the authors give practical advice to help young people navigate a new kind of pluralism. They suggest that parents and grandparents must:
- Teach kids that Christianity is objectively true.
- Teach kids why Christianity is objectively true by helping them answer four essential
questions.- Does truth exist, and can we know it?
- Does God exist, and what’s the evidence?
- Did Jesus rise from the dead, and what’s the evidence?
- Is the Bible trustworthy, and what’s the evidence?
- Teach kids other worldviews and how Christianity is different.
- Teach kids how to ask good questions and to think critically.
- Model truth and grace in every conversation.
- Prepare kids for push back.
If you are interested in providing clarity to your kids or grandkids regarding the challenges of growing up in America today, A Practical Guide to Culture is a must-read. This book is available for purchase at the BookCenter.
by Pastor Brad Rogers
A Practical Guide to Culture is written to help Christians, especially Christian parents, navigate a culture that is growing in its hostility to the Christian worldview. The authors offer valuable insight on how to address today’s culture as Christians who are called to be in the world but not of it. The book’s conversational tone makes it affable from students in high school to adults with advanced degrees.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
John Stonestreet is president of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview and co-host of BreakPoint, a nationally syndicated radio program founded by the late Chuck Colson. He holds degrees from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and Bryan College.
Brett Kunkle is the Student Impact Director at Stand to Reason, a ministry of apologetics with the mission of training Christians to think more clearly about their faith in the public square. He has his master’s degree in philosophy of religion and ethics from Talbot School of Theology. “…like the ocean, culture has both seen and unseen elements.
