Book Review: "The Gathering Storm" by Mohler

Welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist. This program is dedicated to helping you better understand the Word of God and the doctrines of grace. The Bible tells us, do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the Word of truth.

Get your Bible and coffee ready and prepare to study along. Here's your host with today's lesson, Pastor Keith Foskey.

And welcome back to Coffee with a Calvinist. My name is Keith Foskey and I am a Calvinist. Today is August the 28th, 2020. And if you're reading along in our daily Bible reading, you're going to be reading from Acts chapter 27.

My encouragement to you is to read through the chapter more than once. Don't forget that our job is to first observe the text, then interpret, then apply the text. And of course, if you're interested in being a part of our daily Bible reading, you can go to our website, sgfcjacks .org.

You can download a copy of our daily Bible reading list, and then you can use that to follow along. We read through the New Testament one chapter a day, every weekday. That gives you the weekends off to follow up and to catch up if you've lost yourself or gotten behind at all.

The Book Review and Why It Matters

Now, today is a special episode because I have with me as my guest, as sometimes I bring in, my lovely wife, Jennifer. Say hello, Jennifer. Hello. Hi, everyone. That is Jennifer. She's going to be going along with us today because today we're doing something special.

We are going to be reviewing a book. This is hopefully going to become a regular part of our program. I'm thinking about trying to do this every Friday, reviewing a book that I think could be helpful for our listeners.

And this just happens to be a book that Jennifer and I have read. And real quick, I just want to ask Jennifer, how long ago was it that you read this book?

I read this book about two weeks ago, I finished it.

Okay. And I think mine, I think I read it a little bit before you did. And so this is just, this is fresh on our minds. We have made some notes that we're going to be going over, but let me, let me introduce the book to you and sort of talk about why I'm deciding to do this book at this time.

The title of the book is The Gathering Storm, Secularism, Culture, and the Church. And it is by Dr. Albert Moeller, the president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, the largest of the schools in the Southern Baptist Convention.

Dr. Moeller is certainly a name that is well known among conservative and reformed evangelicals. He has stood for a very long time for the cause of Christ. And he certainly is a person that has not been without some controversy, especially lately.

There's been some controversy around some things happening in and around Southern Seminary, but ultimately for a very long time has been a stalwart in the faith, standing firm on the subject of the gospel.

Someone who has been trusted to preach alongside Ben, like John MacArthur and R .C. Sproul. And I am very thankful for the few times that I have had the opportunity to meet Dr. Moeller and one of the things that many of you know who listen to this program is that I sometimes reference The Briefing.

The Briefing is a daily podcast which is put out by Dr. Moeller, and it is news and events from a Christian worldview. And this is something that I listen to almost every weekday when I'm getting out of bed and I'm brushing my teeth and going about my regular morning routine, I'll throw on The Briefing.

And he normally talks about the latest Supreme Court ruling or the latest issues facing the law and politics, and he tries to give an examination of these things from a Christian worldview. I don't agree with everything that he says, but I do agree that Dr. Moeller has a biblical worldview and it's nice to hear someone analyzing the news and events of our day from a Christian perspective.

Like I said, I don't always have to agree with everything that he says, but it is nice to have an opportunity to listen to him. And during the month of July, he takes a month off of doing The Briefing.

And so instead of getting to hear The Briefing every day, I chose to actually listen to the audiobook of The Gathering Storm. So this review is not only going to be a review of the book, but as often is the case, if I can get a book on audio, I can listen to it on my drive to and from the office.

And so this is actually something that I have gotten to hear, and so I want to make that note as well, that this is something that Jennifer and I, we consumed the book through the medium of audio and appreciated it, and we both had the opportunity to do that.

First Impressions of the Book

So very quickly, I want to just ask Jennifer, could you give just a few of your basic impressions of the book just right away before we dig into the more meatier parts, just what are your thoughts right away on what you gleaned from the book, and maybe a basic takeaway?

Okay.

I think, first of all, what I want to say is I think every Christian should listen to this, because he talks about, in The Gathering Storm, what he means is that in the ways of our culture, marriage, family, the church, the culture, human life, I mean, all of these areas, religious liberty, all of these areas, how they've been affected by the shift in our culture, it's just mind-boggling, and I think everybody would do good to listen to this or to read this book.

Wonderful, wonderful. And I think the same thing, and that's part of why I'm doing this. Again, this is not just a book review. I would say this is a recommendation. This is an opportunity for us, having both listened to the book, to say that this book says a lot of really great things that many Christians simply have not been exposed to.

And that is, there's a reality that we all live in somewhat of a bubble. We live, everyone lives in somewhat of an echo chamber, where they have friends, and the reason why they're friends is because they sort of agree with one another.

And so when you have friends that you agree with, and you say something, and your friend affirms what you're saying, that's what they call an echo chamber. Nobody's really challenging you. And so when most of your friends are Christians, like most of our friends are believers, then sometimes it's hard to really understand that there are people in the world who are pushing an agenda which is anti-Christian.

And even though we may hear about things like that in our news feeds, or we might hear about things like that while watching television, sometimes I think that we can think it's really not real, like it's kind of separated from us, and it's not something that's really on us.

It's not something we really have to concern ourselves with. But the reason for the title, and I wanted to mention this, the book explains the title The Gathering Storm. He compares this to a statement by Winston Churchill about the gathering of the issues regarding the Nazis.

And that people did not realize how dangerous and how bad the situation was going to be with the Nazi regime until it was already at a bad state. And Winston Churchill used the phrase The Gathering Storm regarding what was happening.

And I think this is something that most of us don't see, but it is going on. There are issues that are rising. I think 2020 has been a very important year to kind of knock a lot of us out of our echo chamber because 2020 has gotten, we've seen things happen that I think none of us ever expected.

The removing of certain liberties, the removing of certain freedoms. I mean, you can't go anywhere without wearing a mask anymore, and even that should make us all feel a little odd. It just seems very odd how quickly the world has changed.

And so Dr. Moeller is saying these things are not just now happening. These things have been gathering for a while. The storm clouds have been gathering and many people just have not truly recognized what has happened.

I just wanted to jump in also and say that this book was written a few years ago. So the culture has even moved further while listening to the book. You can see that it's even in some cases, especially in our political climate now, even further left or worse than what it was even when he wrote it.

Yeah, that's absolutely true. And the thing that's, I mean, the book came out this year, but you know books are written long before they're published. They have to go through a time of editing. They have to go through.

It's interesting because in the book he mentioned, wasn't it Pete Buttigieg that he mentioned? He mentions Buttigieg. And so that's obviously that person's not even really relevant on the political theater anymore.

But yet that's about the time that he was writing. So we're looking at a year or so ago when the last bit of writing was being done on the book and the last bit of editing. So yes, a lot of things have happened even in this last year.

I want to do something now. What I'd like to do is I want to just go over the chapters of the book. I pulled up a copy of the contents of the book and I'm just going to read through to give you an idea.

Again, this is a review and a recommendation. What is this book about? The Gathering Storm is about secularism, culture, and the church. And he talks about how the storm has gathered in different areas.

So here here are the chapters. It's nine chapters. The introduction, of course, is the it's the storm gathering. But then chapter one is the gathering storm over Western civilization. And he talks about how Western civilization is under attack.

And then chapter two is the gathering storm in the church and how secularism has made its way into the church rather than the church going into the world. The world has come into the church and it's done so subtly and over time.

Chapter three, the gathering storm over human life. He talks about abortion. Chapter four, the gathering storm over marriage, talks about the issue of same sex marriage. Chapter five, the gathering storm over the family changes in the structure and understanding of the role of the family.

Chapter six, the gathering storm over gender and sexuality. He talks about the the gender spectrum and the changes that have occurred in regard to that. Chapter seven is the gathering generational storm, talking about how the younger generation is doesn't understand things like the role of the church and society as as did their ancestors.

And so the next generation coming up is far more liberal, far more willing to jettison the need and the understanding of the centrality of church in a society. And then, of course, chapter eight, the gathering storm and the engines of culture.

And then finally, the gathering storm over religious liberty. And again, this book was written before COVID -19. So this is interesting that he's mentioning and talking about religious liberty over a year ago and the things that have happened.

And if you read through the book, I think many of the things will really surprise you and kind of be an eye opener for you. Jennifer, did you consider this an eye opener for you when you read it?

Yes, absolutely. I stopped several times through it and had to go back and re-listen again. I was just taken aback by some of what he said, especially concerning religious liberty and the family. I remember those two things, those two chapters specifically really stuck out to me.

Awesome, awesome. Well, there's one other part that I want to mention, and that's the appendix to the book, the gathering storm over the courts. He talks about the change in the understanding of the court system.

The courts are not supposed to legislate. The courts are supposed to interpret the Constitution and judge whether or not laws are—the Supreme Court's supposed to judge whether or not laws have been constitutional or not.

But yet they are legislating from the bench. They are governing from the bench. They are doing things that they were never intended to do by the Constitution. And so I would encourage you, if you do read the book, don't forget to read the appendix.

A lot of times we get to the end of the book, we think that we're done. But the appendix, I think, has as much, if not more, relevance to the whole subject of the book. Well, this time I actually want to read a couple portions from the book, and I want to make a few comments.

Let Jennifer comment if she'd like to, and then we're going to wrap up this review and this recommendation. This is from the introduction to the book. This is regarding the state of Christianity in the United States.

And I'm going to begin the quote now. In October 2019, the Pew Research Center released a major new report. Quote, in U .S., decline of Christianity continues at rapid pace, end quote. The research indicates that those 65 percent of Americans identified as Christians when asked about their religion, that was actually a decrease of 12 percent in just 10 years.

The math is easy to project into the future. The decline of Christian identity is particularly pronounced among younger Americans, and fully one-third of those age 35 and younger report no religious affiliation.

Americans had long believed that we were an exceptional nation and that secularization was a European reality, not ours. We can afford that illusion no longer. America is on the same trajectory, just on a somewhat delayed timetable.

You know, this really does concern me because I think about the fact that if you look at the state of Europe in so many areas, America is not too far behind. It seems like it starts—trends begin in Europe.

They come to us through the larger cities like those in California and in New York, and they tend to spread slowly, but they do spread consistently throughout the United States, and we see this insipid problem happening.

And what we see when we look overseas is we see empty churches. We see churches that are turned into nightclubs. We see churches that are turned into mosques. We see churches that are turned into all kinds of facilities that have nothing to do with historic Christianity.

And so that is a reality that we all must face, is that the church in Europe has declined for a long, long time, and we can see that same decline coming into the United States. And so this book is pointing to that reality and is pointing to the real serious problem that we have to look forward to, and that is the problem of a decline of Christianity in the United States.

And that leads me to another quote that I'd like to give, but before I do that, I want to let Jennifer speak.

Go ahead. If you're a Christian and you listen to this quote and reading this book, it should sound an alarm, a wake-up call that the church—like we can't be silent about these things. The storm is gathering.

Standing Firm on the Gospel in a Secular Age

Yes, absolutely. And that's the reality, is the book does not necessarily offer a tremendous amount of solutions. It's more about identifying the problem. The solution is and always will be the preaching of the gospel, the proclamation of the truth, and understanding that these trends are happening will help us to understand what we need to do in continuing to preach the gospel and understand that we may have to take stands.

Like right now, Dr. John MacArthur is taking a stand out in California against the governor who has said churches are not allowed to meet. Dr. MacArthur is meeting now. I'm recording this before the time it airs.

So if anything happens in the next few days with Dr. MacArthur, I just want to say at this point, at the point of this recording, he has gotten ruling from a judge that has said they are allowed to meet.

Dr. MacArthur had used legal means to try to enforce his ability to meet. So far, that's working for him. I don't know what's going to happen in a couple of days. And when this recording comes out, things may have changed as they always do change day by day.

But the point is taking a stand is important, taking a stand for truth, taking a stand for the gospel. That's what has to happen, because as the storm gathers and the winds blow, people who are nominal Christians will not stand.

People who are cultural Christians will not stand. This is a reality. And that's what I want to read. This is the last quote that I want to read from the book, because this is really the heart of the message.

And it says this. A central fact of the storm now gathering strength is moral liberalism, which cannot be explained without the de-Christianization of society. Moral liberalism has basically become the dominant moral commitment of the most influential sectors of American society, from the universities to the entertainment industry and the artistic centers and the mass media and the titans of Silicon Valley.

Apparently, to be hyper-modern is also to be hyper-liberal in moral worldview. Do Christians believe enough biblical truth to withstand the moral liberalism of the age? Cultural forms of Christianity have been largely de-Christianized and tamed, and nominal Christianity is fast disappearing.

There is no social capital to be gained by joining a congregation defined by biblical truth. That is the reality. There was a time in history where cultural Christianity had some social value, and people, even though they weren't Christians, would often be a part of a church simply to have some social capital.

But those days are behind us. The church is no longer a place where people can go simply to increase their social stock. There may be some bastions of that around the United States, but for the most part, people would prefer you not be part of a church that is preaching the truth.

I'm reminded of just last year when Bernie Sanders was facing a man who was being considered for some position, and Bernie Sanders was asking him, do you believe that Muslims are going to hell? I forget how he asked the question, but basically, do you believe that they are ungodly?

Do you believe that they're serving a false god? The man didn't want to answer a straight yes, but he had written an article that basically said if you don't believe in Christ, then you're not going to go to heaven, which is clear Christian teaching.

Bernie Sanders was chastising him for that. I can't believe that you believe that. I can't believe that you believe that if somebody doesn't believe in Jesus, they're going to hell. I remember watching the hearing saying, how can you not believe that he believes that?

That's standard Christian teaching. But what we're seeing is that standard Christian teaching is no longer allowed in the public square in many situations. It's going to become harder and harder to be a Christian in the United States as long as liberalism continues to grow in the pace that it's growing.

As long as secularism and the secular culture continues to expand its ever-growing power, the church is going to find itself to be persona non grata in a lot of various social situations. To be a member of a church where the pastor is proclaiming the gospel, to be a member of the church where the pastor is calling people to repentance, to be a member of a church where we stand for godly biblical marriage, where we stand against the murder of babies in the womb, to be a member of a church like that is going to be something that might cost you one day.

And that's part of what this book is trying to remind us, that there is a storm coming and we need to be prepared as believers to weather the storm. Jennifer, do you want to add anything before we draw to a close?

Well, we can remember though that our hope is secure in Christ. Regardless of the storm, we can take shelter under his wings and we are secure in him, regardless of what we see on the news and regardless of what is brewing.

Amen, absolutely. And that's the thing that we need to always be reminded of, that no matter what we face in this world, neither death nor life, nor angels nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

This storm may come, but Jesus said, if we are founded upon the rock, the wind may blow, but we will not fall if we're founded upon the rock. And so I encourage you, and Jennifer along with me, encourages you to please take the opportunity if you have the ability to read or listen to The Gathering Storm, I think it would be an encouragement to you.

I hope this review has been helpful to you and I look forward to having you again next week as we continue our daily podcast, Coffee with a Calvinist. And thank you, Jennifer, for being with us today.

Thank you for having me. Absolutely. I'm glad to have you as my lovely bride and my podcast assistant today. I appreciate having you on the show. Again, I want to thank you all for listening today and I want to remind you that you're listening to Coffee with a Calvinist.

My name is Keith Foskey and I have been your Calvinist. May God bless you.