NOTE: Aaron Renn will be one of the speakers at New Life’s annual apologetics conference, “Honoring God in a Hostile Culture,” which will be Saturday Nov. 2 at the church. Click here for more information.
Sometimes an author will coin a phrase that gets absorbed so thoroughly into the popular vernacular that the term just becomes assumed. This seems to have happened with Aaron Renn's "negative world" paradigm, as a way of describing the current cultural climate in which the church finds itself.
For most of American history, the culture has been very positive toward Christianity. That changed in 1994 (dates negotiable), according to Renn, when our society transformed into a more neutral stance toward Christianity. That is, the church no longer had a privileged status, but it wasn't necessarily disfavored (p.6-7).
It wasn't long before the neutral world morphed into the negative world, which the church has inhabited since 2014. Renn describes the negative world like this: "Christian morality is expressly repudiated and now seen as a threat to the public good and new public moral border." (p.7).
Renn's purpose in this book is to awaken Christians to this reality. His assumption is that too many Christians assume we are still living in the positive or neutral worlds, as if the world will like us if we just like them. Or as if the world will warm up to Christianity if we show ourselves to be thoughtful, non-judgmental and conversant in the latest movies and alternative music. But sooner or later, these believers will receive a rude awakening (as did Tim Keller back in 2017) and need to plan now for how they will respond faithfully to God's word when they lose their job or get blackballed for simply believing the Bible.
What I appreciate most about Renn's analysis is that he obviously speaks as one who knows how the world works. As one who has worked in politics and finance, he brings a perspective that seems street-wise and free from the naïveté that can sometimes limit the perspective of evangelical leaders who only know church life. Renn doesn't embrace Rod Dreher's "Benedictine option," but neither is he on board with the winsome cultural engagement model that has been so popular in reformed circles recently. Renn is clearly proposing something different – an approach that isn't fleeing the culture, but one that is definitely not trying to flatter the culture either.
Renn spent considerable time at the end of the book discussing the importance of gender roles, which I did find instructive and helpful, but the space given to this topic seemed a little out of balance. He also mentions the importance of gender confusion, race relations and politics as issues "where the church is in conflict with the culture" (p.187). The book might be more helpful (and certainly longer) if he devoted equal time to these issues, not to mention the church's response to LGBT matters.
This is still a very clearly written, well organized, and super relevant book that all Christians, but especially Christian leaders, need to read.