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The Reason for Church: Why the Body of Christ Still Matters in an Age of Anxiety, Division, and Radical Individualism
Rediscover the goodness and beauty of the Body of Christ.
The evangelical church is hemorrhaging. Over 40 million Americans have dechurched in the last 25 years alone, and multiple generations have been raised to believe the most spiritual thing they can do is follow God by following their heart--right out of the church. Yet, this shift is happening right as society is hitting record levels of loneliness, stress, and anxiety. In The Reason for Church, pastor Brad Edwards connects the dots of our current church crisis and provides compelling reasons to come back.
In part 1, Edwards how individualistic beliefs make church implausible and compromise our spiritual
Marketplace logic and consumeristic approaches to discipleshipIntuitional spirituality and therapy speakSocial media's distortion of what is true, good, and beautifulPerformative politics and culture warsVirtuous victimhood, the decline of trust, and the rise of powerThese chapters show why individualism won't satisfy and can't provide the refuge it promises.
In part 2, Edwards uses personal examples, church history, non-Western expressions of faith, and Scripture to show how the church is our existentially satisfying alternative to individualism. Equipped with an institutionally robust vision, we will rediscover the church as God's spiritual greenhouse where soul-tired sojourners and lonely exiles are restored and repurposed for life in the world.
The Reason for Church offers an honest-yet-hopeful vision for church as a necessary institution. With radical individualism tearing us apart, we need compelling reasons to fall back in love with Christ's bride, now more than ever.
The evangelical church is hemorrhaging. Over 40 million Americans have dechurched in the last 25 years alone, and multiple generations have been raised to believe the most spiritual thing they can do is follow God by following their heart--right out of the church. Yet, this shift is happening right as society is hitting record levels of loneliness, stress, and anxiety. In The Reason for Church, pastor Brad Edwards connects the dots of our current church crisis and provides compelling reasons to come back.
In part 1, Edwards how individualistic beliefs make church implausible and compromise our spiritual
Marketplace logic and consumeristic approaches to discipleshipIntuitional spirituality and therapy speakSocial media's distortion of what is true, good, and beautifulPerformative politics and culture warsVirtuous victimhood, the decline of trust, and the rise of powerThese chapters show why individualism won't satisfy and can't provide the refuge it promises.
In part 2, Edwards uses personal examples, church history, non-Western expressions of faith, and Scripture to show how the church is our existentially satisfying alternative to individualism. Equipped with an institutionally robust vision, we will rediscover the church as God's spiritual greenhouse where soul-tired sojourners and lonely exiles are restored and repurposed for life in the world.
The Reason for Church offers an honest-yet-hopeful vision for church as a necessary institution. With radical individualism tearing us apart, we need compelling reasons to fall back in love with Christ's bride, now more than ever.
214 pages, Paperback
Published April 22, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews
March 20, 2025
Lots of great stuff here. Needed wisdom for an anti-commitment, anti-institutional age.
June 28, 2025
As someone who has served in several ministry roles, this book gave me a lot to think about. He makes a strong social and biblical case against individualism and anti-institutional attitudes in our culture, and answers many of the most common objections to attending or committing to church membership.
Unbelievers need the church because local congregations are some of the largest contributors to community service.
Christians need the church because it is Jesus's body, God's household, and the means through which God gave the great commission.
Bottom line - the Christian life is primarily described as individual members being joined together (into a house, into a body, into a priesthood), and that process is achieved through the church.
Unbelievers need the church because local congregations are some of the largest contributors to community service.
Christians need the church because it is Jesus's body, God's household, and the means through which God gave the great commission.
Bottom line - the Christian life is primarily described as individual members being joined together (into a house, into a body, into a priesthood), and that process is achieved through the church.
July 9, 2025
I imagine if Tim Keller and Jonathan Haidt wrote a book on church, culture and the way forward it would be a lot like this. So good, insightful, helpful and encouraging.
September 16, 2025
This was a good book that opened up a very important conversation about church. We have become a post institution society. People don’t trust institutions and live their spiritual life in an extremely individualistic way. This is the root of distrust and divid. Good book can overload with info at time but great. 8/10
1. “What if your skepticism is at least partly the result of cultural assumptions you don’t even know.”
2. “Early in ministry, I expected that the hardest part of being a pastor would be persuading no -Christian’s that God exists. By several orders of magnitude, it has been much harder to persuade anyone. That church is good or beautiful.
3. We’ve gone from entrusting our formation to a church, to insisting a church conform to us.”
4. “Even if we are part of a local church, viewing institutions so cynically keeps Christ body at arms length in perpetuity.”
5. “We need to fall back in love with the bride of Christ.”
The church is so important and is needed for our formation. I do not know where I’d be without the local church. I tell people all the time the church i was apart of in Seminary formed me far more than any seminary class room could have and that’s nothin negative to class. It’s just i got to practically live out the gospel in community and be challenged and stretched and loved deeply.
1. “What if your skepticism is at least partly the result of cultural assumptions you don’t even know.”
2. “Early in ministry, I expected that the hardest part of being a pastor would be persuading no -Christian’s that God exists. By several orders of magnitude, it has been much harder to persuade anyone. That church is good or beautiful.
3. We’ve gone from entrusting our formation to a church, to insisting a church conform to us.”
4. “Even if we are part of a local church, viewing institutions so cynically keeps Christ body at arms length in perpetuity.”
5. “We need to fall back in love with the bride of Christ.”
The church is so important and is needed for our formation. I do not know where I’d be without the local church. I tell people all the time the church i was apart of in Seminary formed me far more than any seminary class room could have and that’s nothin negative to class. It’s just i got to practically live out the gospel in community and be challenged and stretched and loved deeply.
June 27, 2025
Really enjoyed this book! We have to shake off our radical individualism and be the body of Christ, both in our own Christian communities, and to the lost. Great listen on Audible!
May 27, 2026
I’ll be chewing on this book for a long while. Edwards brilliantly diagnoses “expressive individualism” as the virus driving today’s cultural crises of loneliness, anxiety, and division. He then suggests deep involvement in local churches (at least those that rebel against expressive individualism) as the antidote. He gives helpful and fair critiques of the seeker sensitive movement, social media, and politics. Though it was well written and argued, there was something about his writing style I didn’t love but can’t quite put my finger on.
May 28, 2026
Listened to this one, but listened closely enough to know that it’s one that I should probably read through. There is a good bit of cultural analysis, but more on why the church is not only necessary, but good. If you’ve struggled with why be part of a church - read this book.
June 2, 2025
This is an excellent book, especially for pastors and church leaders seeking to demonstrate why the church remains compelling, beautiful, and conducive for flourishing. It's a helpful counter to our individualistic and anti-institutional culture.
June 18, 2026
If you are familiar with The Reason for God by the late Tim Keller, then The Reason for the Church by Brad Edwards should feel like walking back into the house of a dear friend. Edwards writes with the same adroit style, the same precise observation, and the same gift for joining cultural analysis to biblical application that made Keller's work so persuasive twenty years ago.
Edwards's chief concern is the radical individualism he has watched creep into the church, and his aim in writing is to make the case for the corporate body of Christ as a necessary part of a whole and healthy life. That aim moves along two lines. First, he answers the non-Christian who is skeptical of organized religion, taking the objection seriously before dismantling it. Second, he names the ways radical individualism has already infiltrated the people of God and begun to shape them. To both he gives biblical answers.
The book is organized into two primary parts. Part one takes up the arguments that have become a kind of bulletproof shield against the necessity of the church. Here Edwards perceptively identifies five trends shaping how both Christians and non-Christian tend to think about it. The first is spiritual pragmatism, in which seeker sensitivity and self-actualization quietly reduce the church to a spiritual nonprofit. The second is the sacred self, the therapeutic culture whose intuitional spirituality and therapy-speak leave us more fearful, fragile, and alone. The third is the rise of counterfeit institutions, chief among them social media, which “unmakes” disciples even as it promises authentic connection. The fourth is our civil religions, the tribal loyalties that make enemies in order to make meaning and leave us angry and empty. The fifth is a pervasive victimhood, which dresses coercion and vicious competition in the language of compassion. Taken together, these are the bricks and mortar of a modern Babel, and Edwards shows why each one fails to deliver what it advertises.
Across the final five chapters, Edwards moves from diagnosis to recovery, showing what the church is, as well as what it provides that no counterfeit possibly could. He argues that the church is a people named glory, the community through which God bestows identity and significance that the anxious self can never manufacture on its own. It is a greenhouse for exiles, the place where faith is cultivated and a fragmented life is made whole. It is an embodied narrative, drawing us out of our private storylines and into the drama of redemption. It is a table for belonging, where the obligations and sacrifices that individualism treats as threats are redeemed by hospitality. And it is a city on a hill, a people who steward God's blessing not for themselves alone but for the life and flourishing of the world. In each, Edwards answers a wound that radical individualism leaves unhealed, and he does so not by minimizing the church's failures but by lifting the reader's eyes to what Christ intends his bride to be.
Edwards's gift is that he names what the rest of us only feel. Living in a post-Christian culture, we sense that something has gone wrong without being able to say what it is, and page after page Edwards puts his finger on it and hands us the words. Read him and you will get caught, recognizing the very assumptions you carried into church last Sunday without knowing they were there. And the critique cuts both ways. It exposes the culture pressing in from the outside, then turns on the reader, making us wonder how much of what we say and do has been quietly handed to us by the world rather than the Word.
What might catch you off guard is how plain his solutions turn out to be. After reading our moment so well, you brace yourself for some intricate program to match. It never comes. What Edwards calls for is the same old thing God has always handed his people: gather around the Word and the Table and do the unglamorous work of loving a few ordinary saints. If that sounds like a letdown, it shouldn't. The trouble Edwards describes runs too deep to be fixed by anything clever we might invent. The plainness of his answer is the whole point. Paul told the Corinthians that the cross looks like foolishness to a dying world and is, all the same, the power of God (1 Cor. 1:18). The gospel that walks dead men out of their graves is not going to be outmatched by our loneliness or our anxiety. Edwards is happy to trust a small, faithful church and the enormous gospel it carries, and the reader who has felt how the whole culture seems stacked against the faith will close the book breathing easier, sure again that the gospel does not need our improvements to do what it has always done.
Brad Edwards's The Reason for the Church is a loaded missile that helpfully detonates both the non-Christian's and the Christian's cultural paradigm foisted upon the church. It belongs on the shelf beside Andrew Wilson's Remaking the World and Carl Trueman's The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self,. Where Trueman traces how the modern self came to be through a chronological and intellectual history, and where Wilson shows how a single year remade the world we now inhabit, Edwards turns to the question those books leave on the table: given the world they describe, what is the church for? It is a remarkably hopeful book about a beautiful and necessary institution of God. Both the church and church members would do well to read it.
Edwards's chief concern is the radical individualism he has watched creep into the church, and his aim in writing is to make the case for the corporate body of Christ as a necessary part of a whole and healthy life. That aim moves along two lines. First, he answers the non-Christian who is skeptical of organized religion, taking the objection seriously before dismantling it. Second, he names the ways radical individualism has already infiltrated the people of God and begun to shape them. To both he gives biblical answers.
The book is organized into two primary parts. Part one takes up the arguments that have become a kind of bulletproof shield against the necessity of the church. Here Edwards perceptively identifies five trends shaping how both Christians and non-Christian tend to think about it. The first is spiritual pragmatism, in which seeker sensitivity and self-actualization quietly reduce the church to a spiritual nonprofit. The second is the sacred self, the therapeutic culture whose intuitional spirituality and therapy-speak leave us more fearful, fragile, and alone. The third is the rise of counterfeit institutions, chief among them social media, which “unmakes” disciples even as it promises authentic connection. The fourth is our civil religions, the tribal loyalties that make enemies in order to make meaning and leave us angry and empty. The fifth is a pervasive victimhood, which dresses coercion and vicious competition in the language of compassion. Taken together, these are the bricks and mortar of a modern Babel, and Edwards shows why each one fails to deliver what it advertises.
Across the final five chapters, Edwards moves from diagnosis to recovery, showing what the church is, as well as what it provides that no counterfeit possibly could. He argues that the church is a people named glory, the community through which God bestows identity and significance that the anxious self can never manufacture on its own. It is a greenhouse for exiles, the place where faith is cultivated and a fragmented life is made whole. It is an embodied narrative, drawing us out of our private storylines and into the drama of redemption. It is a table for belonging, where the obligations and sacrifices that individualism treats as threats are redeemed by hospitality. And it is a city on a hill, a people who steward God's blessing not for themselves alone but for the life and flourishing of the world. In each, Edwards answers a wound that radical individualism leaves unhealed, and he does so not by minimizing the church's failures but by lifting the reader's eyes to what Christ intends his bride to be.
Edwards's gift is that he names what the rest of us only feel. Living in a post-Christian culture, we sense that something has gone wrong without being able to say what it is, and page after page Edwards puts his finger on it and hands us the words. Read him and you will get caught, recognizing the very assumptions you carried into church last Sunday without knowing they were there. And the critique cuts both ways. It exposes the culture pressing in from the outside, then turns on the reader, making us wonder how much of what we say and do has been quietly handed to us by the world rather than the Word.
What might catch you off guard is how plain his solutions turn out to be. After reading our moment so well, you brace yourself for some intricate program to match. It never comes. What Edwards calls for is the same old thing God has always handed his people: gather around the Word and the Table and do the unglamorous work of loving a few ordinary saints. If that sounds like a letdown, it shouldn't. The trouble Edwards describes runs too deep to be fixed by anything clever we might invent. The plainness of his answer is the whole point. Paul told the Corinthians that the cross looks like foolishness to a dying world and is, all the same, the power of God (1 Cor. 1:18). The gospel that walks dead men out of their graves is not going to be outmatched by our loneliness or our anxiety. Edwards is happy to trust a small, faithful church and the enormous gospel it carries, and the reader who has felt how the whole culture seems stacked against the faith will close the book breathing easier, sure again that the gospel does not need our improvements to do what it has always done.
Brad Edwards's The Reason for the Church is a loaded missile that helpfully detonates both the non-Christian's and the Christian's cultural paradigm foisted upon the church. It belongs on the shelf beside Andrew Wilson's Remaking the World and Carl Trueman's The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self,. Where Trueman traces how the modern self came to be through a chronological and intellectual history, and where Wilson shows how a single year remade the world we now inhabit, Edwards turns to the question those books leave on the table: given the world they describe, what is the church for? It is a remarkably hopeful book about a beautiful and necessary institution of God. Both the church and church members would do well to read it.
December 11, 2025
A beautiful painting that was dropped in the toilet.
Ch 1-3 had me thinking that this would be a 5/5. Edwards articulately critiques our culture’s idolization of individualism in a way that I’ve never read. We worship self-definition instead of wanting God to define us. We look inward for truth instead of outward to the Christ’s bride. We need to reemphasize the importance of Church. Amen! Preach it!
The problem is, Chapter 4 preaches the David French/Russel Moore political third-Wayism that equally critiques both sides and pretends that Christian values aren’t radically more aligned with the side not trying to murder babies (he literally quotes French). He implicitly discusses America’s systemic racism. He wants both political parties represented in his church. He likens the desire to win elections to the desire to want your favorite WWE wrestler to win - pointless. It’s shockingly tone deaf when babies are being slaughtered by the millions and gender is being redefined. In no way does this imply one side is righteous or “Christian” in any way. But if Edwards wants to talk politics, it’s irresponsible and cowardly to pretend as if both sides are equally aligned with biblical values.
He tries to walk over to the other side in the next chapter, but ends up lacking the courage to make any pointed critiques.
Despite chapters 6 and 7 being painfully wordy and adding little to the book, the last three chapters are solid. So, balance out and give this a 3/5.
Ch 1-3 had me thinking that this would be a 5/5. Edwards articulately critiques our culture’s idolization of individualism in a way that I’ve never read. We worship self-definition instead of wanting God to define us. We look inward for truth instead of outward to the Christ’s bride. We need to reemphasize the importance of Church. Amen! Preach it!
The problem is, Chapter 4 preaches the David French/Russel Moore political third-Wayism that equally critiques both sides and pretends that Christian values aren’t radically more aligned with the side not trying to murder babies (he literally quotes French). He implicitly discusses America’s systemic racism. He wants both political parties represented in his church. He likens the desire to win elections to the desire to want your favorite WWE wrestler to win - pointless. It’s shockingly tone deaf when babies are being slaughtered by the millions and gender is being redefined. In no way does this imply one side is righteous or “Christian” in any way. But if Edwards wants to talk politics, it’s irresponsible and cowardly to pretend as if both sides are equally aligned with biblical values.
He tries to walk over to the other side in the next chapter, but ends up lacking the courage to make any pointed critiques.
Despite chapters 6 and 7 being painfully wordy and adding little to the book, the last three chapters are solid. So, balance out and give this a 3/5.
January 30, 2026
As a pastor, it's helpful to read an approachable reminder of why the church serves a unique role in the world. I found Edwards attempts to redeem the necessity of "institutions" a helpful reset to the assumption that all institutions are inherently harmful. I found the first half of the book (diagnosing the reasons why church has experienced dwindling influence) more stimulating than the second (a positive articulation of what the church is created to be).
January 19, 2026
A fantastic book on why the local church is critically important if we want to see God’s kingdom come. This book is specifically written for people who are based in a ‘westernized’ society which probably includes everyone who uses Goodreads 😜
May 11, 2025
Very encouraging, deep reminders, while the ‘secular’ is so good now on service, the church needs to be that too, but it’s the collective group witness doing that, but comprised of all different kinds of people that is the witness that is different in today’s society now. To me, that is the light on the hill.
April 28, 2025
This book is an eye-opener for an old guy.
I have been in a leadership position at various churches for more than 40 years. I’ve observed what Brad Edwards documents in his excellent book.
I am grateful that he was able to give explanations for things that I have simply been unable to understand in my grandchildren’s generation.
Do you remember the two old geezer critics in the Muppets, Waldorf and Statler? I’ve really tried to make an effort to not be those kind of guys. I have, at the same time, noticed the unchurching Pastor is documenting. My desire has always been evangelism; however many “mainline” churches don’t seem to know how to do that. Their diminishing numbers testify to this lack of success.
If you’ll permit me one story: some rock-ribbed old denominationalist was critical of Dwight L. Moody‘s methods of evangelism, and told him so. Moody replied, “I like the way I do it much better than the way you don’t do it.”
Evangelizing a person to a loving, supportive, community is far more likely to be an invitation that will be accepted.
May God continue to bless this work at The Table and throughout the world.
I have been in a leadership position at various churches for more than 40 years. I’ve observed what Brad Edwards documents in his excellent book.
I am grateful that he was able to give explanations for things that I have simply been unable to understand in my grandchildren’s generation.
Do you remember the two old geezer critics in the Muppets, Waldorf and Statler? I’ve really tried to make an effort to not be those kind of guys. I have, at the same time, noticed the unchurching Pastor is documenting. My desire has always been evangelism; however many “mainline” churches don’t seem to know how to do that. Their diminishing numbers testify to this lack of success.
If you’ll permit me one story: some rock-ribbed old denominationalist was critical of Dwight L. Moody‘s methods of evangelism, and told him so. Moody replied, “I like the way I do it much better than the way you don’t do it.”
Evangelizing a person to a loving, supportive, community is far more likely to be an invitation that will be accepted.
May God continue to bless this work at The Table and throughout the world.
July 28, 2025
A good book that identifies 5 reasons why people resist the church, and 5 reasons why they should join the church.
July 26, 2025
Great book! Effectively diagnoses the church-shaped hole at the heart of our culture and provides sound wisdom for reframing the church’s understanding of herself to meet contemporary needs.
March 1, 2026
An intellectual defense of the church’s importance by countering individualism. Edward does a great job critiquing what he calls “defeaters” of what the church does not matter. I appreciate how he shows life the church is not here for me, but me for the church, as God is not here for me but me for God. The power of local churches as outposts of God’s kingdom comes through strongly.
March 23, 2026
I’m more and more convinced that Christian’s and society in general need church. This book lays out the positive arguments for church and presents the ways it benefits people in time and society around them.
May 18, 2026
Not everyone should be a writer.
January 9, 2026
Really liked this book. About why the church (not just faith) matters. The title is in part a call out to Tim Keller's The Reason For God. Edwards (correctly, in my opinion) identifies that the problem today is not that people need a reason to believe in God. In fact people are surprisingly open to God - the issue is that they're so individualistic and anti-institutions that they can't even conceive of how there could be a place for church in their lives. Therefore, the apologetic needed today is not a defense of faith, but a defense of church, and this attempts to do that.
The first part discusses "defeater beliefs" - ingrained societal ideas that make church feel impossible:
- Spiritual Pragmatism: personal spiritual growth is paramount, and churches exist to only to facilitate it and help us fulfill our potential. Following Jesus may require leaving churches or the church altogether. He blames a lot of this on the seeker sensitive movement over the past few decades.
- The Sacred Self: Because our fragile intuitions are our only reliable source for spiritual truth, we become hypervigilant of any potential harm and use therapeutic culture to keep ourselves safe--at all costs.
- Counterfeit Institutions: Digital platforms that bypass gatekeepers, hijack incentives, and manipulate user behavior to extract and monetize our attention--at the cost of deforming individuals and unraveling society.
- (Un)Civil Religions: Because political associations have become a primary source of identity and formation, we define ourselves by who we are against and trust performative politics to satisfy our existential emptiness.
- Virtuous Victimhood: Because compassion is one of the few remaining grounds for moral authority in a secular society, we position ourselves and identify as victims to deflect criticism, silence disagreement, and compete for social status.
This first section is incredibly insightful, I found myself nodding in recognition throughout. It's extremely well informed, drawing from both Christian and secular sociological sources, and wise. So, so true. 5 stars for the first half.
The second half discusses things the church offers to the world. This section is more mixed. They all feel correct, but it's a little confusing, because they don't map to the five defeater beliefs discussed earlier, and it's not clear whether they're meant to be a description of things churches should do differently or what the church already does. If it's the latter, it's particularly confusing - if the defeater beliefs lead to a worse life (which I believe) and the church already addresses their shortcomings, why are people leaving the church?
So 3 stars for the 2nd half, nets out to 4 stars.
The first part discusses "defeater beliefs" - ingrained societal ideas that make church feel impossible:
- Spiritual Pragmatism: personal spiritual growth is paramount, and churches exist to only to facilitate it and help us fulfill our potential. Following Jesus may require leaving churches or the church altogether. He blames a lot of this on the seeker sensitive movement over the past few decades.
- The Sacred Self: Because our fragile intuitions are our only reliable source for spiritual truth, we become hypervigilant of any potential harm and use therapeutic culture to keep ourselves safe--at all costs.
- Counterfeit Institutions: Digital platforms that bypass gatekeepers, hijack incentives, and manipulate user behavior to extract and monetize our attention--at the cost of deforming individuals and unraveling society.
- (Un)Civil Religions: Because political associations have become a primary source of identity and formation, we define ourselves by who we are against and trust performative politics to satisfy our existential emptiness.
- Virtuous Victimhood: Because compassion is one of the few remaining grounds for moral authority in a secular society, we position ourselves and identify as victims to deflect criticism, silence disagreement, and compete for social status.
This first section is incredibly insightful, I found myself nodding in recognition throughout. It's extremely well informed, drawing from both Christian and secular sociological sources, and wise. So, so true. 5 stars for the first half.
The second half discusses things the church offers to the world. This section is more mixed. They all feel correct, but it's a little confusing, because they don't map to the five defeater beliefs discussed earlier, and it's not clear whether they're meant to be a description of things churches should do differently or what the church already does. If it's the latter, it's particularly confusing - if the defeater beliefs lead to a worse life (which I believe) and the church already addresses their shortcomings, why are people leaving the church?
So 3 stars for the 2nd half, nets out to 4 stars.
October 3, 2025
What a great book! Brad Edwards gives challenging and insightful thoughts regarding the need for church in our current cultural time. His strength is in his critique of the cultural assumptions/beliefs that have shaped how we think about church: spiritual pragmatism, self-actualization, self-care, counterfeit institutions(i.e. social media), political ideology and tribalism, 'virtuous victimhood'.
In his critiques, Edwards gives depth that I had not considered before. While it's common to hear pastors and others speak against these cultural assumptions, I found Edwards to provide new insights. One example is his observation that self-actualization has often turned the goal of Christianity into spiritual-growth. He argues that scripture says obeying Christ is the goal, and spiritual growth the by product. As he dives into cultural examples his knife cuts across both political lines. He criticizes the role of 'virtuous victimhood and 'therapy speak' in the church without throwing around terms like woke and lib, yet also highlights the anti-vision of a portion of the right which aims to tear down what it's against without a vision to build up. His chapter on how social media forms you in negative ways is worth the costs of the book itself.
Like most authors I've read, his critique comes easier than his vision forward. His vision forward struggles to gain traction at times, but finishes strong. He unashamedly advocates for the church as an institution which forms us. A couple other things stood out. He gives great reasons why the church should put forth obligation and sacrifice as being a member of the church. At one point, he brings interesting insight as to how individualism and spiritual pragmatism have shaped the our view of the gospel. He says they have skewed our view of the gospel so as to simply see it as a free gift that requires nothing of us. He argues that 'salvation isn't conditional', but a relationship with Christ- the living out of the Christian life- absolutely comes with ‘strings attached’ as he says. We are required to follow and obey him.
10/10 would recommend!
In his critiques, Edwards gives depth that I had not considered before. While it's common to hear pastors and others speak against these cultural assumptions, I found Edwards to provide new insights. One example is his observation that self-actualization has often turned the goal of Christianity into spiritual-growth. He argues that scripture says obeying Christ is the goal, and spiritual growth the by product. As he dives into cultural examples his knife cuts across both political lines. He criticizes the role of 'virtuous victimhood and 'therapy speak' in the church without throwing around terms like woke and lib, yet also highlights the anti-vision of a portion of the right which aims to tear down what it's against without a vision to build up. His chapter on how social media forms you in negative ways is worth the costs of the book itself.
Like most authors I've read, his critique comes easier than his vision forward. His vision forward struggles to gain traction at times, but finishes strong. He unashamedly advocates for the church as an institution which forms us. A couple other things stood out. He gives great reasons why the church should put forth obligation and sacrifice as being a member of the church. At one point, he brings interesting insight as to how individualism and spiritual pragmatism have shaped the our view of the gospel. He says they have skewed our view of the gospel so as to simply see it as a free gift that requires nothing of us. He argues that 'salvation isn't conditional', but a relationship with Christ- the living out of the Christian life- absolutely comes with ‘strings attached’ as he says. We are required to follow and obey him.
10/10 would recommend!
February 4, 2026
- Completely agree with what this book is trying to accomplish. Many of the pieces of our society’s moment are described well. But many of the causes are so old, it feels like trope: the issue is with anyone who left church, the issue is Disney movies telling us to follow our feelings, the issue is therapy, the issue is the seeker sensitive movement (why people are so comfortable attacking a movement to make churches welcoming to the unchurched still is hard to wrap my head around - as though non-seeker mainline churches have been thriving over the past 30 years).
- Definitely not the issue is: churches not embodying their mission well, the self-preserving nature of institutions, etc.
- Can feel like: it’s about what’s true! Not what you want or helps you or resonates with your life! Is my internal sense of what it true a better sense of what is truth? Probably not. But also, if it doesn’t resonate with all of my life, why should I believe that it is true?
- I thought the victimization chapter would be about people in the church claiming the church to be victims of the larger culture, turns out that isn’t the case - it was a roundabout critique of intersectionality without using the word. For a chapter on the reasons for church decline titled “Virtuous Victimhood”, to not even mention systemic abuse cover ups within the institutions of the church, that is extremely tone deaf.
- Overall has felt a little too much like “You can’t fire me, I quit!” on all issues of the church being culture, individuals, etc.
- Would recommend Yuval Levin’s pieces on degrading institutions due to performative vs formative as an understanding of what’s taken place in the church instead of this book.
February 9, 2026
I really liked a lot of what this book had to say. Some of the book felt more theoretical than practical. What if your church is waging a culture war? How practically, do you get a society That’s so divided to come around the same table? The concept of virtuous victimhood was interesting. I think bringing to light the positives that institutions contribute to our society and how we are so quick to dismiss them/view organization is almost a negative, was eye opening. We are lonely and we can do more together! I loved the focus on how individualism is pulling apart our church communities. Lots of pulling together concepts from other recent books I’ve read like the anxious generation, the ruthless elimination of hurry, etc… all in all a dry read that I had to force myself through, but yet I learned a good amount while reading.
January 19, 2026
It can't avoid occasional culture war language that TGC contributors too often feel required to sneak in. I also think there's a bit of defensiveness in it, refusal to grapple with some of the toxicity that IS present in many American churches that is causing people to leave, and a tendency to downplay real issues.
That said, there's a lot to agree with, wrestle with and be moved by here, and I overall agree with Edwards' description of the church as an antidote to individualism and (when done properly) a solution to many of society's ills. I've been in me-centric, consumer-oriented church before. I was moved several times to be reassured that the community of which we are now part does look like the community Edwards describes here.
That said, there's a lot to agree with, wrestle with and be moved by here, and I overall agree with Edwards' description of the church as an antidote to individualism and (when done properly) a solution to many of society's ills. I've been in me-centric, consumer-oriented church before. I was moved several times to be reassured that the community of which we are now part does look like the community Edwards describes here.
January 14, 2026
Thoroughly enjoyed this book! Edwards has done a great work to describe exactly what many of us in active ministry are facing today. I found myself dismayed in the beginning of the book as the author outlined 5 key factors that "Babylon" has offered our churches to build with-- I couldn't get to the second part of the book quickly enough to learn and appreciate Edwards description of the true Bride of Christ, the church as Jesus intends. This would be a great resource for pastors, elder/deacon teams, or key church leaders to wrestle with why church still matters in today's cultural moment. Kudos!
April 30, 2026
A very thoughtful book about church and the place it has in our Western culture today. Starting with downfalls (mostly related to evangelicalism and individualism) and then moving towards how the institution of a church can actually heal and lead to a thriving of its people (shocker!). I did not agree with everything in the book, but I appreciate the directness and courage to write clearly a diagnosis for today's church.
September 15, 2025
A lot of interesting information, but TBH it got a little long and boring. To sum it up, all Christians should have a home church that they participate in regularly. It’s for our good and God’s glory. The internet and its impact on politics and our thinking is extremely detrimental to the body of Christ.
October 22, 2025
Brad Edwards tackles the ever relevant subject of organized Christianity, by diagnosing the systemic challenges to the local church, and discussing a positive way forward. Writing out of extensive experience as a pastor, and as a keen cultural observer, Edwards provides a much-needed reflection on why the local church is not only still relevant, but critical for healthy Christianity.
July 1, 2025
Informatief boek over culturele tegenkracht van de kerk. Wel grotendeels voor Amerikaanse context bedoeld.
August 24, 2025
Not that I necessarily disagree, but it seems oversimplified. This book did not answer the questions I’m asking.
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