This is an important book for pastors because it looks at a large national problem from a perspective beyond the Christian community, but one that will resonate very well with Christian claims vis à vis the current secular challenge.

Herbert London is president of the Hudson Institute and writes as a concerned Jewish American. He sees, as do many evangelical and Catholic leaders, the looming threat of a growing radical Islam-fascism, and he is concerned as to whether or not Americans have the spiritual stamina to resist this threat for very long. Mr. London believes that secularism, with its relativist ethic and materialist values, is not a sufficient bulwark to guarantee our future liberties.

The problem with secularism is that the Islamic threat, being driven by religious and transcendent convictions, requires a response from that same realm—one with deeper, firmer, and truer convictions than Muslims can muster. Secularism is unable to provide the kind of spiritual stamina to stay in the fray against a threat like Islam. Yet secularism is the reigning worldview in the West, especially in America, where it has supplanted the Christian worldview, which provided the intellectual and spiritual framework upon which the American experiment was founded. Secularism, according to London, is itself a kind of religion: “It is ground in several ideas that are valued by its adherents as deeply and unquestioningly as any spiritual creed” (p. 11).

Among these ideas is relativism, a moral code that, because it is based solely on human convenience, can shift and change as needed, leaving adherents unprotected against absolutist claims. Further, because secular values are merely temporal and personal, they cannot promote long-term essential convictions such as loyalty, patriotism, or compassion. Instead, as London claims, without religious belief to anchor them, “the world and human behavior . . . become infinitely corruptible” (p. 19). How different our society would be if its religious base were still in tact: “Because they rely on divine origins, nearly all religions tout an ethics external to and above any one man and his whims. In this way, organized religion reinforces the law, and encourages societies to police themselves” (p. 19).

In a secular, relativist society, freedom can be difficult to define. What one man might be willing to forgo for “freedom” would be to another anathema; however, in a secular society, who is able to judge the true meaning of such a term. And, if freedom can hardly be defined, how much more difficult will it be to defend against the constant pressure and threat of jihadism? London insists that science offers no way out of this dilemma, for it cannot make ethical prescriptions that all people will receive as binding. Yet science is the fount of truth for the secularist society: “Secularists base their belief in the power of science primarily on faith, a faith in what might be uncovered in the future” (p. 41).

Government is no more effective in creating a stable society within a secularist mold, for such terms as “fair,” “just,” “equitable,” and “law” are constantly subject to change within a relativist environment. London suggests that government’s best solution for keeping men free is to enslave them to its own ever-growing powers. He cites recent expansions of the use of eminent domain as an example of government’s messianic propensities.

Americans today have become distracted by the pursuit of lesser gods: “Money, self-aggrandizement, celebrity status, and power are the contemporary versions of the Golden Calf” (p. 54). He adds, “They are pursued with religious fervor, but when obtained, they rarely satisfy the recipient in the manner anticipated.”

People today have all but given up on morals; in a society where it’s every man for himself, this is not difficult to understand. However, it will be difficult to defend when push comes to shove against the growing Muslim threat. Add to this the growing cry for “tolerance” of all worldviews, and you have a situation completely eviscerated of any abiding foundational principles upon which to rally a nation for her own survival.

Is there any hope? Can anything be done? London is frank. He believes the secular paradigm needs to be exposed for the shallow and self-centered worldview it is, and for the danger it holds for our future freedoms. And he insists that only a return to a Christian worldview will be able to supply the necessary spiritual strength to renew the nation and resist threats from abroad: “It is time the United States begins, once more, to speak a language our adversaries can understand; it may be too much to say that America should be sacralized, but at the very least it must recognize and defend its religious heritage” (p. 97).

London’s concluding challenge is to Christian leaders in churches throughout the land: “Whether Islam will find the will to reform itself is a looming question of our times, but it is equally important to ask whether Christendom, which has often wanted to sit out the battle, will mobilize the spiritual strength to fight for the greatest and most liberating tradition the world has yet known” (p. 97).

Read this book and consider its implications for your preaching, teaching, and pastoral ministry. The growing threat of Islam, coupled with the entrenched, yet feckless, worldview of secular relativism, are putting our nation’s future at risk. Now is the time to pray for our nation, to seek the Lord for revival, and to labor in every aspect of our ministries for the faith once-for-all delivered to the saints, the Gospel of the Kingdom. This alone can turn our upside-down world right side up for Jesus once again.

T. M. Moore is editor of Worldview Church, principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, and dean of the Centurions and the Wilberforce Forum of PFM.