R. Kent Hughes has done evangelicals a service by writing a book that needed to be written. Crossway has done us a service by having the guts to publish it. Set Apart: Calling a Worldly Church to a Godly Life is a no-holds-barred call for evangelicals to reclaim the biblical understanding of radical life transformation.
Hughes tackles eleven hot-button issues in American society, problems that plague the evangelical community as much (and sometimes more) than society at large. It would have been easy for Hughes to concentrate only on the negative – how materialistic, hedonistic, immodest, and violent we are. He could have chosen only to berate Christians for living just like the world, but he most assuredly does not do this. Instead, Hughes tearfully pleads for Christians to embrace a godly life and offers many good suggestions that can help us begin.
Every Christian who reads this book will feel their toes stepped on. Hughes’ list of sins/problems is so varied (from keeping the Lord’s Day holy to delighting in TV violence) that the reader can’t escape his diagnosis. The book is deeply convicting, due mostly to Hughes’ tone. Instead of adopting the tone of a fundamentalist preacher who seems to preach against certain activities for the fun of it, Hughes writes in a way that conveys his profound concern for the Christian witness in today’s world. And rather than stopping with the diagnosis, Hughes hopes to drive us to repentance and then to the embrace of a different life, one that is truly countercultural and set apart from the world.
Set Apart will make you uncomfortable. But it is the kind of discomfort that comes from the Holy Spirit’s conviction.
written by Trevin Wax © 2007 Kingdom People blog
