The following is an excerpt from chapter 1, “A Bible Belt No More,” in Russell Moore’s OnWard: Engaging the Culture Without Losing the Gospel.

It’s not just the cultural landscape that has changed. American Christianity is changing too, though not in the ways that some in the wider culture hope and some in the older generation fear. Many recognize that younger generations of evangelical Christians, especially pastors and other leaders, seem different from their culture warrior predecessors. Because of this, many assume that this wing of the church is headed Left, especially on the contentious questions of sexual morality, which are at the root of the most contested issues of abortion, marriage/family, and even, increasingly, religious liberty and church/state relations. The standard trope I hear often from secular journalists is that the historic Christian commitment to sexual morality, in which sexual relations are limited to the marriage of a man to a woman, is a stumbling block to growth. We are losing our young, this narrative holds, and we would reclaim them if only we would soften our views on sex. If we would, the pews would be filled and the baptisteries bubbling as our leftward Christian soldiers return home.

Now, it’s true that newer generations of American evangelicals are interested in more than just the culture war issues of the past. Many are actively engaged on issues of orphan care, ecological stewardship, human trafficking, racial justice, prison reform, poverty, as well as abortion, marriage, and so on. This is not repudiation but an outgrowth of very conservative cultural impulses. Those working to alleviate poverty are, first of all, in continuity with every generation of conservative Christians who have done the same thing. Even when they deviate from the talking points of the Republican business class, they are hardly repudiating their moral and gospel roots. They focus on systemic problems but also on marriage stability, family accountability, and personal responsibility. And they are as committed as ever to the sanctity of human life and to marriage as a one-flesh union between a man and a woman.

Indeed, often the “broader” agenda items reinforce the social conservatism of the next generation of conservative Christians. Those working with the urban poor and the rural underclass see firsthand the devastation of family breakdown, no-fault divorce, the drug culture, predatory gambling, and so on. Moreover, the broader vision hardly makes orthodox Christianity any more palatable to the culture. When evangelicals adopt children, the secularist Left accuses them of “stealing” children for evangelism. And, if they didn’t adopt, the same voices would accuse them of caring for “fetuses” without providing homes for “unwanted” children after they’re born. Regardless of how broad the concern, and regardless of where this concern sometimes overlaps with that of progressives, the question usually comes around to, “Yes, but what about sex?”

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That said, the older generations are mistaken if they assume the next generation will be more of the same, just with even more prayer for “revival” and “Great Awakening” in the land. The typical younger pastor is less partisan than his predecessor, less likely to speak from the pulpit about “mobilizing” voters and “reclaiming Judeo-Christian values” through political action and economic boycotts. This is not because he is evolving leftward. It is because he wants to keep Christianity Christian. As a matter of fact, the center of evangelical Christianity today is, theologically speaking, well to the right of the old Religious Right. It’s true that the typical younger pastor of a growing urban or suburban church doesn’t look like his cuff-linked or golf-shirted forefather. But that doesn’t mean he’s a liberal. He might have tattoos, yes, but they aren’t of Che Guevara. They’re of Hebrew passages from Deuteronomy.

His congregation’s statement of faith isn’t the generic sloganeering of the last generations’ doctrinally oozy consumerist evangelical movements, but is likely a lengthy manifesto with points and subpoints and footnotes rooted in one of the great theological traditions of the historic church. This pastor might preach forty-five minutes to an hour, sometimes calling out backsliding Christians from the pulpit with all the force of hellfire-and-brimstone revivalists of yesteryear. He is pro-life and pro-marriage, although he is likely to speak of issues like homosexuality in theological and pastoral terms rather than in rhetoric warning of “the gay agenda.”

Unlike the typical Bible Belt congregation of the twentieth century, the new kind of evangelical church has strict membership requirements, both in terms of what it takes to enter the believing community and what it takes to say there. There aren’t likely to be four-year-olds baptized after repeating sinner’s prayers in a backyard Bible club, and the unrepentant often face what their parents never seemed to notice in their red-and-black-lettered Bibles: excommunication. If this is liberalism, let’s have more of it.

… But they are often unsure of how to think of political engagement. Again, this is not due to liberalism but to theological conservatism. They have seen social gospels of the Left and the Right try to package a transcendent message for decidedly this-worldly, and sometimes downright cynical, purposes of pulling the levers of political power.

I feel seen… 👀