You can find part one here and part two here of this short series on Dick Staub’s new book, The Culturally Savvy Christian. As mentioned in the previous posts, Staub’s central thesis is, The culturally savvy Christin is serious about faith, savvy about faith and culture, and skilled in relating the two. The three chapters (4-6) that make up the book’s second section fall under the “serious about faith” portion of this thesis.

When we had coffee with Dick a few weeks ago it was his passion for pursuing Christ that stood out the most during our conversation. This commitment comes through clearly in these three chapters. For Staub, any attempt by the Church to connect/engage/reach our culture without being deeply grounded in a dynamic relationship with Christ is bound to take on the same vapid traits he sees as defining our pop culture. From chapter 4,

We live in a superficial popular culture, soulless, spiritually delusional, and driven by celebrity. Today’s Christianity has taken on those same qualities… the result is that religious and irreligious people alike are experiencing deep spiritual hunger.

I should say that Staub does much more than critique culture and church in these chapters. Among his many observations are encouragements and challenges to individual Christians to see their commitment to the way of Jesus as the most important thing in life.

Each of us must decide whether we will embrace a real existence by undertaking a rigorous pilgrimage toward wellness or settle into a pseudo-existence by being satisfied with the shallowness and spiritual impoverishment of the typical life.

In chapter 5 Staub briefly reviews the traditional Christian spiritual disciplines as a way towards a deeper faith. He recommends Richard Foster’s classic, Celebration of the Disciplines.

In Chapter 6 Staub spends a chunk of the chapter looking at the life of C.S. Lewis. He is less interested in Lewis’ literary achievements and more fascinated by how this renowned academic lived with humility and demonstrated love to those around him. After a few stories to make this point, Staub writes,

I share all this because I have come to believe that the real legacy of C.S. Lewis and the measure of his character is his love. He exemplifies what happens when, within the bound of human capacities, we allow our love for God and people to propel us to a surpassing excellence and service in everything we do.

It is this love (agape) for God and others that Staub sees as the hope for the culturally savvy Christian. In the last section of the book he describes what this might look like. That’s what we’ll look at next.