Cultures, even sub-cultures, are rarely static. Their grab-bag of values and practices ebb and flow over the course of years or geography, evolve, adapt or get corrupted. How sad it is that the church, chameleon-like, often simply goes with the flow - that infamous line of least resistance.

In this excellent new title, Drane shows how Western culture is undergoing such a shift that the way we view life itself is being radically transformed. All around us we see sharp breaks with the past and a Pandora’s warehouse of contradictions that affect people not only in the West, but all over the world.

People are dealing with this crisis in two equal yet opposite ways. Some are choosing to submerge themselves in a selfish, hedonistic lifestyle that has little place for ultimate meaning. Others try to cope through a self-conscious search for spiritual answers, often through ‘New Age’ alternatives. The church has tended to run scared from the latter but increasingly smile on the former, if not ask for more.

In this thorough analysis of the church’s future in the light of cultural change, John Drane takes on diverse issues to show how we can, with integrity, honour Christ and promote the gospel in our post-modern environment.

Externally, says Drane, a world view critical of the gospel is here to stay. Internally, we have other problems: the Western church has too frequently allowed itself to be used as a channel for secular culture, rather than critiquing its assumptions. It is shameful, and not even a secret, that many church groups have not only become wealthy, but have with frustrating naiveté become increasingly weak by exactly the same process.

This book could well prove liberating for many individuals, and productively prophetic for parts of the church.