Serious Times: Making Your Life Matter in an Urgent Day

White's book is for anyone looking for a deeper, more significant life this side of heaven. Too often we allow the movement of God in our lives to get lost in our scramble to climb the corporate ladder, make money, promote our careers, buy a bigger house, pay the bills. Sound familiar? Too often, once we have achieved what we set out to achieve, we find ourselves empty, and even frustrated with our success. It's never enough. White takes the reader on a brief tour of historical issues and movements that have all influenced and shaped our culture today. He then makes a compelling argument for us to develop our minds by developing our latent inner life. In so doing we learn to respond to God's call to live in and impact the world as Christians. It's not so much about the contribution we can make as it is about our own consecration to God which provides a larger vision for living in the world. If you're searching for meaning and deeper significance - read this book. White will point you in the right direction.

Dr. White presents an excellent portrait of the times in which we live. He uses history to bring the reader to the reason why our present age has a view of reality that is unparalleled in its hostility toward the Christian Worldview. For anyone wanting to reach others living in the Western Culture that we find ourselves presently, this is a must read. This book is pregnant with ideas and references which further study can assist in developing the Christian mind. You will not be disappointed if you choose to read this book more than once.

An absolutely outstanding book based on the statement from a letter written from John Adams to his good friend and colleague Thomas Jefferson near the end of both of their lives - Adams wrote, "My friend, you and I have lived in serious times." White begins with the premise that serious times call for serious lives and expands to the concept that the Christian life is a serious and devout journey with the Lord. Every believer, according to White, has an opportunity to live a meaningful and profound life that could impact all of human history for the glory of God - and, of course, the reader is supposed to wonder why they would settle for anything less! White then turns to a brief examination of our current cultural crisis and makes that case that Christians must and should be engaged in the great debate of the day. He turns to history to demonstrate how followers of Christ have consistently been cultural agents of transformation - literally allowing the God of the Universe to work in and through their lives to transform others around them. And then finally, White gives some practical guidelines to produce a life worthy of our calling - to deepen our souls with a compassion for humanity and develop our minds with the sound reasoning from Scripture which combined can be a culturally-relevant tool for believers to use to engage others for the cause of Christ. Of course, White stresses the importance of reading as well as having an awareness of history as we seek to prepare ourselves for the calling of God on our lives. He also emphasizes the importance of the church as the body of Christ and our role within that institution. Finally, he concludes with the warning against apathy, against the sin of slothfulness and the lie that the problems of the world are on someone's shoulders. White challenges the follower of Christ to step up, even in the face of adversity or apathy, and take their rightful place as the sons or daughters of the King in this enemy-occupied territory to claim victory for our Lord and Savior against the false ideas and principles of this world. Serious Times is an excellent book which also does an incredible job of introducing the reader to a host of great men and women of the faith who comprise that "great cloud of witnesses" of Hebrews 12. The book would be an ideal read for any young person to encourage them to live a life of significance and purpose as well as to any person more seasoned in years to challenge their comfortable lifestyle which has made them ignorance and apathetic to the great issues of life surrounding them everyday.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I picked up the book just a few days prior to Christmas and completed it last evening. It is book that any serious minded Christian will want to read. I was impressed by the review of history and how it has impacted on our the philosophy of our current culture which covers the first half of the book. The second half of the book was worth the price of the book alone. White divides this half of the book into four parts: deepening our souls; developing our minds, answering the call and aligning with the church. For me personally, the chapters on the soul and our minds were particularly helpful. White reminds us that our spiritual self is key to rest of our lives. We are to radically seek the face of God by developing in ourselves a "rule" of spiritual devotion that will form a foundation in our souls. The chapter on the mind was a reminder that the life of the mind is also important to our spiritual development. White challenges us with the idea that Christians need to be able to dialogue intelligently with our culture. An encouragement to hearty reading and serious reflection form the foundation of this chapter. I found this book by James Emery White to be well worth the time investment and plan to make this book one that I return to often. It may be helpful for some of you to hear the author speak about this book. Check out this interview at http://www.strradio.org/current/111404.m3u.

This is a must read book for any christian living in this present age, longing for more, longing to reach out and make a difference. Knowing all the while time is short and something is wrong. Indeed very very wrong with a culture that seeks to ignore and ultimately abolish God. I highly recommend.