Elspeth Kernebone
23 March 2024
Stephen McAlpine. Futureproof: How to live for Jesus in a culture that keeps on changing. The Good Book Company, 2024.
Unsurprisingly, Futureproof is a good read. It is challenging, encouraging, relevant and practical.
Author Stephen McAlpine received the 2021 Australian Christian Book of the Year Award for his previous book, Being the Bad Guys: How to Live for Jesus in a World That Says You Shouldn’t.
Futureproof follows on from that, framed around the question of How to live for Jesus in a culture that keeps on changing.
In it, McAlpine weaves a tapestry that shows a broader cultural narrative, incorporating an impressive number of strands, from modern culture, to trends, world events, and specific news stories. He draws through this a thread of biblical analysis, interpreting passages and relating them to our culture, and what that means for us as Christians.
Read more: Christians as Bad Guys wins Book of the Year
Futureproof is a calm book, despite addressing a confronting topic: the cultural change which many Christians are anxious about.
But McAlpine returns focus to the assured future of the church. He repeatedly argues that Christians needs to be a non-anxious presence, in an increasingly anxious society. He reminds us of hope we have in the return of Jesus and the new Creation – and the assured future of the church. And, for the large part, his tone is calm. It’s measured and analytical, and retains the perspective of someone who is sure the church’s future is assured in Jesus.
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McAlpine argues that Christians can and should engage with our culture with Godly self-control, while holding firm to the orthodox truths of the faith. He argues that Christianity is at its most compelling when followers are living the truth of the gospel. And, he offers practical ways to do both.
McAlpine gives readers the tools to understand our society through his analysis. I found particularly helpful his identification of the “social imaginary”, the only way a society can imagine its world. Here McAlpine quotes Carl Trueman’s summary of “the intuitive moral structure” of our Western social imaginary, that “prioritizes victimhood, sees selfhood in psychological terms, regards traditional sexual codes as oppressive … and places a premium on the individual’s right to define his or her own existence”.
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This idea of an intuitive moral structure helped me identify the premises behind chains of reasoning I’ve recently heard in conversations with people who are not Christians. For instance, that people describe seeking a personal “truth” rather than objective truth. McAlpine argues, “Western society promises … that we can find ultimate meaning and purpose as we look within ourselves.” If this is the case, satisfaction with a truth that is merely a personal rather than an objective, starts to make more sense. I hope that with this deeper framework for understanding people’s worldview, I’ll be able to ask better questions, and give better answers!
Throughout, McAlpine frames a clear problem – and he frames a clear solution (reductively: Jesus), and practical actions. His suggestions are specific, and they’re clearly relevant. For instance, “adopting” the lonely, fostering children, and demonstrating self-control on social media.
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Ultimately I found this book encouraging. It is easy to feel anxious in a combative, hostile culture, on a planet gripped by war, with the temperature ever rising. Futureproof reminded me that our hope and our confidence is in God, and that we have a real hope beyond the here and now.
I would encourage you to read Futureproof. I think it has the real capacity to encourage you – and to help you understand our culture, engage with it well, and publicly make a case for the gospel.
Elspeth Kernebone is editor of The Melbourne Anglican.
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