Takeaway: We should pay attention to sin and spend time thinking about whether we are focusing more on loving the world or loving God.
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It is hard to review a book on worldliness. Not nearly as hard as writing one, but still hard. The tension is viewing worldliness as not anti-world, viewing holiness as a worthy goal, a desire to avoid legalism, the need to focus on the grace of Christ and the tendency to focus on a fairly narrow set of outward sins makes for a book on worldliness easy to take shots at.
I did not realized when I started this book that it was a series of essays by different authors rather than a complete work by Mahaney. And that makes a difference. What I liked so much about Mahaney’s book Humility (my review) was that it was so tightly pastoral. And that seems to be a bit missing in some of the essays. It also seems like it might be oriented toward young Christians. After all the chapters are about media, music, consumerism and how to dress right. (The chapter, my Mahaney, on dress really was inappropriate, it should not have been in the book and the focus seemed to be blaming women for being attractive. Guys can lust if a woman is in a Burka. The sin is the lust. The women are the victim of the sin, not the perpetrators. Yes, women can be immodest. Yes, that is a sin, but having a chapter about modesty without talking about the sin of lust means that you are picking on women without dealing with the root issue. After all if Adam and Eve were naked, without either shame or lust, then lack of clothing is not the issue. Unfortunately, the long section on immodest wedding dresses really crossed the line for me.)
Takeaway: Maturing is not a straight line and it does not automatically come with growing old.