Tullian Tchividjian's new book, Unfashionable boldly addresses the issue of what it means to be the church in the world, while refusing to be of it. This is a theologically driven book that calls the church to "contextualize without compromise." Tullian's is a voice of reasoned, biblical sanity when many who are having this discussion are talking past one another with unhelpful and exaggerated rhetoric. I spoke with Tullian recently and asked him to talk to us about this new book.

ES: Tullian Tchividjian. I hope I got the name right.

TT: You got it perfect. I'm actually very, very impressed. It's Tchividjian, which rhymes with "religion."

ES: Which rhymes with religion. That's how I learned it. I remember sitting in New York City, and you telling me that. So I never forget. Well, so glad to talk to you about Unfashionable. I really enjoyed the book, but if you remember, during our conversation you asked me to endorse it. I almost didn't. I was kind of reading, and it seemed very negative about engaging culture, but then I'm thinking I know Tullian, and he's very positive about engaging culture, and you have kind of blazed this trail between the two. There's this one quote in your book that says, "It's both sad and ironic that the shift is now putting the church in the wrong place at the right time. Just when our culture is yearning for something different, many churches are developing creative ways to be the same. Just as many in our culture are beginning to search back in time, many churches are pronouncing the irrelevance of the past." So tell what's the big idea here that's driving Unfashionable, Making a Difference in the World by Being Different when you're a pretty culturally relevant guy? What's your message here that you're trying to communicate?

TT: Well, about two and a half years ago I was asked by an interviewer what troubling trends do you see emerging in the evangelical world amongst young evangelicals, specifically in America? And I said, right away our fascination with fitting it. And I said to the interviewer that it seems that when you scan the landscape of evangelicalism across America, many churches and Christians have come to the conclusion that the best way to reach the world is to become just like the world, so we go out of our way to convince the world in a thousand different ways that there's really nothing different between us, between the church and the world, that we want to go out of our way to convince the world that we're really the same.

And so the overarching thesis of Unfashionable is this: Christians make a difference in this world by being different from this world. They don't make a difference by being the same. And over and over again in the book I borrow this line from sociologist Peter Berger where he said that the church is to live against the world for the sake of the world. And so there's this tension that exists between being in the world, but not of the world. What I seek to do in the book is really tease out what does it mean to be in the world, but not of the world; what does it mean to live against the world for the sake of the world; what does it really look like for Christians to make a difference in the world by being different from the world? My goal is to really spell that out theologically, to spell it out practically. I talk about the fact that according to Jesus, Christianity is not cool. Jesus says some pretty remarkably unfashionable things, like if you want to live you must die, that if you're eye or your hand causes you to sin, pluck it out or cut it off. He just - the way up is down, the way down is up. I mean everything in God's kingdom moves backwards according to the world's standards, so to speak. And so I try to tease out that tension so that the reader can understand what it really means to engage this world in an unfashionable way.

ES: And I think you do a wonderful job with those. Very encouraged and challenged by the book. It seems that right now, we're in the midst of a conversation on this. How do we engage culture? How are we in the world, but not of it? Your book stands out, I think, as a fresh voice in the midst of that, perhaps for me, because the ways in which you are calling people to be different than the world are not the ways that many of the; to be blunt, the angry voices of some parts of evangelicalism are saying, "Listen, put your suit and tie back on, cut your hair, don't listen to any music that was written in the last 100 years." and then you're godly. So in what ways are we talking about being different cause I mean I know your church plant does some progressive things. Now you're serving at Coral Ridge. In what ways, give me some examples what you are taking about and some ways that you're not talking about?

TT: Yeah, that's good. Well, obviously, by unfashionable I'm not talking about the clothes you wear, your hairstyle, the music you listen to. I'm talking about something much deeper, and I'll give you a couple of examples. There are some silly and there are some more serious mistakes that I think the church makes by trying too hard to fit in. A silly way would be, for instance, and I talk about these things in the book, walking into a Christian book store and seeing, instead of Abercrombie & Fitch t-shirts, a breadcrumb and fish t-shirts.

ES: Those Testamints.

TT: Yeah, Testamints. I walked into one Christian bookstore a while back and there was this comparison list between secular bands and Christian bands. So if you like Dave Matthews Band, you'll love such and such. If you like Counting Crows, you'll love such and such. If you love Beyonce, you'll love - . We're trying way way too hard to convince the world that we're really no different than they are. We've basically created a parallel universe, a copycat culture. And so that's kind of silly because, and it's somewhat frustrating because we think, are we really being creative in a pioneering way, or are we just looking around at what's cool in the world and then copying it with a little sprinkle of Jesus on top?

So those are silly ways, but there are some more serious ways, I think, in which we are capitulating to what's fashionable. For instance, it's very, very common in our culture today, as everybody knows, for there to be a tremendous amount of ambiguity regarding the notion of truth. I mean it is vogue to be vague, for instance, that the more uncertain we are, the more cool it is, that we don't want to fully embrace the fact, our culture I'm talking about, we don't want to embrace the fact that there is such thing as universal objective truth that is true for everyone everywhere all the time. I mean there are very, very few people in our culture today who would admit that that is true. They would say there is no absolute truth. We've heard it a thousand times.

Well, the church has always been the pack of people on this planet who have embraced Jesus' words in John 14:6, I am the way, I am the truth, I am the light. Nobody comes to the Father but by me. We have been that society in society. The church has been that society in society where truth is belief. We do believe there is objective universal knowable truth, that we cannot know truth exhaustively, but we can know truth truly because God has revealed it from outside of us. Well, these days there's so much pressure from the outside world to become ambiguous about the reality of truth that you find even many voices in the Christian church today shying away from their firm belief that universal objective outside of us truth exists for everyone, revealed by God to his people. And so that's a much more serious, much more dangerous way that we're trying to be fashionable, that we're trying to fit in the notion of truth, which is a big one, obviously.

So I'm not addressing what kind of music we should play in worship, because those things, to me, are just, they're unimportant. You can be too fashionable and be traditional. You can be too fashionable and be contemporary. You can be unfashionable and be traditional. You can be unfashionable and contemporary. That's not what I address at all. I'm addressing much more of this idea that we have adopted or absorbed a worldly mindset in the way that we think about money and relationships, truth, all of those things that I outline in the book. And I define worldly

ES: There's a lot of things in the book from the atonement to greed to loss of truth. The book covers some strong ground and kind of calling people back to an unapologetic, unfashionable view of life, church and ministry.

TT: Yeah, yeah. Yes, that is. This book was penned with tremendous passion. I say in the book that if I did not write it, I was going to explode because it was brewing, it had been brewing in me for about 15 years. And it really is my clarion call. I'm 36 years old. I'm a South Florida native. I am on the front lines of practical ministry as Pastor at Coral Ridge. And so this is my clarion call to young evangelicals to embrace the fact that we are odd, that we're never going to fit in. But the irony and the thing that I think we need to embrace, the paradox here, is that when you study church history, what you discover is that the church has always served the world best when it has been most counter cultural, when it has been most different from the world. I'm not talking about curling up in our holy huddles and sucking our thumbs and waiting for the rapture to come. I am talking about full blown cultural engagement. But it's the way we engage culture that I'm really, really addressing.

The book assumes the fact that we are to engage this world. In fact, I have a few chapters that talk about the absolute call from God to his people to engage this world to transform this world into the world to come because God is on a mission to do just that. But I'm talking more in the book about how do we do it? Do we do it by being the same, or do we do it by being different? And if we do it by being different, what does that really look like practically speaking? And so that's what the book seeks.

ES: The book has gotten widespread acclaim. You got a great list of endorsers. But at the same time, but people are still missing the point. There's the one side that says we've just got to engage culture, we've got to use every tool, we've got to be relevant and cutting edge, and they have all the cliché. Then you've got this other side that says unhelpful things like contextualization will be an anathema to the Apostles, we don't need to worry about those things. So you're trying to come in and bring a third way, and saying, we do need to be engaging, even relevant to culture, but we deeply oppose the culture where culture opposes the word and its teachings.

TT: Yeah. I identify in one of the chapters entitled Where in the World Are Christians, I talk about the fact that there are always two ways to fall off a tightrope. There are always two extremes we need to avoid in any given situation, and that is true when it comes to Christianity and culture of the church and the world. And the one extreme we need to avoid is to avoid being culturally removed, totally disengaged from the world. The other extreme we need to avoid is to avoid being culturally relaxed, so absorbed with the culture that we're really no different.

So there's a big section in the book on contextualization, and I wholeheartedly agree that contextualization is not only necessary, but is absolutely unavoidable. I mean we all live our lives within a particular context. I give some examples of, some simple examples even, of when I am trying to teach my three kids something about God, I'm going to teach my seven-year-old a little bit different. I'm going to use words and pictures and tone of voice and things like that that are different with her than I would with my 15-year-old. And I'm going to talk to my 15-year-old about those things in a different way than I'm going to talk to a 55-year-old. I mean every English translation of the bible is an effort to contextualize biblical truth translated from the original languages into a language that English-speaking people like me can understand. And so we have to be contextualizing. And so I make sure that the reader understands we're talking about full-blown engagement. I mean in fact, I've taken more hits actually as a result of writing this book because I talk so much about transforming culture.

There's a big debate going on these days regarding whether or not we should be engaging culture or whether or not we should just be the church. And I don't think that the bible allows us to build a dichotomy there. How do we transform this world? We transform this world by being the church. So it's not an either or. It's definitely a both and. It's making a difference by being different. It's making a difference in our community by being a different community.

ES: So it's a challenge to find that balance. What would you say to these young pastors who right now are really pursuing relevance? Would you tell them to stop? Would you tell them to add something to it? Would you tell them to reconsider? What would you say to them?

TT: I would say that to be truly relevant you have to say things that are timeless, not trendy. That's what I would say. I address this in the book, that in order to be truly relevant you have to be otherworldly. You have to operate according to a different ethic, that there is a deep relevance to being irrelevant, so to speak.

When we try too hard to fit in we actually become irrelevant because we're not saying anything different. I mean it's almost like we lose our voice. We lose our unique niche, the church does, when we're trying too hard to fit in. We become indistinguishable from a world that desperately wants something different.

If you just look around at the world today, and you read a quote which piggybacks on what I'm about to say, but if you look around at the world today, the world is desperately crying out for something otherworldly. I mean the fascination with sort of pop spirituality, angels, aliens, all those sorts of things indicate that there is a deep longing in the human soul that craves something beyond this world. Well, when Christians put their greatest tool up on the shelf in the name of being relevant, we end up becoming really, really irrelevant. And, I have to wonder sometimes about whether or not Christians and pastors who try so hard to fit in and be relevant are really doing it because they have a deep passion to reach the world or if they have a deep passion to be accepted. And I know that's a struggle that I find. I can try so hard to be fashionable and be cool and fit in and do it under the guise of I'm trying to reach the world, but I know what's going on in my heart. I know what's really going on. What's really going on is I just want the world to think I'm cool. I don't want people around me to think I'm odd and unfashionable and strange. I want them to think I'm like them. Like I can be cool, too. Christians can be cool, too.

ES: I've actually heard people say that, yeah. And that's a desire, I think, to communicate. I think for some people it's a desire to build a bridge, and I get that.

But I think ultimately it's, there always comes a point where there are things for which we stand, there's always the stumbling block of the cross, but even more so it's just there are places where we say, we differ. And if we don't have that then we lose the saltiness.

Ironically, we look at the, many mainline denominations chased after relevance in the 60's, and today nobody pays attention to them. In a great twist of historic irony, in a desire to engage the world they became like the world, and then the world didn't pay attention to them anymore.

TT: We're talking about timeless truth that has been relevant for generations and has been relevant throughout the centuries. And like I said before, I think if we want to be truly relevant we have to say things that are timeless and not trendy because if we spend our life as a church chasing the latest trend we'll always be behind the 8-ball. I'll never forget, and I mention this as an illustration in the book. I'll never forget the time that a Hollywood actor pulled my Granddad aside in the late 1950's when my Granddad was becoming a very, very famous preacher of the Gospel, and he said, "Billy, don't ever try to do Hollywood because Hollywood will always do it better than you. You give the world the one thing Hollywood can't, the timeless truth of the Gospel." That's relevant.

ES: Speak to the pastor who says, "We are unfashionable. We don't try to look like the world. We stand against that worldly music. We stand against worldly culture. We tell our people don't watch TV. We're separate." They're basically striving to be the new spiritual Amish, and they're doing it because they want to be unfashionable. What do you say to that person about culture?

TT: I would say that God is on a mission to make all things new, that God is on a mission to transform this present world into the world to come, that when Christ came the first time He inaugurated this process of universal transformation. When He comes back a second time, He will consummate or complete this process of universal transformation, making all things new, bring heaven to earth so to speak. But in between the times, in between Christ's first coming and His second coming, God has called His people, He's equipped His church to carry on what Christ began and will one day complete. And so, what I tell people like that is God has transformed us to become agents of transformation. He has, He has renewed us so that we would become agents of renewal. There is a reason why Jesus calls His disciples salt and light. We know that salt and light only make a difference when it makes contact. Salt can only preserve something that's rotting when it makes contact with what it is that it's rotting. You know, light can only shine in the darkness if it makes contact with the darkness.

Another line that I use in the book, which has really helped me over the years, is we need to "contextualize without compromise." We need to make contact with the world while colliding with the ways of the world. And so to the people who say well we are just going to set up big thick walls to protect us from those nasty pagans on the outside, and we're going to sing our songs and do our deal and just hope and pray every day that the rapture comes and rescues us from this nasty place, well they are just categorically failing to understand the overarching message of the bible, which is that God is on a mission to make all things news, and He's called His people and equipped His people to be his agents of renewal in between the times.

ES: Excellent. Thank you so much, Tullian, for taking the time to talk. This is a very helpful book. I'd recommend it to people to read. I've given it to many both contemporary church pastors and many maybe those who are not engaging culture. And I find it to be a good balanced look at these things.

If you don't have it, pick up Unfashionable today. It an excellent book on an issue that's hot right now (and always "relevant"). And check out the solid discussion questions in the back of the book.

Tullian will be on the blog today, interacting with all of you and your questions. So jump into the comments and join the discussion.