R. York Moore did some­thing risky. He wrote a book about social jus­tice. That sub­ject mat­ter alone is a hotbed of evan­gel­i­cal con­tro­versy. How­ever, he went a step fur­ther. He mixed up his mes­sage of social jus­tice with an expo­si­tion of the book of Rev­e­la­tion. Now we’re in con­tro­ver­sial ter­ri­tory! He salted the mix­ture with doses of judg­ment, eter­nal hell­fire, and instruc­tions on straight­for­ward evan­ge­lism. Incen­di­ary! The result is a book unlike any book on social jus­tice I have read, and it is one that deserves a care­ful and hon­est read.

Book Review of Mak­ing All Things New

• Title:  Mak­ing All Things New:  God’s Dream for Social Justice
• Author:  R. York Moore
• Audio­book Nar­ra­tor:  R. York Moore
• Pub­lisher:  IVP Books
• Date:  Decem­ber 1, 2012
• Length:  170 pages
• Audio Length:  4.5 hours

Overview of Mak­ing All Things New

The ways in which Mak­ing All Things New dif­fers from other social jus­tice books is appar­ent. In the first place, the author intro­duces the bib­li­cal metaphor of mar­riage by which to view God’s love for his bride, and his sub­se­quent effort to make her clean. In York’s view, such cleans­ing entails jus­tice for the enslaved and abused of the world.

Sec­ond, Moore employs the theme of judg­ment to argue for the impor­tance of jus­tice. From the book of Rev­e­la­tion, he demon­strates how God’s judg­ment of the world is part of the over­ar­ch­ing frame­work of God’s pur­suit of jus­tice. The author doesn’t shy away from a true, bib­li­cal por­trayal of God — God’s anger, war­rior sta­tus, and the inten­sity of his judg­ment. Moore elo­quently describes the para­dox in this way:

When the great escha­to­log­i­cal real­i­ties of the Chris­t­ian faith are ignored or alle­go­rized, we lose the abil­ity to pro­vide a cohe­sive, com­pre­hen­sive world­view. As a result, the Chris­t­ian mes­sage itself is com­pro­mised. We can’t have the great love of God with­out the great wrath of God.” (Page 50)

Moore traces the arc of God’s “dream” for jus­tice from Eden to the New Jerusalem. He sees this dream for jus­tice as an inex­tri­ca­ble part of God’s global mis­sion to make dis­ci­ples from all nations (Matthew 28:19–20). Along the way, he insists upon the cen­tral­ity of gospel procla­ma­tion joined with meet­ing phys­i­cal needs.

The book ends with a well-grounded appeal for all Chris­tians to become part of God’s dream — a dream that he will surely bring to pass. The final chap­ter, “Join­ing God in Mak­ing All Things New,” is a clar­ion call to engage in God’s grand pro­gram for jus­tice and right­eous­ness in the present as we look towards the future.

Thoughts on Mak­ing All Things New

Mak­ing All Things New blends moti­va­tion with argu­men­ta­tion. The book is full of anec­dotes that pro­vide a high-definition look at injus­tices around the world. These accounts are plain­tive and poignant. They are them­selves a form of moti­va­tion. Although there is this emo­tional tug, there is also the­o­log­i­cal and escha­to­log­i­cal rev­e­la­tion. Moore demon­strates how jus­tice is rooted in the char­ac­ter and plan of God, and why, there­fore, Chris­tians should be involved.

Through­out the book, Moore uses the term “dream” to describe God’s plan and pas­sion for jus­tice (e.g., page 12). With­out set­ting forth a solid def­i­n­i­tion of “dream,” such ter­mi­nol­ogy may seem a bit neb­u­lous, espe­cially at the open­ing of the book.

As a whole, Mak­ing All Things New pro­vides solid foot­ing for the pur­suit of social jus­tice in the evan­gel­i­cal church today. Yes, we must acknowl­edge the need for gospel procla­ma­tion together with acts of mercy, but we can­not neglect one for the other. The book will help you to con­struct a bib­li­cal frame­work for jus­tice, and com­pel you to engage in the essen­tial min­istry of mak­ing all things new.

See the book on Amazon.

Also avail­able on Audi­ble and Chris­tianau­dio.

Note on the audio edi­tion:  R. York Moore nar­rates the audio edi­tion of the book. I appre­ci­ate it when the author reads their own work, since they usu­ally bring into their read­ing a pathos that pro­fes­sional read­ers may lack. Moore, as an expe­ri­enced pub­lic speaker, is a capa­ble narrator.

Dis­clo­sure of Mate­r­ial Con­nec­tion: I received this review copy for free as part of the chris­tianau­dio Review­ers Pro­gram of christianaudio.com. I was not required to write a pos­i­tive review. The opin­ions I have expressed are my own. I am dis­clos­ing this in accor­dance with the Fed­eral Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Con­cern­ing the Use of Endorse­ments and Tes­ti­mo­ni­als in Advertising.”