In 2016 Ross Douthat tweeted, “If you dislike the religious right, wait till you meet the post-religious right.” Douthat recognized that, contrary to what many progressives believed, Christianity was not the source of conservatism’s ills; it was a restraint upon them, an influence that kept love for one’s people from descending into hatred of others, a desire for social order from overriding individual liberty, and respect for masculinity from descending into misogyny.
Ten years later, Andrew Walker has written “Prodigal Culture” (Crossway, 2026) for “culturally curious Christians,” “pastors,” and the “red-pilled”:
[The “red-pilled”] are men and women on the political right or who are perhaps “anti-woke” while not Christian, and who may have absorbed troubling or reactionary attitudes. They are animated by a growing disillusionment with the false promises of liberalism and progressivism. They sense, often viscerally, that something has gone deeply wrong in the modern world. But lacking a coherent framework for their dissent, they risk falling into opposite yet equally dangerous errors (21).
Sociologically, the red-pilled are anti-woke non-Christian conservatives. Philosophically, the red-pilled are “Taovangelicals.” The “Tao” comes from C. S. Lewis’s book “The Abolition of Man” and corresponds roughly to “natural law” or “creation order” (280). Taovangelicals are those who recognize that you cannot flourish if you ignore creation order. They are weary of the therapeutic, skeptical of ideological capture, and recognize that something good from yesteryear has been lost:
Their ache, their numbness, their boredom are haunted longings that prime them for the gospel, not because they are already Christian but because they are worn out from the alternatives they have tried and found wanting … they still know the world is not as it should be. And it is in this space — between cultural despair and metaphysical yearning for wholeness — that the gospel does its most surprising and subversive work (283).
What does Walker want these “red-pilled/Taovangelicals” to hear? He wants them to know that secularism (no transcendent foundation), barbarism (no moral tradition), and nihilism (no purpose) are to blame for their inability to thrive in our current state of cultural ruin. This unholy trinity has created a culture where men and women cannot find a spouse or experience lasting sexual intimacy. Having lost a divine sense of purpose, people in the West lack motivation to marry, have children, or work. “This is creating a crisis of despair with a threefold horizon: individual despair, cultural despair, and existential despair” (19).
Walker begins with an introduction to Jeff and Emma, fictional examples of how secularism does not fulfill its promise. (Curiously, these two fictional characters don’t fit Walker’s definition of red-pilled. They are both politically liberal.) Secularism, barbarism, and nihilism are producing three types of cultural ruins: personal ruin, social ruin, and existential ruin. These three ruins comprise sections of the book: Part 1 has chapters on (1) fixation with identity, (2) sexual confusion, and (3) gender; Part 2 on (4) loneliness, (5) anti-institutionalism, (6) polarization, and (7) decline of marriage and family; and Part 3 on (8) ideological formation, (9) dread and despair, and (10) limitations of secularism.
These chapters are rich introductions to these topics, and along the way Walker provides theological engagement with some significant voices: Louise Perry on sexuality, Yuval Levin on institutions, and Brad Wilcox on marriage. Readers will find numerous examples of secular voices decrying the false promises of secularism.
The final section of the book is on repairing the ruins. Chapter 11 is titled “The Way Back to Being Human” and the Conclusion is “The Father’s Eager Embrace.” Readers may find it more satisfying to read the introduction and these final two chapters first.
Chapter 11 is the theological center of the book. Engaging Oliver O’Donovan, Cornelius Van Til, and Wayne Grudem, Walker explains his theological method: grace restores nature, and embracing created order is essential for human flourishing. Walker draws upon the creation accounts of Genesis 1–2 to show the red-pilled why they have a “metaphysical yearning.” Their yearning is because they were meant to thrive in a world designed by God with four pillars: order, existence, self-knowledge and personality, and sociality:
So here’s a modest proposal: If you believe there is such a thing as creational-order truth, or natural law — objective moral truth built into creation — why not also believe that Jesus rose from the dead? If you can recognize a moral order, why not seek out the moral lawgiver? A culture more attuned to natural order is more open to the gospel’s claims because the cultural conscience is already rightly calibrated to accept biblical norms of right and wrong as precursors to the gospel. An embrace of natural order is a form of pre-evangelism (278–79).
The conclusion explains the title of the book, “Prodigal Culture.” The West is the prodigal son: “We have chosen to live recklessly in the far country, having departed from our Christian origins, and now we struggle to survive. One can live off the ‘borrowed capital’ of Christianity for only so long” (286). In this closing chapter, Walker calls the church to live as beacons of the Father’s house by boldly proclaiming the significance of the four pillars of creation and the Creator to whom they point.
This volume could have been improved by defining terms more fully along the way. For example, Walker never defines “culture,” and therefore, never articulates a clear theory of how cultures change. This lack of clarity matters for his project because he says that “the gospel still offers forgiveness and new life — not only for individual sinners but for entire cultures” (290).
What does it mean for a culture to receive forgiveness and new life? N. T. Wright’s reading of the parable of the lost son is that the prodigal son is Israel, who needs to return to its Father. Is Walker doing something similar here? Or is culture simply a stand-in for the “world” (John 3:16)? Walker has a whole chapter on the importance of institutions, so it seems likely that he is operating with a theory of culture. Carefully articulating that theory would help clarify the role of the gospel in moving the West to embrace Christian ethics.
Articulating a theory of culture may also shed light why the United States did not realize the promise of its Christian foundations for African Americans and women. Walker acknowledges that “at the high-water mark of ‘Christian America’ . . . we were still awash with racism in our laws” (285), but he does not expound upon it. Understanding this phenomenon matters, because answering the question as to why the gospel did not influence culture then may be helpful in discerning how it can influence culture now.
Another matter of definitions is with the term “red-pilled.” Different demographics will hear this term very differently. In the early 2000s “red-pill,” deriving from film “The Matrix,” took on a political connotation, and this seems to be the primary use that Walker intends when he describes this group as “anti-woke conservatives.”
But one can be an anti-woke conservative within the mainstream of Christian orthodoxy. There is, however, another red-pill community with far darker aims. Moreover, this community does not lack “a coherent framework for their dissent.” They have an explicit framework and strategy, and it revolves around an unbiblical vision for male leadership and the sexual conquest of women.
In 2012 the r/TheRedPill subreddit community began to “[Discuss] sexual strategy in a culture increasingly lacking a positive identity for men.” One of the most popular posts in the forum offers “37 rules” for conquering women sexually like a “warlord.” Andrew Tate, who is currently held in pre-trial detention in Miami as he contests extradition to the UK for rape and human trafficking charges, is a hero of the r/TheRedPill community.
Although Walker has some critical words regarding Tate in “Prodigal Culture,” a charitable reading of Walker suggests that he does not intend to reach the r/TheRedPill community. These men do need to be reached with the gospel, but strategies for engagement need to recognize that you are reaching a group with a clear strategy for sexual conquest. And, if r/TheRedPill community is part of the intended audience, then a more robust treatment of biblical masculinity in relation to Christ and the gospel needs to be set forth in direct opposition to their strategy.
I agree with Walker that the gospel alone is powerful to save. An ontology of sex is not powerful enough to heal the sin against oneself in sexual immorality, nor break the hold of lust on the human heart. An ontology of personhood is necessary, but insufficient to provide a personal relationship with God. It is here that I wish Walker would have spent more time expounding and exploring the gospel. There is not a treatment of the gospel equal in substance to the core chapters of the book. Walker certainly points to Christ and the gospel in this work, but he does not expound upon either in a way sufficient to provide some of the “subversive work” (283) that he is hoping for.
On the one hand this is understandable if Walker, as an ethicist, was offering the book as a sort of theology of culture. But given that “Prodigal Culture” is offered as a pathway to return to God, it should provide a more robust engagement with the gospel.
“Prodigal Culture” is worth reading. Douthat warned that the post-religious right would present unique cultural challenges. Andrew Walker applies a robust biblical-theological foundation to a broad range of social issues, in a register designed to reach this demographic. The task is large, and we can be thankful that Walker has begun.
Jay Harvey is the founding pastor of City on a Hill (PCA) in midtown Manhattan.