The 2020 COVID pandemic proved to be a watershed for the entire world. Suddenly, it has become much harder to dismiss fears that a worldwide anti-Christian totalitarianism lurks just over the horizon, and western Christians have new questions. How, for instance, are we to respond to government shutdowns of churches, or  live as Christians in a digitized world where governments can follow your every move? And how do Christian parents raise godly children in a world that promotes the grossest forms of immorality to kindergartners? To answer these questions, and more, Vancouver pastor-writer Paul Dirks has just written Deep Discipleship for Dark Days: Holding Fast to What Is Good. You need this book to understand how to survive the coming cataclysm "with your soul secured and your integrity intact." This is the book that will show you how to fight the good fight, keep the faith, and win the prize that God offers at the end (2 Tm 4:7–8). But until Discipleship for Dark Days ships in late October, you can watch an FBB podcast where author Paul Dirks discusses his book's contents. It's time for God's people to become spiritual preppers, and for that nobody can help you more than Paul Dirks.

Doug Wilson has never written an inconsequential book, and Gashmu Saith It: How to Build Christian Communities that Save the World, is no exception. As FBB writer Shafer Parker blogs through Wilson's book, he comes this week to Chapter 6, in which Wilson argues that any hope of saving the world depends on Christian parents giving their children a truly Christian education. The challenge for today is heightened as Wilson proves from history that many of our present cultural problems stem from the principles built into public education at its beginning! There can be no saving the world, he warns, until Christian parents wake up to the designed-in perils of the public schools.

Christians often look back with longing to a time when their faith was truly influential, shaping the laws of nations and guiding societal decisions. But those days are long gone and Idaho pastor/author Doug Wilson (Gashmu Saith It) warns they are not coming back---unless Christians relearn the value of forming Christian communities for hospitality and service within the larger community of man. As FBB writer Shafer Parker continues blogging through Wilson's book, he points out that it is only in those moments of direct contact with the Christian community that people see the value of the gospel with unmistakable clarity.