Ifirst met Tim Keller nearly 20 years ago at the inaugural conference of The Gospel Coalition while covering the event for Christianity Today. I had recently written the 2006 CT cover story “Young, Restless, Reformed,” about the New Calvinist resurgence then popularized by figures like John Piper, Albert Mohler, and C. J. Mahaney. Keller became one of the most important leaders in that movement, especially by inspiring church plants in the world’s most influential cities.
But in 2007, Keller was not yet a household name. He hadn’t published his 2008 bestsellers The Prodigal God and The Reason for God. Even then, however, Keller had begun to help Christians navigate the social and academic pressures driving down church attendance, especially in urban areas and universities. Keller was early to recognize this secularizing trend. In the past 25 to 30 years, some 40 million Americans have left the church—the largest and fastest religious transformation in American history.
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