Prodigal Culture: A People in Ruins and the Way Back Home

By Andrew T. Walker

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Format: Hardcover w/ Jacket

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Availability: Forthcoming

Expected: Nov 3, 2026

Retail Price: $22.99

Prodigal Culture: A People in Ruins and the Way Back Home

By Andrew T. Walker

... Show All

Andrew T. Walker’s Thought-Provoking Look at Modern Culture Affirms Why Biblical Morality Is Urgent and Irreplaceable

We have forgotten what it means to be human. American men and women are feeling the despair of a counterfeit culture, one where polarization has replaced conversation, pornography is chosen over true intimacy, and marriage and family are postponed indefinitely. The resulting isolation has forced us to confront the truth: individualism and worldly systems cannot take the place of God’s design for humanity.

This scholarly yet accessible study examines the effects of secularism, nihilism, and barbarism on culture today, and explains why a biblical worldview is essential for human flourishing. Andrew T. Walker skillfully confronts 10 pressing issues—including loneliness, sexual confusion, anti-institutionalism, and identity. Affirming that shared norms grounded in creation order are the solution to social decline, he champions a return to biblical standards of freedom, human nature, and purpose. Walker compares Western culture to the prodigal son in Scripture—a culture that has squandered its inheritance and must now decide whether it will return to the Father or continue living in squalor. 

  • Essential Guide to Cultural Apologetics: Presents biblical ethics as the remedy for various personal, social, and existential crises affecting men and women today
  • Comprehensive: Offers cultural insights and research on topics including marriage and family, gender identity, pornography, social and political division, and more
  • Written by Andrew T. Walker: Ethics professor and editor of the book Social Conservatism for the Common Good

Author:

Andrew T. Walker

Andrew T. Walker (PhD, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is the Associate Dean of the School of Theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and the Associate Professor of Christian ethics and public theology. He is a fellow with the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He resides with his wife and three daughters in Louisville, Kentucky.

Product Details

Format: Hardcover w/ Jacket
Page Count: 320
Size: 5.5 in x 8.5 in
Weight: 10.0 ounces
ISBN-10: 1-4335-9974-0
ISBN-13: 978-1-4335-9974-3
ISBN-UPC: 9781433599743
Published: November 03, 2026

Endorsements

Prodigal Culture is the roadmap out of the disoriented mess of a culture in which we’ve found ourselves. Walker distills millennia of theology, philosophy, and political science into a concise case for the Christian way, offering straightforward advice on how to employ biblical truth to make the world around us—and our own lives—better.”
Allie Beth Stuckey, New York Times Bestselling Author; Speaker and Commentator; Host, Relatable

“Andrew Walker is one of the most insightful, skilled, and intelligent observers of the culture around us. In this book he brings keen powers of cultural analysis into focus. In so many ways, this volume is just the right book at just the right time. My basic advice is to read whatever Andrew Walker writes. This is a very good place to start.”
R. Albert Mohler Jr., President, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

“When you’re on the wrong path, the sooner you turn around and go back to find the right one, the better. Our culture has been on the wrong path for some time now, resulting in widespread loneliness, confusion, and despair. What Andrew Walker offers in Prodigal Culture is an explanation of not just how we lost our way but how to find our way back. Every Christian concerned about the state of our culture should read this book.”
Seth Dillon, CEO, The Babylon Bee

“We live in a world that is both fluid and confusing, and many sincere Christians are finding it increasingly difficult to know what it means to think and act in a godly way as they relate to the world around them. What they need is both a framework for understanding the causes of the malaise that characterizes our cultural moment and some clear proposals for how to respond. That is what Andrew Walker provides in this book. By analyzing the interconnected problems of our day and pointing to biblical patterns of response, he helps readers see a hope-filled path forward for themselves and for the culture at large.”
Carl R. Trueman, Professor of Biblical and Religious Studies, Grove City College

“The Western world is in crisis, and that crisis, first and foremost, is spiritual. Like prodigals, we have steadily spent down our Father’s capital—the moral reserves of the Christian worldview. Yet, in resisting God’s good design, we have only hurt ourselves. We are now lonelier, more polarized, and more alienated from the good life, a sense of which is indelibly written on our hearts. Andrew Walker guides us through this wreckage of our prodigal culture, showing how its lies have failed a generation and have become their own counterargument. With a rare blend of pastoral care and scholarly poise, Walker tenderly points the way home. For parched travelers lost in today’s moral wilderness, this book holds out the hope of living water.”
Kristen Waggoner, CEO, President, and General Counsel, Alliance Defending Freedom

“Andrew Walker’s Prodigal Culture confronts twenty-first-century Western culture with sobriety and gravity. In an era when sensationalism and overstatement rule politics and religion, Walker’s work provides refreshingly incisive and precise descriptions of our culture’s sickness, and a serious and authentically evangelical political theology to address them.”
Miles Smith IV, Assistant Professor of History and Fellow, The Center for Military History and Strategy, Hillsdale College