In other words, we think too highly of ourselves and what we want to do – and too little of what He can and will do despite us.
If you follow national and social media “news” concerning Christians – especially the Evangelical movement – and the assorted commentators who write on matters of faith, you have to be struck by the constant hullabaloo going on.
The “faith” business, it seems, can be as chaotic as any other in our information-saturated era.
Predominantly there is the six-year odd food fight launched by Christian “leaders” and nationally and internationally known writers who assert that the Evangelical movement has turned into little more than a cheering section for “right-wing” politics. Or a vehicle to advance the political causes associated with former President Donald Trump.
Some have described these Christians as a bunch of “bubbas, gun nuts, and southerners driving four-wheel-drive pickups with American flags flying,” thinly disguised “Trumpians” who want to impose a nationalist faith-based government.
Other nationally known pastors and writers have gone further, claiming that “frightening” rhetoric in the Evangelical movement echoes “Christian nationalism” and “white supremacy.” One called them “anti-intellectual louts who disdain the urbane elites who read serious theology.”
Still, others have dubiously stated that some pastors are “under attack in their own churches” as Christian nationalists insist they join the “fight.”
At the same time, many conservative writers, pastors, and observers pushing back against these wildly ridiculous narratives often find themselves being attacked viciously, not on the merits of their arguments, but for supporting conservative Evangelicalism at all. Internationally, others seem in a blind rush to separate themselves from any suggestion that they aren’t in lockstep with the woke agenda. Their getaway vehicle is self-trashing all hints at orthodoxy.
Of course, the “drive-by” national media uses these negative storylines as rhetorical battering rams against all conservatives – and believers in general. So much so that “systemic racists,” “white privilege,” and “white nationalism” are now used causally as descriptors in news outlets like the New York Times, Washington Post, social media, and cable news.
In the meantime, the non-Evangelical denominational churches, including the Roman Catholics, are evaporating like raindrops in the Mojave. Or, they wander in theological no man’s land and split up, as some already have done and others are in the process of doing. There is an irony afoot that these “mainline” churches are merely sealing their demise by an institutional arrogance that presents itself as wanting to be loved in this life more than they want to hear “well done” in the next.
And there is no shortage of studies and polls (often contradictory) adding to the sense of chaos and gloom in the wider church. There has been much fawning in the secular media coverage (and even some Christian sites) on the rise of the “none,” or younger Americans with no formal religious affiliations. Still, other polls demonstrate that overall church attendance is declining, accelerated by COVID and that many young Millennials have a negative view of “religion,” though many still call themselves spiritual. Other surveys claim that the Z generation is anti-institution and, yet, more spiritually interested than the Millennials. But, the overall trend in the polls suggests that the Christian church is in a nose-dive.
Perhaps some or all of this is correct. I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure the pollsters don’t either. A popular Christian song has this line about God; I don’t know what you’re doing, but I know what you’ve done. Somehow in our eagerness to force events or determine outcomes, we conveniently forget we serve a God with a long list of “doing” we can hang our hat on.
The twenty-first-century church is shuddering from the cultural earthquake, that’s for sure. But it’s also true that the church has not stopped shaking since the Book of Acts 2000 years ago.
In a moment of brutal self-evaluation and honesty, today’s church family in the Western world has been in trouble because, for at least the past 100 years, it has too often replaced the ancient truths for a seat – a “place” – at the table of the culture.
The “universal church” instead gained a seat at the table of death as hideous darkness swept over the Western world.
And darkness it is. Love is now a hologram of the original, culturally exercised as lust or so many pixels on a computer screen. Romance is an artifact of past privilege or an irrational sentimentality that modernity has no time for. Life at both ends of time is at the mercy of someone else’s convenience and cost. The vagaries of dialectical materialism rule over nature and science regardless of the consequences. The certainties of biological order have been replaced by emotional confusion and the horrifying destruction of innocence. Reason has become the slave to emotion – and the truth is a bastard child of the patriarchy, meant only to maintain authority.
This darkness is what the Israeli professor (of “Great Reset” fame), Yuval Noah Harari, unknowingly posits as the coming of the God-man or “Homo Deus.” We no longer need God. We will soon have “transhumanism” built with science and technology and indulge that darkness all the more for it. Listening to the lectures at Davos, where thousands of the world’s super elite gather to talk about the ‘Reset,’ you can hear this theme’s echo in every discussion. God is a stranger. “He’s dead. It’s only taking a while to bury him.”
Some of us wag fingers and write endlessly about the advancing darkness, but in human terms, it seems too little too late. Like in ancient Rome, there seems to be no way around the crumbling civilization. One way of life will win, and the other will die.
But, for God, it would be. But the story is not yet finished.
Over the last few years, I’ve had the opportunity to visit churches, interview many believers, and attend conferences across the country. (In July of 2021, I joined the national Promise Keepers conference at AT&T Stadium in Dallas and reported on my experience interviewing men (here).
In reality, many large non-denominational Evangelical churches (and para-church ministries) are thriving and attracting hundreds or thousands of young people in the 20-35 range. I’ve visited quite a few of these, and it’s important to note not what they aren’t doing but the four common traits they all seem to share.
First, they are authentic bodies of believers, from the pastors down to the pews. They are genuine about their personal – and man’s collective – weaknesses and sinfulness. These churches have little room for pretense, even from the pulpit, and provide services inside the church for recovery and healing from addictions, failing marriages, and destroyed relationships.
These growing churches are both small group and home group focused. They want the community of believers in discipleship and relationships outside of Sunday, equipped to carry the Gospel into the community.
They are aggressively outward-focused on their cities. Some have active outreach for medical care, and others with community centers in inner cities providing free services and outreach. Others partner with important para-ministries, especially in drug rehabilitation. They are congregations intent on making a difference and taking the Gospel into their communities with direct outreach and services.
Also, these churches are rock-solid Bible-teaching churches that largely ignore politics while being true to orthodox Christian teaching. While not overtly political, they’re conservative in that they teach with unapologetic Biblical clarity on issues such as abortion, families, and human sexuality. And in this era of gender and racial confusion, they all teach that every single person is a unique creation of God and deserving of dignity. So, no one who visits these churches more than once or twice can be surprised. I also note that many are adopting pieces of the ancient creeds in their services and even music. These churches are still growing and, perhaps in time, will assume the role of the legacy denominations that are collapsing.
A final thought. Regardless of what the pundits, haters, and pollsters say, the creator God can stop the Sun, open the ocean, move mountains, and – most incredibly – redeem men. His Physical and Moral Order simply is. You can no more fall off a building and not be judged by gravity than you can ignore the moral code without consequences. What happens to the American church and the worldwide church in the next 5, 10, or 20 years will be His work, not ours. His plan never fails and never ends. Our job is to glorify him in our words and deeds as we follow the pathways He has laid out for us – not those of our choosing.
In other words, we think too highly of ourselves and what we want to do – and too little of what He can and will do despite us.
