Over 40, Under 40

I've found it a good policy to listen when Ed Stetzer speaks. Check out Ed's Does It Really Matter: How Generational Dynamics Impact Our Evangelism

How should generational dynamics affect evangelistic methods? Or we could put it this way: “How is reaching people over the age of 40 different from reaching those under 40?”

This is a tricky issue. We must first recognize that the categories are nuanced. Generally, generations are divided up into many categories such as Builders, Boomers, Generation X, Millennials, and Generation Z. But let’s simplify and just think about the dividing line being above 40 and below 40 years of age. Let me share three points that I believe are helpful.

First, we must understand the whole idea and evolution of tolerance in the American culture. Those over 40 are much more willing to say, “There’s only one way, and if you can convince me that there is that one way, then I might be persuadable.” These folks tend to view Christianity more favorably as a whole as well, creating a bit more openness than those who are below 40.

When you dip below 40, there is a perception that not only is there not one way, but to think there is one way is intolerant and unhelpful. This posture is expressed in a number of ways. In particular, this is where a movement toward pluralism and universalism is rooted.

Those over the age of 40 tend to ask themselves, “Is it right?” while those who fall below that line lean toward the question, “Is it fair?” Fairness has been bent to mean that everyone’s way and truth is valid. Therefore, the exclusivity of the gospel of Jesus Christ is offensive.

Second, there is a distinct difference in how the two groups prefer to be engaged. Reaching folks over 40 is perhaps more effective in a large group setting with a high level of anonymity. This includes things like evangelistic meetings or crusades. Some of you remember evangelistic campaigns. People came to large-group meetings and revivals. These sorts of activities, however, have declined overwhelmingly.

This sort of ‘attractional’ outreach has morphed over time and has turned into what we generally refer to as the ‘seeker movement.’ If you are a Baby Boomer, you were not necessarily invited to a stadium, but you may have been invited to a church with contemporary music, approachable teaching, and a relaxed atmosphere.

But for those under 40, the attractional approach is much less appealing. Instead, these folks prefer relationship. An attractional-type event may play a role in their lives, but it is preceded by a conversation, a connection with a person. We may sum this distinction up as attractional versus incarnational.

Third, the generation before (those over 40) enjoyed a home field advantage. The culture in which they were reared assumed the basic tenets of Christianity. For them, Christianity is real, God is real, and people just need to get right with God.

This is in contrast to those under the age of 40, who are characterized more by a spiritual uncertainty. The milieu in which they have come of age in the United States is more complex, more nuanced. They ask questions like “Who is God?” and “Who is Jesus?”

Those under 40 are actually further away from the gospel than those over 40 because of the vastly different contexts in which they have lived. James Engel devised a scale to help us determine where a person is in relation to making an informed decision about the claims of Christianity. Due to the differing contexts, people in the United States over 40 years of age are generally closer to believing the gospel than those under the age of 40.

That said, when we look at how we are actually doing in sharing the gospel with those under 40, I think it is helpful to look at those in that age demographic who already claim to be born again Christians—How are under 40s doing in sharing their faith? The Barna Group released some research at the end of 2013 on the state of evangelism among born again evangelicals that may be helpful as we consider this issue on a broad scale:

As their report indicated, Millennials are sharing their faith more than any other group:

In fact, in answer to the question of evangelism on the rise or in decline, Millennials are a rare case indeed. While the evangelistic practices of all other generations have either declined or remained static in the past few years, Millennials are the only generation among whom evangelism is significantly on the rise. Their faith-sharing practices have escalated from 56% in 2010 to 65% in 2013.

Not only that, but born again Millennials share their faith more than any other generation today. Nearly two-thirds (65%) have presented the Gospel to another within the past year, in contrast to the national average of about half (52%) of born again Christians.

This is encouraging news indeed, and something that can help form our thoughts, strategies, and methods for reaching those under 40 and over 40 as we look to integrate the passion of under 40s into our plans.

The three factors I mention in this article aren’t the only factors, but they are major. Because of these factors, and others, it’s vital to adjust our approaches and methodologies that are tailored to whatever group it is that you are targeting. Be careful not to dismiss a strategy altogether just because it doesn’t produce fruit with one age demographic. Likewise, be careful not to assume that works with one group is a slam dunk for others.

  This article originally appeared in the Nov/Dec 2016 issue of Outreach Magazine.

A Storm is Coming

A storm is coming. We are facing a cultural, moral, spiritual and political storm. In fact, I think it is already upon us. Are you ready? Read Love: Our Shelter in the Cultural Storm by Trevin Wax

“I’m not sure the people in my congregation are ready for what’s coming.”

That’s the sentiment of many a pastor who sees how the cultural tides are turning against those who adhere to Christianity’s sexual ethic. The tide is bringing to shore a number of challenges, including social ostracism and the potential loss of income, status, or opportunity.

Some of these fears are overblown; but more than a few of them are real. Four dissenting Supreme Court justices just sounded the alarm.

The questions follow: How do we fortify believers for this cultural moment?

How do we ensure that Christians remain steadfast, committed to Scripture, and immune to activists whose ideologies threaten schism concerning issues that the Church has always been united on?

How do we prepare people to bear the stigma of the world?

The simplest, most profound answer is: through love.

In the passage where he calls New Testament believers “sojourners” and “exiles,” the Apostle Peter starts off by addressing them as beloved (or loved ones, or dear friends – depending on your translation). Beloved. There are two senses of “being loved” that prepare us well as sojourners and exiles.

Loved By the Family

At the first level, Peter is speaking about being part of the beloved family of God. This is the love that we have for brothers and sisters.

Thus, one of the ways we equip believers to bear the stigma of standing for Christ is by doing so together – as the family of God. It’s one thing to be a lone individual taking a stand. It’s another thing to know that there are others are with you.

The last thing we need are believers who adopt a “run for the hills!” mentality and then, like Elijah, bemoan the fact that there are so few who are faithful. There are millions of Christians who have not and will never bow the knee to Ba’al. We belong to this people, and we stand in a long line of men and women who have rejoiced to suffer for the name of the Savior.

The more our world fractures and polarizes, the tighter and stronger our churches must be.

Loved By the Father

At a second level, and more fundamental, Peter is speaking about being beloved by the God who has demonstrated His love through the gift of His Son. We are beloved by God.
It’s common for Christians to think being “in exile” implies God’s displeasure or punishment. This is because we have wrongly applied the exile of the Old Testament people of God to our situation today. The fact that Peter can address “exiles” as beloved means that being a beloved child of God is not at odds with being in exile. And even in the Old Testament, where the exile was in fact a disciplinary moment from God toward His people, the exile did not communicate God’s hatred or His disdain.

Exile is not an accident. In Jeremiah 29, when the prophet wrote his letter to the exiles, he spoke of them as being “sent” to Babylon, as having been “deported” by God Himself. Exile was not an accident back then, and being “in exile” is not a coincidence now. In both cases, God loves His people.

Here’s why this matters for the fortifying of Christian faith and witness in our day. If you fail to get this truth deep down into your heart, if you fail to recognize God’s unfailing, unchanging love for you no matter your circumstances, you will not be able to represent Him well in exile.

The only way you will ever be able to withstand the hatred of the world is if you are immersed in the love of God.

The only way you will ever be able to live without the approval of others is if you are assured of God’s approval of you in Christ.

The only way you can stand against the world when everyone is jeering you is when you know God is there, cheering you on, calling you His beloved child.

Unless we are overcome by the love of God, we will be overcome by the fear of man.

Fortified Faith

Our task is twofold. First, we must strengthen the bonds of the Christian community, creating an oasis of faith, hope, and love in the midst of a decadent culture. A place of love that makes rejection from the world more tolerable because of the embrace we receive from the church. Secondly, we must immerse ourselves again and again in the inexhaustible fountain of God’s love for us in Christ. A fountain that refreshes us with our free and full salvation through Jesus.

Perfect love casts out fear. So, when you look to the future, don’t be afraid. You are beloved.

A Coming Civil War

I want you to think about a coming civil war. No, not the Captain America movie (which I will definitely go see). I'm referencing another civil war that will directly affect most of my readers. This will be a conflict between religious ideas about the nature of America, and the role of Christians in this nation. I think the post I'm about to link to is so important I want to urge all of you to read it. Even if you do not concur with his conclusions, please at least think (and pray) about these issues.

A Coming Evangelical Civil War? by Alan Cross

Here's one sample paragraph:

...the conflict will be about theology in a way that we have never really had agreement on and do not often raise in level of importance to the place where division is ever even considered. But, events are driving us to consider not just our orthodoxy (right teaching), but also our orthopraxy (right practice). How does our Evangelical theology cause us to love God and love people (the Great Commandment)? How does our theology cause us to see other people? How does it cause us to see ourselves? To see our churches? To see America? Will we be people of the Cross or people seeking glory? Will we see the sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross as our hope and salvation that then causes us to love and sacrifice for others, even our enemies? Or, will we see the Cross as the means to and end of us being safe and secure and receiving our “best life now”?

Please go to the link and read the whole post; it is well worth the time.

Our Culture Is Unique (Not A Good Thing)

Interesting and provocative - 3 Ways Our Culture Is Different from Every Other Culture in History by Gavin Ortlund:

We live in a turbulent cultural moment. The world around us is rapidly changing, and we face many challenges unprecedented in the history of the church. Augustine fought the Pelagians; Aquinas synthesized Aristotle; Luther strove with his conscience; Zwingli wielded an axe; but probably none of them ever dreamed of a world in which people could choose their gender. Secularizing late-modernity is a strange, new animal.

Identifying the historical and global isolation of our culture does not discredit it. “Weird” does not always equal “wrong.” Nonetheless, seeing ourselves in a broader perspective can go a long way toward humbling and opening us up to where Scripture wants to transform our thinking. I say “our” thinking because our first impulse in cultural critique shouldn’t be bashing others, but searching our own hearts. Since culture isn’t what we see but what we see through—the glasses, not the landscape—we’re often more “conformed to this world” (Rom. 12:2) than we realize.

Three Modern Eccentricities 

Here are three ways our culture is eccentric in its basic instincts about God, morality, and life—ways we tend to see things differently not only than Solomon, Jesus, and Paul, but also Aristotle, the Aztecs, and Attila the Hun.

1. God is in the dock.

I’m currently writing my doctoral dissertation on Anselm (1033–1109). I’m always amazed by how exercised he was by the problem of divine mercy. Throughout his writings he labored over the question: how can a just and righteous God pass over sins and spare the undeserving?

Today we have the opposite problem. Divine mercy is assumed, and divine justice must be explained. How could a good and loving God ever judge people? (This is one of the top seven objections to Christianity Tim Keller tackles in The Reason for God.)

What’s so striking to me isn’t that Anselm and American culture have different answers, but that they’re asking different questions. For an 11th-century monk, it simply never occurred to him that God, rather than man, would be the one needing to be justified. C. S. Lewis captured this distinction well: “The ancient man approached God (or even the gods) as the accused person approaches his judge. For the modern man, the roles are quite reversed. He is the judge: God is in the dock.”

Perhaps the greatest example of this role reversal is the rise of atheism, a relatively rare phenomenon before the modern West. There are some scattered examples in pre-modern times of various kinds of materialism or agnosticism, but they’re strikingly sparse. For every one Lucretius or Democritus, you can find entire centuries and nations that know nothing but priests, monks, imams, lamas, shamans, sages, and sorcerers.

2. Morality is about self-expression.

In most cultures throughout history it was assumed that external reality is fixed—and that the basic point of life is to conform ourselves to it in some way. Buddha and Plato agree on this point; they only differ on what the conforming process looks like.

Our culture, by contrast, tends to exalt human desire and aspiration such that the point of life is for external reality to be conformed to it. To paraphrase Lewis: For the wise men of old the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to reality; today it’s how to subdue reality to the wishes of men.

In the late-modern West we’ve reduced truth to a personal construct and lost confidence in reason’s ability to access external reality. Thus the only foul in ethics is “harm,” and the only requirement for sexual behavior is “consent.” Basically, for many in our culture, you should be able to do anything you want so long as you don’t inhibit someone else’s self-expression.

Plato could have at least understood Buddha’s four noble truths. Buddha would have comprehended Plato’s advocacy for reason and justice. Both would be only perplexed and exasperated with the modern mantra “be true to yourself.”

3. Life is starved of transcendence.

In most ancient cultures, life and meaning were relatively stable. You didn’t have people like Albert Camus contemplating whether the absurdity of human existence necessitated suicide among the ancient Mongols, Mayans, or Vikings. As Brother Lippo Lippi put it in Robert Browning’s poem, “This world's no blot for us, nor blank; it means intensely, and means good: to find its meaning is my meat and drink.”

Many today lack this sense of objective meaning; we are starved of transcendence, community, stability; we’re aching to find something big to live for; we feel listless, adrift, barren. Think of Nietzsche’s anguish in proclaiming the death of God in the late 19th century—in a milder, semiconscious way, this is how many feel today.

Our standard of living has risen, but so have our suicide rates; we are smarter, but more uncertain; surrounded with pleasure, but less fulfilled; able to do almost anything but uncertain whether to do anything.

I believe much of the sexual confusion and brokenness in our culture is the result of this deeper, existential void. We use things like sex and money to address basic questions of identity and fulfillment. As Keller recently observed, “In ancient cultures people had sex and made money to build a community; today, they do so to build an identity.” Or as Trevin Wax puts it, “One reason our culture is so sex-saturated is that we are so transcendence-starved.”

How Should We Respond?

Gospel faithfulness demands we engage our culture with both truth and love, yielding neither to compromise on the one side nor escapism on the other. This means we cannot simply bemoan the encroaching cultural darkness, swatting at the errors around us with our theological club. As TGC’s Theological Vision for Ministry puts it, “It is not enough that the church should counter the values of the dominant culture. We must be a counterculture for the common good.”

In responding to these metaphysical, ethical, and existential Copernican revolutions in our culture, I believe we must work hard to establish the corresponding subversive biblical doctrine in each of three areas: (1) a high view of God, (2) a thoroughgoing notion of repentance, and (3) a transcendent vision of worship.

1. God is transcendent.

We can learn a lot about sharing Christ in a pre/post-Christian setting from Paul’s speech at the Areopagus in Acts 17. He starts with the doctrines of God and creation, painting a comprehensive picture of the world that can explain the Athenians’ experience, and then he goes to the gospel. In our setting also, we need to help people feel a sense of God as the transcendent One on whom we depend for every breath and before whom we’re accountable for every thought. No one needs a gospel so long as God remains in the dock. 

2. Life comes through death.

To challenge our culture’s inverted moral compass, we must also help people see that dying to self is the path to life—that what happens to Ebenezer Scrooge is a better picture of the human ideal than what’s preached in the self-help section at Barnes & Noble. Opposing biblical-behavior deviations is important but more surface-level; we must go deeper to show that the whole substratum of the Christian life is “let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34). Until we establish that the key to life is repentance, our hermeneutical arguments will have limited persuasiveness.

3. Beholding God is our goal.

In sharing Christ with the sexually broken we must do more than denounce sexual immorality. We must proclaim a vision in which the ultimate human experience is the beatific sight of God in heaven, not a new sexual encounter. Postmodern people must be able to sense, as they listen to our preaching and observe our worship, “This is big enough to give my life to—this is what I’ve been looking for my entire life.” 

In these areas we will be pushing directly against the grain of the thoughts and values swirling around us. But only to the extent we do so will our gospel witness be clear and effective to our culture—and to ourselves. 

Marriage Confusion

Another good and thought provoking article by Trevin Wax entitled Are Evangelicals More Revisionist on Marriage Than We Think?

I’m concerned about evangelicals and marriage.

Don’t misunderstand. I don’t think we’re about to see a massive capitulation of evangelicals on same-sex marriage. There are good reasons to reject the notion that evangelicals will adopt revisionist interpretations of Scripture or abandon the global, historic witness of the Church.

What concerns me is the possibility of evangelicals “holding the line” on same-sex marriage while adopting virtually every other wrongheaded aspect of our culture’s view of marriage.

Just because most of the people in your congregation reject same-sex marriage does not mean that their vision of marriage is biblical. Many of the folks sitting in church pews every week are just as revisionist in their understanding of marriage as their friends with rainbow avatars on their Facebook. That’s why I’m less concerned about our churches caving on gay marriage and more concerned about evangelicals adopting the underlying, revisionist framework that makes same-sex marriage possible.

Same-sex marriage is only the tip of the spear when it comes to the differences between the biblical vision of marriage and cultural counterfeit. If we focus only on current legal challenges regarding marriage, we may overlook just how deeply formed we are by our surrounding culture in matters related to sexuality and marriage. We may miss the fact that we, too, view our relationships in individualistic and therapeutic terms. We may think we’re “safe” or “faithful” if we adopt the “right belief” about gay marriage, when in reality, we may be just as compromised as the rest of culture. We may take pride in ”holding down the fort,” while the fort has been hollowed out from the inside.

Just how has society’s view of marriage changed? Andrew Sullivan, one of the leading voices in the gay marriage cause, lays out several ways in which marriage has shifted in recent decades. Each of these shifts affects evangelicals.

He then discussed in detail the three points made by Sullivan:

1. Marriage as temporary
2. Marriage a emotional commitment
3. Marriage as personal expression

Then in conclusion he makes this very  important point:

We underestimate just how much cultural cultivation we have to do if we think success is just getting people to say “no” to same-sex marriage. We need the wider narrative of Scripture, and the bigger picture of marriage, if we are going to make sense of Christianity’s vision for family.

When we share the same undergirding ideas about marriage as the culture, the Christian’s “no” to same-sex marriage looks arbitrary and motivated by animus toward our LGBT neighbors rather than being a part of a comprehensive vision of marriage that counteracts our culture in multiple ways.

We are not called merely to reject wrong views of marriage; we are called to build a marriage culture where the glorious vision of complementarity, permanence, and life-giving union of a man and woman, for the good of their society, can flourish. Rebuilding a marriage culture must be more than lamenting the current state of the world at multiple conferences a year. It must include the strengthening of all our marriages within the body of Christ: from the truck driver, to the police officer, to the teacher, and the stay-at-home mom.

Success is not having church members say gay marriage “is wrong.” Success is when the Christian vision of marriage is so beautiful that revisionist definitions of marriage “make no sense.”

Read it all at the link.

Convictional Kindness

Below is an excerpt from Evangelicals Won't Cave: Why Evangelicals Will Not Be Surrendering To The Sexual Revolution by Dr. Russell Moore via First Things: Dr. Moore has been one of the wisest commentators beforer and after the SCOTUS decision on marriage. The entire thing is to long to post here, but not too long for anyone to read. Please read it all. It is important that we all understand this.

....We can no longer assume, even in the Bible Belt, that people aspire to, or even understand, our “values” on marriage and family. These parts of our witness that were the least controversial—and could be played up while playing down hellfire and brimstone, for those churches wanting a softer edge—are now controversial. Churches that reject the sexual revolution are judged as bigoted. Churches that don’t won’t fare much better, for in a secularizing culture, churches that embrace the revolution are unnecessary—just as the churches that rejected the miraculous in favor of scientific naturalism were in the twentieth century.

In post-Obergefell America, Evangelicals and other orthodox Christians will be unable to outrun our freakishness. That is no reason for panic. Some will suggest that a Christian sexual ethic puts the churches on the “wrong side of history.” Well, we’ve been on the wrong side of history since a.d. 33. The “right side of history” was the Eternal City of Rome. And then the right side of history was the French Revolution. And then the right side of history was scientific naturalism and state socialism. And yet, there stands Jesus still, on the wrong side of history but at the right hand of the Father.

If we are right about the end of human sexuality, then we ought to know that marriage is resilient. The sexual revolution cannot keep its promises. People think they want autonomy and transgression, but what they really want is fidelity and complementarity and incarnational love. If that’s true, then we will see a wave of refugees from the sexual revolution, those who, like the runaway son in Jesus’ story, “come to themselves” in a moment of crisis.

Churches so fearful of cultural marginalization that they distort or ignore the hard truths of the Gospel will not be able to reach these refugees. Churches that scream and vent in perpetual outrage won’t, either. It will be of no surprise if the churches most able to reach those wounded by sexual freedom, and the chaos thereof, will be the churches most out of step with the culture. Whatever one thinks of the “temperance” of many wings of American Evangelicalism, it is no accident that so many ex-drunks, and their families, found themselves walking sawdust trails to teetotaling Baptist and Pentecostal churches, not to the wine-and-cheese hour at the respectable downtown Episcopalian church.

The days ahead require an Evangelicalism that is both robustly theological and warmly missional, both full of truth and full of grace, convictional and kind. This does not mean a kind of strategic civility that seeks to avoid conflict. The kindness that is the fruit of the Spirit is of the sort that “corrects opponents,” albeit with gentleness and patience (2 Tim. 2:24–25). A Gospel-driven convictional kindness will not mean less controversy but controversy that is heard in stereo. Some will object to the conviction, others to the kindness. Those who object to a call to repentance will cry bigotry, and those who measure conviction in terms of decibels of outrage will cry sell-out. Jesus was controversial among the Pharisees for eating at tax collectors’ homes, and he was no doubt controversial among the tax collectors for calling them to repentance once he arrived there. He sweated not one drop of blood over that, and neither should we.

While I am not worried about Evangelicals’ caving on marriage and sexuality in post-ObergefellAmerica, I am worried about Evangelicals panicking. We are, after all, an apocalyptic people, for good and for ill. We can wring our hands that the world is going to hell, but then we ought to remember that the world did not start going to hell at Stonewall or Woodstock but at Eden. Adam was our problem, long before Anthony Kennedy. Mayberry without Christ leads to hell just as surely as Gomorrah without Christ does. We cannot respond pridefully to the culture around us as though we deserve a better mission field than a sovereign God assigned to us.

This means that Evangelicals can best serve the culture by being truly Evangelical. We are not in a “post-Christian” America, unless we define “Christian” in ways that disconnect Christianity from the Gospel. The mission of Christ never calls us to use nominal Christianity as a bridge to redemption. To the contrary, the Spirit works through the open proclamation of truth (2 Cor. 4:1–2). It is the strangeness of the Gospel that confounds the wisdom of the world, and that actually saves (1 Cor. 1:18–31). The Gospel does not need idolatry to bridge our way to it, even if that idolatry is the sort of “Christianity” that is one birth short of redemption. Our frame of reference is not happier times in the 1770s or 1950s or 1980s. We are not time travelers from the past; we are pilgrims from the future. We are not exiles because American culture is in decline. We are exiles and strangers because “the world is passing away, along with its desires” (1 Jn. 2:17).

I don’t think American Evangelicals will fold on our sexual ethic. But if we do, American Evangelicalism will have nothing distinctive to say and will end up deader than Harry Emerson Fosdick. If so, the vibrant Evangelical witness God has called together in Nigeria or Argentina or South Korea or China will be alive and well and ready to send missionaries to preach the whole Gospel. Whether from America or not, a voice will stand, crying in the wilderness, “You must be born again.”

Please read it all at the link.

Rescued From Ourselves

"The shaking of American Christianity is no sign that God has given up on American Christianity. In fact, it may be a sign that God is rescuing American Christianity from itself."

- Russell Moore, Onward: Engaging the Culture Without Losing the Gospel

Preparing For Sexual Refuges

I encourage everyone to read this piece by Russell Moore on where our culture and laws are headed on marriage, gay marriage in particular, and how the church must respond. Let these three paragraphs just whet your appetite.

...What it will mean is that we will have to articulate things that we previously could assume. For a long time, especially in the Bible Belt, pastors could assume that most people understood what we meant by marriage, so we could speak about healthy marriages in shorthand. Now we have to define what we believe about marriage, why we believe about marriage. That's not a new situation for Christians -- that's what's happening in the context of the New Testament, defining Christian marriage over and against a Greco-Roman sexual culture. But it's a new situation for American evangelicals.

I think that the pro-life movement provides the model for the future. The pro-life movement is a long-term movement that is also multipronged, and that will be the case for the pro-marriage, pro-family movement as well -- to recognize that this isn’t simply about a presidential election or two. It's about working in the political arena, but also working in the cultural arena.

I believe the sexual revolution can’t keep its promises. I’m preparing our churches to receive the refugees from the sexual revolution. For those who ask 'What is there other than this?' I said this week at the meeting, there are two kinds of people who won't be able to minister to those refugees. One is the kind of person who has been screaming in anger at those who disagree with us. The other kind is the person who has given up the Gospel and the biblical view about marriage. So we have to stand with conviction and with kindness at the same time.

This is important. Please read the whole piece at the link. 

Post-Christian?

This piece by Russell Moore has bee controversial in some circles. I think he is right, but, agree or disagree, his points are worth hearing, consideration and thought.

We hear a lot these days about America being “post-Christian.” This sort of language has accelerated in recent weeks, with the Pew Center survey demonstrating a spike in the numbers of Americans who claim no religious affiliation. I’ve discussed the survey elsewhere, and have addressed the larger trends for years, but what about this language of a post-Christian America? Is this true?

The language of a post-Christian America is used in two divergent circles, both of which are built on faulty assumptions. The first circle is progressive secularism, which sees supernatural religion as a throwback to less enlightened times. In this view of reality, human history is the slog from the swamps to the space age, and religion is superstition that a scientifically aware humanity needs less and less. The problems with such a viewpoint are many. The world is not getting less religious, as any global survey will demonstrate. The primary question is not whether America is post-Christian but whether Christianity is post-American.

More importantly, this sort of utopian millennialism, whether of the religious or secular sort, has a unanimously bad historical track record. As the self-proclaimed pagan Camille Paglia puts it, “History is littered with the remains of eternal empires.”
I’m more concerned, though, with the other circle using the frame of a “post-Christian” America, the circle identified with the church itself. In this reading, the “post-Christian” nature of America is not to be celebrated but lamented. The language used is one of decline and of loss. The same people who not long ago trumpeted “reclaiming America for Christ” are now some of the same who speak of America in dire “post-Christian” terms. This isn’t accurate either.

The decline and fall of Christian America trope requires several steps of us, all of which move us away from the gospel and from the Bible. To think of America as “post-Christian” means that we must think of America as “Christian” in the first place.
This is akin to my describing myself as “post-tall.” You would look at my five foot-seven inch frame and ask, “Were you tall before?” No. Truth is, were I to talk this way would mean that I just like “post-tall” better than “small” as an identifier. Or it would mean that I am in some sort of delusion. Or it would mean that I’ve been living in a land of pygmies where I have no concept of what “tall” actually is.

The idea of America as “Christian” requires a concept of the nation as in covenant with God. Usually, this entails applying the promises made to Israel to the United States, even if only the generic “heal your land” promise of 2 Chronicles 7:14 as interpreted by God and country civil religion. And yet, Israel’s promises had a goal—and this goal is not the United States of America. The goal of Israel’s promises is the seed of Abraham, the son of David, Jesus of Nazareth (Rom. 9:4-5; Gal. 3:29). All the promises of God find their “yes” and “Amen” in him (2 Cor. 1:20).

Moreover, the idea of America as “Christian” means that we define “Christian” in ways that disconnect Christianity from the gospel. The mission of Christ never calls on us to use nominal Christianity as a means to acclimate people to Christian “values” as pre-evangelism. To the contrary, the Spirit works through the open proclamation of the truth, renouncing cunning tactics (2 Cor. 4:1-2). The gospel does not need idolatry to bridge our way to it, even if that idolatry is the sort of Christianity that is one birth short of redemption.

Nominal Christianity is not just a deficient form of Christianity. It is the opposite of gospel Christianity. This is because nominal Christianity doesn’t start where the gospel starts: with the sinner’s inability to come before God without a Mediator. This is not just inadequate; it is damning. Nominal Christianity can keep people from doing some of the things they want to do, but it sends them to hell as it does so.

The gospel does not come to the righteous, Jesus tells us, but to sinners. Søren Kierkegaard warned long ago that a nominal, civil form of Christianity is the greatest apostasy, in which pagans live thinking they are Christians. But since, he argued, the illusion that we are Christians in a Christian nation is so persistent, “it looks indeed as if introducing Christianity amounts to taking Christianity away.” He concluded: Nevertheless, this is precisely what must be done, for the illusion must go.”

The idea of America as “post-Christian” then calls the church to a sort of freaked-out nostalgia. We identify our focal point in some made-up past—whether the founding era, or the 1950s or the 1980s or whenever. That makes us all the more frantic when we see the moral chaos around us. We see it in terms of “moral decline” instead of seeing it the way the Bible does, in terms of not decline but of Fall.

We are not time-travelers from the past. We are pilgrims from the future. We have not come to reclaim something that was lost. We have come to proclaim Someone who has found us. So let’s stop our handwringing and our rage-venting. Let’s reclaim our mission, and reframe our perspective. We have the promises God has made to Christ. We have the Spirit a resurrected Christ has poured out on us. Jesus didn’t need traditional values or American civil religion at Pentecost, and he doesn’t need them now.

If we take the opportunity to be the church, we may find that America is not “post-Christian,” but is instead maybe “pre-Christian.” It may be that this land is filled with people who, though often Christ-haunted, have never known the power of the gospel, yet.

In any case, what’s important for the church is not so much whether the United States of America is post-Christian as whether Jesus of Nazareth is post-dead. And we know the answer to that.

_________________

For more on this, see Moore's new book Onward: Engaging the Culture Without Losing the Gosp

More On Trends in Church and Culture...

I'm finding the new year analysis of trends as a basis for predictions fascinating. Dr. Michael Brown calls 20115 "The Year of Pushback." Here's why:

As we enter this new year, I offer some prayerful reflections on trends that we could see developing in the months ahead, not as a prophet but as an observer seeking to follow in the footsteps of the ancient sons of Issachar, who "understood the meaning of the times to know what Israel ought to do" (1 Chron. 12:32; my translation of the Hebrew).

While it is possible that I am simply projecting what I am seeing in my own work and ministry, I am hopeful that these represent larger trends in the nation in general and the believing church in particular.

Time, of course, will tell.

1) The gay revolution will continue to overplay its hand. As those who were once bullied now bully others, this will produce an increasing backlash, as seen with the "Houston Five" last year. And as gay activists win more and more battles in the courts and the society, that will actually work against them, and their goals will continue to become more and more extreme. (I address this at length in a book scheduled for publication later this year.)

2) Young people in the church will awaken more and more. I'm aware that many young people are dropping out of "religion" and that the children of evangelicals are often more liberal in their social beliefs than their parents (although not so much when it comes to abortion, thankfully). Yet the emptiness of today's society and the dysfunctional, broken nature of so many of the homes in which these kids are being raised has created a great void, and I expect more and more young people to turn to God earnestly. As for those who are already serious, they will get more serious.

3) The LGBT harvest will continue to increase. For many years, I have believed that, just as God saved a multitude of hippies, radicals and rebels in the late 60s and early 70s—I was one of them—so too he will save a multitude of those who identify as LGBT. Over the years, I have been blessed to hear from a number of other leaders who have this same conviction.

Recently, after speaking on "Can You Be Gay and Christian?" a former lesbian came up to greet me, thanking me for addressing the issue with sensitivity and love. (I often ask churches if we will be ready and welcoming as LGBT people come to our services, as they hold hands during worship, with some dressing differently than their biology would seem to call for.) She told me that she has recently met 6 other former lesbians, all committed to local churches now, and she too sees this increasing.

Of course, it is negative that many are claiming to be committed followers of Jesus while practicing homosexuality at the same time. But it is positive that many gays and lesbians want to follow Jesus and want to attend church after feeling rejected by God and the church all of their lives. Let us prepare our hearts with love and compassion for this coming harvest.

4) God's people will start to get desperate and pray. Although there have been powerful prayer movements birthed in the last 25 years, for the most part, American Christians have been very complacent, tending to get more exercised in prayer during the presidential elections or during times of economic crisis. Otherwise, we have been asleep in the light, to use the proverbial phrase.

But last year, I began to notice a growing call to prayer and fasting and awakening in the American church, and I expect that to increase in 2015. May it be so!

Four Trends: The End of Cultural Christianity

A very interesting and thought-provoking article  - 4 Trends in American Christianity by Ed Stezer. I think he is right on all four.

Despite what many think, the church in America is not dying (and no serious researcher thinks that). However, there are some challenges and changes to be considered.

When we consider missiology, part of the discipline includes considering how churches relate to their culture. Since we live in changing times, it's worth thinking through what current cultural changes mean for future church engagement of that culture.

Here are four trends that are already evident, but will become even more important in days to come:

1. The word "Christian" will become less used and more clear. There are three broad categories that make up the approximately 75 percent of Americans who refer to themselves as Christians. I wrote about this earlier in The State of the Church In America: Hint: It's Not Dying, but it is worth keeping in our minds moving forward. The fact is that not everyone who uses the word "Christian" is using it the same way.

Cultural Christians, about 25 percent of the U.S. population, are simply those who, when asked, say they are a Christian rather than say they are an atheist or Jewish. They are "Christian" for no other reason than they are from America and don't consider themselves something else.

The second type is what I call a congregational Christian. They account for roughly another 25 percent of the population. This person generally does not really have a deep commitment, but they will refer to themselves as a Christian because they have some loose connection to a church—perhaps through a family member, maybe an infant baptism, or some holiday attendance.

Convictional Christians, also about 25 percent of the population, are those people who self-identify as Christian who orient their life around their faith in Christ. This includes a wide range of what Christian is—not just evangelicals, for example. It means someone says they are a Christian and it is meaningful to them.

So, what's the trend?

Well, first, the trend is that less people are calling themselves Christians and those who are will take it more seriously. In other words, cultural and congregational Christians, or the "squishy middle," is collapsing while convictional Christians are staying relatively steady.

In the future, the word Christian will mean more to those who would be considered convictional Christians. However, it will mean—and will be used—less to those who were nominal Christians in the first place. The word will be less used and more clear.

2. The nominals will increasingly become nones. Basically, type one (cultural) and two (congregational) are what we would generally call nominal Christians. Nominal comes from the Latin, meaning "name" or "name only." A growing number of people are name only Christians. They claim "Christianity" for survey reasons, but rarely attend church or give any consistent consideration to their faith identification.

They're simply calling themselves Christians because that's who they consider themselves to be, not because of any life change or ongoing commitment. Those types of Christians, about half of the population now, will become a minority in a few decades.We are now experiencing a collapse of nominalism.

It is fair to say we are now experiencing a collapse of nominalism. Many of these who have been labeling themselves as Christians are starting to feel free to be honest about their religious affiliation, or lack thereof. The "Nones," those who give say they have no religious preference, could potentially represent as many as half of the population in the next 20 to 30 years—it's already over 30% among college students (with a third of college students still being religious).

The nominal Christians in the squishy middle (cultural and congregational Christians) are becoming those who now answer "none of the above" on religious surveys. In other words, the "nominals are becoming the nones."

As the Nones rise in their number, Christian influence on culture will begin to wane. The minority of Christians in a culture will begin to feel even more like a minority when more nominals become Nones. As people no longer claim to be Christians, Christianity will be further marginalized, which should change the way we think about engaging culture.

Faith at the NY Times

Listen to this testimony of Michael Luo, an editor at the New York Times and a Christian who is a member of Tim Keller's congregation (Redeemer Presbyterian) in Manhattan.




HT: Denny Burk

Christmas Persecution

Every year at Christmas season, it seems that some Christians feel that they are being persecuted because someone in a store wishes them a generic "Happy Holidays" instead of  "Merry Christmas." Here's a nice interpretive flowcasrt to help you interpret what is going on.

Read about Pastor Saeed Abendini: That's what real persecution is! Please pray for him.

HT: Chart from  Rachel Held Evans

Taking the Swagger Out of Christian Cultural Influence

In the 80's Christians tried the tools of political power to change our culture. Guess what- It did not work  I know; I was there. Perhaps we should learn that the Lord works more through taking up crosses than taking up political crusades.

I'm not always a John Piper fan, but he is right here. Our true influence going forward will come from being servants, sojourners and exiles, not political power brokers. Piper says:

The fact that Christians are exiles on the earth (1 Peter 2:11), does not mean that they don’t care what becomes of culture. But it does mean that they exert their influence as very happy, brokenhearted outsiders. We are exiles. “Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Philippians 3:20). “Here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come” (Hebrews 13:14).

But we are very happy sojourners, because we have been commanded by our bloody Champion to rejoice in exile miseries. “Blessed are you when others . . . persecute you . . . on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven” (Matthew 5:11-12). We are happy because the apostle Paul showed us that “the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18). We are happy because there are merciful foretastes everywhere in this fallen world, and God is glad for us to enjoy them (1 Timothy 4:3; 6:17). And we are happy because we know that the exiles will one day inherit the earth (Matthew 5:5). Christ died for sinners so that “all things” might one day belong to his people (Romans 8:32).

But our joy is a brokenhearted joy, because Christ is worthy of so much better obedience than we Christians render. Our joy is a brokenhearted joy because so many people around the world have not heard the good news that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15). And our joy is a brokenhearted joy because human culture –- in every society –- dishonors Christ, glories in its shame, and is bent on self-destruction.

This includes America. American culture does not belong to Christians, neither in reality nor in Biblical theology. It never has. The present tailspin toward Sodom is not a fall from Christian ownership. “The whole world lies in the power of the evil one” (1 John 5:19). It has since the fall, and it will till Christ comes in open triumph. God’s rightful ownership will be manifest in due time. The Lordship of Christ over all creation is being manifest in stages, first the age of groaning, then the age of glory. “We ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:23). The exiles are groaning with the whole creation. We are waiting.

But Christian exiles are not passive. We do not smirk at the misery or the merrymaking of immoral culture. We weep. Or we should. This is my main point: being exiles does not mean being cynical. It does not mean being indifferent or uninvolved. The salt of the earth does not mock rotting meat. Where it can, it saves and seasons. And where it can’t, it weeps. And the light of the world does not withdraw, saying “good riddance” to godless darkness. It labors to illuminate. But not dominate.

Perspective on Marriage Rulings

The Supreme Court's rulings yesterday on marriage were a disappointment to me - Expected, but still disappointing. However, these two tweets from Ray Ortlund put things in some perspective:

Ray Ortlund ‏@rayortlund

26 JunThe Supreme Court did not rule today that you and I cannot have Christ- honoring marriages. So let's get after it!

Ray Ortlund ‏@rayortlund26 Jun

A prophetic statement we can make today: flaming hot life-long heterosexual marriages to make the world stand in awe.

So Christians, let's live it and demonstrate it to proclaim it!

Loving Your Enemies - A True Story

This is how to do it! Did you hear about the Texas Atheist "flabbergasted" by an outpouring of Christian Charity?

The Story: According to the Athens Review, an atheist who had threatened to sue a Texas county over the display of a nativity scene says he is "completely flabbergasted" that Christians from that same county provided him financial assistance for a medical problem.

 "My wife and I had never had a Christian do anything nice for us," said Patrick Greene. "Just the opposite."

The Background: Last month Greene, an activist with a long history of bringing lawsuits related to public displays of Christian imagery, threatened to sue Henderson County if county official allowed a nativity scene to be placed on the courthouse lawn next Christmas. Greene had intended to represent himself in the lawsuit, but dropped the threat when he discovered he had a detached retina and may lose his sight.

"There is no way for me to go up there if I'm blind," said Greene, who lives in San Antonio, nearly 300 miles from the Henderson County courthouse. Greene said he has no insurance to pay for an operation that might save his sight, and can't even pay for the exam that will confirm the diagnosis. "Why waste the money if I can't do anything about it," he told the local newspapers.

When Jessica Cry, a member of Sand Springs Baptist Church in Athens, read on the Internet about Greene's troubles, she felt compelled to help. Cry told her pastor, Rev. Eric Graham, who contacted Greene and inquired about how his church could help with the surgery.

Greene told Graham he had a more immediate need.....

 Read it all at the link. Perhaps there would be more Christian victories in the "culture wars" if more Christians acted like Christians.

Pro-Life Optimism

There are great reasons for pro-life people to be optimistic - and to keep praying and working for change. Trevin Wax has posted an encouraging list - Top 10 Reasons I am Optimistically Pro-Life : Kingdom People:

Those of us who believe unborn children deserve human rights can be encouraged. Though we still have many hurdles to overcome before we arrive at the place where all human life is legally protected in the United States, we can be optimistic about the end result. Here are 10 reasons why...

Read the whole thing at the link. One of the most exciting things he mentions is this scene from the television program "House," based on a real incident when an unborn child reached out to grasp the finger of a doctor during fetal surgery.




After the operation, House calls the child a “baby” instead of a “fetus”. Can you believe this?! There is a lot to be excited about here.

Dealing With "Sexual Obesity"?

So many parents are concerned about childhood obesity, but what about the growing problem of "sexual obesity" in our culture? What is sexual obesity, you ask? Check out this article at First Things - The Weight of Smut:

...But while we’re on the subject of bad habits that can turn unwitting kids into unhappy adults, how about that other epidemic out there that is far more likely to make their future lives miserable than carrying those extra pounds ever will? That would be the emerging social phenomenon of what can appropriately be called “sexual obesity”: the widespread gorging on pornographic imagery that is also deleterious and unhealthy, though far less remarked on than that other epidemic—and nowhere near an object of universal public concern. That complacency may now be changing. The term sexual obesity comes from Mary Ann Layden, a psychiatrist who runs the Sexual Trauma and Psychopathology Program at the University of Pennsylvania. She sees the victims of Internet-pornography consumption in her practice, day in and day out. She also knows what most do not: Quietly, patiently, and irrefutably, an empirical record of the harms of sexual obesity is being assembled piecemeal via the combined efforts of psychologists, sociologists, addiction specialists, psychiatrists, and other authorities.

Read the whole thing- read it and weep for the so many people suffering under these addictions.And it is not just affecting adolescents:

And this list is just one possible way of starting a conversation about the consequences of today’s novel sexual obesity. There is also the question of what the same material does to adults—about which another empirical record is also being amassed, and about which more will be said later in this essay. Pornography today, in short, is much like obesity was yesterday—a social problem increasing over time, with especially worrisome results among its youngest consumers, and one whose harms are only beginning to be studied with the seriousness they clearly deserve.

Parallels between the two epidemics are striking. Much like the more commonly understood obesity, the phenomenon of sexual obesity permeates the population—though unlike regular obesity, of course, pornography consumption is mostly (though not entirely) a male thing. At the same time, evidence also shows that sexual obesity does share with its counterpart this critical common denominator: It afflicts the subset of human beings who form the first generation immersed in this consumption, many of whom have never known a world without it—the young.

Smut is truly a weighty thing on the human soul.   God have mercy!

What to Make of Jennifer Knapp & Larry King

As most have probably heard by now, Christian singer/songwriter Jennifer Knapp has put out a new album after an absence for several years, and at the same time has come out as a lesbian in a long term same sex relationship. She recently appeared on the Larry King show on CNN.

Trevin Wax at "Kingdom People" published a great essay and review of her interview - Jennifer Knapp & Larry King: Why We Always Lose this Debate. Trevin says:

I’m convinced that we continue to lose the argument about homosexuality and Christianity because the traditionalist almost always makes his case within a conversation that has been framed by the opposing viewpoint. The Christian doesn’t lose the argument at the micro-level. The argument is lost from the beginning because of how the discussion is framed

He then makes the following five cogent points:

1. We need to shift emphasis from the truth that "everyone is a sinner" to the necessity of repentance.
2. We must not allow ourselves to be defined by our sexual attractions.
3. We must expose the arrogance and judgmentalism of those who would so flippantly dismiss the witness of Christians for two thousand years.
4. We need soft hearts toward Christians struggling with same-sex attraction.

In conclusion, Wax said:

Even though we continue to hold to the increasingly unpopular view that homosexual behavior is sinful, we recognize that many Christians are involved in the struggle – whether silently or openly – and we should commit to prayerful pilgrimage with them.

All of us are sinners. True Christians are repentant sinners. And God’s grace is mighty to save us and change us – every one of us and every part of us.

I wish to associate myself with Trevin's  opinion and conclusions.

Polyamory -- Perfectly Plural Placements

We've all heard plenty about Gay marriage and the great debate about the definition of marriage- but are you ready for Polyamory? Albert Mohler writes:

Polyamory, reports Newsweek, is having a "coming-out-party." Polyamory is the current "term of art" applied to "families" or "clusters" comprised of multiple sexual partners. As Newsweek explains, this is not exactly polygamy, because marriage is not the issue. Advocates of polyamory argue that their lifestyle is not "open marriage." Indeed, they define their movement in terms of the moral principle of "ethical nonmonogamy," defined as "engaging in loving, intimate relationships with more than one person -- based upon the knowledge and consent of everyone involved."
----------------
"....Perhaps the best way to understand this new movement is to understand it as a natural consequence of subverting marriage. We have largely normalized adultery, serialized marriage, separated marriage from reproduction and childbearing, and accepted divorce as a mechanism for liberation. Once this happens, boundary after boundary falls as sexual regulation virtually disappears among those defined as 'consenting adults.'"

If Gay marriage is fully accepted in American society and culture, there will be no logical barrier to polyamory in its various forms also achieving legal status.