Past and Future

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.

Future Vision

HT: Ziglar.com

In His Hands

Certainty

From Thinke

Colony of Heaven

Some great N. T. Wright quotes for Easter:

“Jesus's resurrection is the beginning of God's new project not to snatch people away from earth to heaven but to colonize earth with the life of heaven. That, after all, is what the Lord's Prayer is about.”

― N. T. Wright, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church


“Easter was when Hope in person surprised the whole world by coming forward from the future into the present.” 

― N. T. Wright, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church

Moving On in 2014

From Tony Evans Facebook Page

I Am From the Future

"Jesus was telling the Pharisees 'You keep asking when the kingdom of God is going to come, but it's already here. You just haven't seen it.' Jesus was telling the Pharisees that the future had arrived with what he was doing and with what was happening among his disciples. But you have to be born again to see it. It takes new eyes. Those who have been born again and have new eyes have sen the kingdom of God - they have, in fact, seen the future.. .."

"...as a baptized believer, this is my confession: I am from the future. I have seen and tasted the powers of the age to come."

       -Brian Zahnd, Beauty Will Save the World, page 132-1333