DOES THE SHOE FIT?

A recent report entitled, “Six Megathemes Emerge From Barna Group Research in 2010” (1) contained the following conclusions:

1. The Christian church is becoming less theologically literate.
2. Christians are becoming more ingrown and less outreach-oriented.
3. Growing numbers of people are less interested in spiritual principles and more desirous of learning pragmatic solutions for life.
4. Among Christians, interest in participating in community action is escalating.
5. The postmodern insistence on tolerance is winning over the Christian church.
6. The influence of Christianity on culture and individual lives is largely invisible.

If your church is wonderfully God-centered and influencing your community for Christ, you may be thinking they apply to just a small segment of American Christianity. But unfortunately, many polls on the state of Christianity yield similar results. Many conclude that American Christianity has been losing its impact on the culture for decades.

But the church has had its problems throughout history, hasn’t it? After all, isn’t the church body composed of sinners? The prophets continually called upon the people of Israel to repent of their idolatry and return to their God. Through the epistles, Paul busied himself with fighting against false teaching and admonishing Christians to live up to their faith.

So what is different today? A lot. I recently finished reading a book entitled “No Place for Truth” by David Wells. The author makes a cogent argument that modernization and humanist philosophy has led to the "psychologization" of man. This phenomenon is rooted in secular humanism, which finds its origins in the humanist philosophy central to the 18th century and the social impact of the 19th century industrial revolution. The man-centered, postmodern era was born. The impact on society, culture, and religion is far-reaching and profound.

Specifically, the concepts of individualism and equality, coupled with an anti-intellectual movement that began generations ago, has produced our modern-day philosophy of tolerance (both social and theological). Although written over twenty years ago, most of his analysis concerning the negative effect of postmodernism on American Christianity has an eerie accuracy about them.

In our postmodern world, all beliefs and belief systems are considered to be relative. There is no absolute truth. Faith is a matter of personal opinion and no one’s faith is more true or valuable than another’s. Individualism is the right of any person to act, or say, or be anything or anybody they want, regardless of the morality of it (assuming it is legal). A truly enlightened person tolerates opposing views and considers them of equal merit to his own. Equality has more to do with equal results than equal worth as a human being. The author also proposes that the anti-intellectual movement has found its way into the church in the form of an anti-theology mindset.

Society bases its ethics on cultural values rather than moral beliefs. Tolerance is considered a virtue. Tolerance is evident in the church because we have been influenced by worldly values and also do not want to labeled “intolerant” (the implication being a lack of love).

Added to this, the media feeds Christians a steady diet of worldliness, consuming valuable time necessary for spiritual growth, and worst of all, numbing our conscience to the immorality and aberrant behavior now widely accepted by our culture. There are now a couple of generations of Christian children whose worldview and value system has largely been molded by television — not the church. Research shows that less than 10% of students who regularly attended church growing up remain active in their faith during their college years.

Technology is not only assaulting us morally, it has given rise to an unprecedented number of “readerless” people, Christians included. Studies indicate the number of adults who regularly read a book is continually dropping (2). We would rather watch it on television than read about it in a book, newspaper or magazine.

This technological age is supposed to be making us smarter, yet attention spans of television watchers are short. Many preachers today employ multimedia sermons to keep the attention of their congregation.

Finally, and perhaps most important, many Christians view “success” in worldly terms — materialism and wealth. They seek happiness and fulfillment in careers rather than serving their God. Even though the Bible clearly shows the pursuit of worldly success is counterproductive to spiritual growth (Mt 6:24; Lk 16:13), we are no different than the world in this respect. So it is no wonder most Christians are more interested in learning pragmatic truths for living than in growth guided by spiritual principles (see #3 above).

No matter the polls, there do exist those “Captive Christians” (as Barna terms them) who do have a biblical worldview, are growing in knowledge of God, and do have the spiritual confidence to defend their faith (3). If you aren’t captivated and don’t feel separate from the world, you may be caught up in the same rat race and spinning the same hamster cage as the rest of the world. If this is the case, then STOP! There is a kind of rest in taking spiritual inventory and reprioritizing your life. There can be rest in seeking God and his will for your life, but we must start with the Word of God, not trying to find the next experience. We have to get rid of the distractions, and limiting television is a big step. We also must focus our efforts on spiritual gain rather than material gain.

Let’s be seekers of the Truth, both about God and ourselves. Let’s be willing to submit our lives to that Truth. Let’s develop a worldview consistent with who we are. Let’s be prepared and willing to defend that truth. Then we will be salt and light to a lost and dying world.

No matter what these polls indicate, the true church of Jesus Christ is alive and well. We can also be salt and light to our brothers and sisters not living a victorious Christian life.

It must begin with you, and with me.

O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! (Rom 11:33)

(1) Six Megathemes Emerge… http://www.barna.org/culture-articles/462-six-megathemes-emerge-from-2010
(2) Literary Reading in Dramatic Decline http://www.nea.gov/news/news04/ReadingAtRisk.html
(3) The Seven Faith Tribes: Who They Are, What They Believe, and Why They Matter by George Barna. In this book, Barna outlines seven diverse faith segments, profiling their lifestyles, religious beliefs and practices, values and life goals. The seven tribes include Casual Christians, Captive Christians, Mormons, Jews, Pantheists, Muslims and Skeptics.
Devotion by Dr. Bob Engel (guest writer)