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I recently heard Tim Alberta say that some modern evangelicals have picked up a sword, and that sword is Donald Trump. Such a sword is needed for success in a culture war, and a culture war mentality drives the politics of many, if not most, of evangelicals today.

Many evangelicals are concerned, if not fearful, of current cultural trends. People are pulling away from and rejecting traditional Christian values in the US. The change has been rapid (as far as cultural trends go). American society is going the way of Europe and Canada in letting go (and outright rejecting) Christian labels, overtly Christian thinking, and church attendance.

Perhaps, nothing demonstrates the cultural movement away from Christianity in the United States like the book, The Nones: Where They Came From, Who They Are, and Where They Are Going, by Ryan P. Burge. The author says that only five percent (5%) of Americans claimed “no religion” in a 1972 poll. That number rose to over twenty three percent (23%) by 2018. This made “nones” as numerous as Catholics or evangelicals in the US in 2018.

Nones are predominantly young Americans, but this trend does not just affect the nation’s youth, and it has picked up momentum since COVID. Robb Redman reports from various sources on community trends and culture for worshipleader.com, including the following:

• 70% of Americans were church members in 1999 (Gallup);
• Less than 50% of Americans were church members in 2023 (Id.);
• 45 million Americans have stopped going to church in that time;
• 41% of Americans 39-57 went to church regularly in 2020 (Barna);
• 28% of Americans 39-57 went to church regularly in 2023 (Id.).

Ryan Burge partnered with Jim Davis and Michael Graham to explore the reasons for this precipitous decline in church membership and attendance and the rise in self-described nones in their recent book, The Great Dechurching. This book has become the topic of much conversation in the short time since it was published. I haven’t read the book yet, so I posed the question, “What are the top five reasons people have stopped going to church, listed from most common to least common”, to two different AI platforms. The results from Bing Co-Pilot are as follows:

1. Judgmental attitudes (87%)
2. Distrust of organized religion (74%)
3. Too focused on Money (70%)
4. Busy schedules (67%)
5. Loss of Habit (58%)

The Co-Pilot response summarized studies done by the Pew Research Center, Gallup Polls, the Barna Group, the Public Religion Research Institute and various academic studies to generate this list. I note that the first three reasons people have given for not attending church are issues with the Church I am referring to the Church (capital C) because I don’t know how this breaks down among denominations. The other two main reasons are unrelated to the Church; they reflect personal and societal lifestyle issues.

Chat GPT reported different results, citing some of the same sources (Pew and Barna) and some different sources (General Social Survey and books and articles, generally, including Sociology of Religion by Diana Butler Bass, an academic book). The Chat GPT list is not as straight forward:

• “A growing disconnection with church teachings or religious beliefs” (about 60%-70%);
• “Negative experiences, such as feeling judged or encountering hypocrisy” (about 30%-40%);
• “A perceived irrelevance of church” and disconnectedness of the church to modern issues (about 25%-35%);
• Busyness, lifestyle, time constraints, and changing priorities (about 20%-30%); and
• Exploring alternative spirituality and religious practices (about 15%-25%).

Again, the first three (3) (and the most prominent) reasons for not attending church deal with the Church, itself. Worldviews are shifting away from the views held by the Church (which seems to indicate we are losing this “culture war”). The Church is perceived as disconnected from modern life and the modern world and not relevant to it, and the Church is perceived as overly negative and hypocritical.

The one area of overlap is the high percentage of people who list judgmental attitudes, including negative experiences and hypocrisy) as major reasons of not attending church. This is obviously a key issue (ranking 1st and 2nd respectively).

I find this to be highly problematic for the Church because the Paul plainly said the Church should not be (presently) judging the world (according to Paul (See What Business Do We Have Judging the World?)) And, Jesus said we should be known by the love we have for each other.

It seems pretty obvious to me in my own anecdotal experience that the American Church, generally, has some significant issues in this regard. We are not following Paul’s instruction not to judge the world, and we are failing to love each other well.

I recently watched a Gavin Ortlund critique of fundamentalism in the Church today that focuses on these issues. He says it well when he describes a segment of the Church that is focused more on what followers of Christ should against, rather than than what we should be for. When our focus is on the negative, our positive message is likely to be eclipsed and obscured and it lost in the noise.

I realize, of course, that this “indictment” of the Church generally, is a very broad brush. The church I attend does not fit this mold. Most of the Christians I have close relationships with do not fit this mold. We don’t have to look very far or deep on social media, however, to see evidence of judgmental attitudes, hypocrisy, and negativity.

It’s interesting to me that resources Co-Pilot pulled from identify more negatives (distrust of organized religion and too focused on money) in the top three reasons for not going to church, while the Chat GPT sources identified “growing disconnection with church teachings or religious beliefs” and perceived irrelevance of church” and disconnectedness of the church with modern issues. Distrust and money-focused have nothing to do with message, but disconnection with church teachings and a perceived irrelevance with modern issues has everything to do with message (theology).

Exploring alternative spirituality and religious practices (the 5th reason noted by the Chapt GPT response is related to the disconnection responses. I don’t know whether these things are causal or just symptomatic. If people were finding what they were looking for in church, they wouldn’t disconnect and look elsewhere. If their church experience wasn’t negative, they might still be connected.

On the other hand, both sources identify other things that are going on. Busyness, lifestyle, time constraints, and changing priorities are “neutral” pressures that are affecting not just churches, but service organizations, fraternal organizations, and other traditional ways people have gathered together.

We see a spike in this trend of disconnection from Church membership and attendance after COVID (pun intended). COVID seemed to supercharge changes that were already in the works in many areas of life. People were already disconnecting from face-to-face contact with other people with the proliferation of hand-held devices and social media going back at least to 2012. COVID isolated people even further.

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A published interview with Twenge as Time Magazine’s Person of the Week, reports that “Gen Z is in the grips of a historic mental health crisis, with teenagers struggling with record levels of depression, anxiety, and loneliness.” Twenge, who has studied many generations of teens, discovered “big and sudden” changes in Gen Z starting around 2012, when hand-held devices became normalized among teens.

Those changes included, among other things, a doubling in the diagnosis of clinical depression among 12-17 year-olds from 2011 to 2019. At the same time, teens reported significantly less face time with other people corresponding significantly with more screen time. I have heard her say that teen pregnancy is down (which seems to be a good thing) because teens spend more time on their phones in their bedrooms alone than spending time with each other (which is problematic).

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It seems our culture needs Jesus more than ever. At the same time, people are do not see the benefits of knowing Jesus. At the very time when people need the grace and love of Christ most, people are being pushed away by judgmental attitudes and negative experiences. As people are struggling with isolation, polarization, and mental health issues, the Church is becoming more irrelevant, disconnected, and inaccessible to them.

Ironically, it seems to me, we are not only losing this culture war, the culture war seems to be the very thing that is pushing people away and isolating them from us. As we are circling our wagons defending ourselves against these “outsiders”, and attacking them from behind our theological walls, we have lost sight of the fact that Jesus sent us out into the world to bring the Gospel to the lost.

We are failing in our most critical mission.

Tim Alberta says that many American evangelicals feel persecuted because that has long been what what we have predicted. Of course, The experience of American evangelicals is not persecution. Real persecution does happen in various places in the world, but the United States of America is not one of them.

First Century Christians did suffer real persecution, but they didn’t make people in the culture their enemies. Stories of Christians loving each other and their pagan neighbors in the first few centuries of when Christian persecution was more normative stand in contrast to the vitriol hear from some Christian voices.

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Paul, Peter, and the 1st Century Church kept their focus on the positive mission that Jesus gave them – to go into the world, to seek and save the lost, to be ambassadors of Christ and the Gospel.

When Paul told the church at Corinth not to associate with sexually immoral people, he was talking about not ignoring sexual immorality in the Church. He wasn’t talking about “the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case,” Paul says, “you would have to leave this world!” (1 Corinthians 5:9-12)

Peter and Paul did guard against heresies that denied that Jesus rose from the dead in the flesh – the heart of the Gospel – and other fundamental tenets of faith. They found compromise, however, on peripheral issues of theology. The Gavin Ortlund critique of fundamentalism embedded above urges the same attitude.

Even if Christians in America suffer real persecution, which I think is likely to happen someday, especially if we continue in this culture war, what is the Christian response to persecution?

The Bible lays it out pretty plainly. Jesus told us to love our enemies, as he did when he died for his enemies (us… while we were yet sinners). Jesus sent his disciples as sheep among the wolves to share the message (not to engage in a culture war). Jesus told us to follow him by picking up our crosses, but many of us today are picking up our swords.

A sword is the symbol of man’s efforts to control and dominate other men and to defend ourselves and our turf. The cross is the symbol of God’s way. This is why Paul said we should have the same attitude as Christ, who did not consider His divine power something to hold onto. Rather, He shed all of His divine privilege and power to become one of us. He came humbly and obediently to share the message of God’s love and to give up His life for us. (Philippians 2: 5-8)

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To do this, we have to be willing to humble and obedient, to be vulnerable (and maybe even persecuted). Lile Paul and Peter, we may find ourselves subject to authorities that are sometimes harsh, cruel, and opposed to that Gospel. We need the power of the Holy Spirit and an unrelenting focus on the love of God for us and for this dying world that has set itself in opposition to its creator and savior.

Just as there is no other name in heaven or on earth by which people can be saved, there is no other way but the way of Jesus. He is the way, the truth and the life, and his way is the cross – not the sword.