I have listened to all 30 episodes of Season 1 of the podcast, The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God, by Justin Brierley. I have listened to dozens of podcasts, and I think this is one among the best, most well-produced podcasts I have found. The first episode of Season 2 inspires my writing today.
In this episode, Justin Brierley poses the question, “Whether the seeming rebirth of belief in God is right wing?” A return to Christian values seems to coincide with a resurgence in conservative politics, but, let’s look closer.
Is Christianity right wing? The African American church would beg to differ. Does Christianity have a right wing and a left wing? Or is Christianity another bird entirely?
At about the 45 minute mark in the podcast, Glen Scrivener identifies three strains of culture in the current western world. One strain is “blasting off into progressive liberalism.” Another strain is “snapping back to the worship of the strong”, a return to the world of Nietzsche. A third strain involves the “surprising rebirth of belief in God”, as Brierley puts it, where a trickle my become a flood, and Christian revival happens.
Scrivener is hopeful that the signs of Christian renewal in the west foreshadow revival, but he observes that these different strains of culture are moving forward at the same time, albeit in conflict with each other. They each have a trajectory that will continue into the future, and, “It will be a mess,” says Scrivener.
He believes Christian revival will happen, but he believes that progressive liberalism will also continue on its trajectory, divorcing itself more completely than it already has from nature and the Christian story. He believes that a devolution into what he calls “the default nature of the flesh” will continue as well, where might makes right.
Indeed, these things are happening now. Will they continue on the same trajectory into the future? Time will tell, but I think he is right: that there is a “post-Christian right” and a “post-Christian left” that are presently locked in a battle for the minds of the people of the western world.
I would add that the world, generally, is and will continue to be the devil’s playground until Jesus returns. At least, that is what the Bible says (millennium variations aside).
More and more people seem to believe that we are experiencing a rebirth in belief in God. This has been Justin Brierley’s contention for a few years, having written a book on the subject and launching his podcast by the same title.
Justin Brierley’s main source of proof anecdotal. From 2006 he hosted the Unbelievable! podcast in which he paired New Atheists and other skeptics in conversation with Christian apologists, theologians, and philosophers. He started the podcast during the height of New Atheism, but he noticed a shift in the atmosphere in recent years. That shift prompts the question about rebirth in belief in God that has become his thesis.
Atheists, like Peter Boghossian and Douglas Murray, have warmed up to Christianity and sing its praises. Tom Holland, and Jordan Peterson have increasingly championed Christianity, even if they may (or may not) remain in unbelief. Joe Rogan is warming up to Christianity, and Richard Dawkins, the most famous of the four horsemen of the New Atheism, admitted almost a year ago that he is a “cultural Christian”. (Watch Richard Dawkins: I’m a Cultural Christian in an interview with Rachel Johnson on LBC)
Tom Holland’s book, Dominion, was a watershed work. In search of the roots of secular humanist values in Greco-Roman history, he “discovered” that those roots are Christian. Ironically, this discovery – that we breath Christian air and swim in a Christian ocean in the West – comes as people in the United States seem to be moving away from faith in God.
Holland, however, has moved from atheist to agnostic. He embraces a belief in the value of Christianity, even if he cannot (yet) embrace belief in the risen Jesus. He now says he believes in the truth of the story of Christianity, even if he does not believe the story is actually true.
Other atheists have gone farther and claim genuine Christian belief. Peterson recently said that he thinks Jesus is God, though it’s difficult to know exactly what he means by that. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the former darling of the New Atheists, has unabashedly converted to belief in Christianity. (Below I have linked her heartfelt and transforming testimony of conversion she tells in a conversation with Glen Scrivener.)
Scrivener (and many others) warn of Christians veering too far right in this time of apparent renewal. He says, “Christians need to not be naïve” about the right-wing resurgence. The trajectory of the right-wing world is post-Christian, he says. It is a return to the skepticism of Nietzsche in which every move is a power play. It is religious in its zeal, but its religion is political, technological and economic. Scrivener says,
“Maybe you are co-belligerents with [this option] when it comes to trans issues and you think that [the influencers on the right] … are saying sane things about trans ideology; whereas people in the increasingly progressive world are saying insane things about trans ideology. You might be right about that, but don’t throw your lot in with [them] because [they] also will erode everything about human rights. If it is just about nature, then they don’t actually have a grounding for believing in the inviable worth and dignity of all people, of human rights, or equality, compassion, freedom, and progress.”
Episode 1, season 1 of The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God
The post-Christian right has no substantial reason for maintaining these values. We are seeing this now in the way Donald Trump and Elon Musk are gutting the structures that provide safety nets and life support for vulnerable people at home and abroad for the sake of pragmatic efficiency.
Scrivener says that the post-Christian left that is blasting forward in progressive liberalism and the post-Christian right that is returning to a might makes right mentality will lead to very dystopian futures. All these movements – the post-Christian right, the post-Christian left, and an authentic Christian rebirth – are happening together.
Justin Brierly adds that the Christian right is splintering. The book, Shepherds for Sale: How Evangelical Leaders Traded the Truth for a Leftist Agenda, by Megan Basham accused many evangelical pastors of being in the pay of left-wing political and business interests. This book, itself, is symptomatic of the splintering.
The people she accuses (and many others) claim that her book is politicized and riddled with errors. Even so, it has been warmly received in many Christian circles. Her book and the reaction to it reveal how conservative Christians are divided and splitting into factions, including “those vying for a more militant form of Christian nationalism.” Glen Scrivener says,
“If you are a Christian listening to this, make sure that your views on all these issues – whether it is immigrations, or trans issues, or whatever it is – are fundamentally Christian: that they are not just progressive, left wing post-Christian beliefs or conservative, right wing post-Christian beliefs. Because, that’s what my social media feed is full of, and I am sure your social media feed is essentially full of post-Christian progressive views and post-Christian conservative views.”
Episode 1, season 1 of The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God
Scrivener challenges us with the question: “What is distinctly, robustly Christian about our position on immigration, for instance?” Not just slogans, but distinctly, robustly informed by a thorough reading from Genesis to Revelation and what it means to aligned with the God who brought his people out of Egypt. What does it mean for our country and our church? We need to think theologically about these things and not just politically and culturally.
We need to avoid being merely reactive. This is true whether you tend to react with compassion or with argument. The post-Christian progressive strain and the post-Christian conservative strain in our world of influence in our world are shaping us. Let’s make sure our response is distinctly, and robustly Christian and grounded in the Bible.
John Mark Comer says, “If your discipleship doesn’t have resistance and contrast to the culture around you, it will evaporate and disappear.” What’s the point of being Christian, he says, if you adopt the value of the culture around you? “In the progressive world in which I live,” says Comer, “the badge of honor for a Christian is that you can pass as a pagan…. At that point, why become a Christian?”
In the first century, why did millions of people become Christian when they knew they would be persecuted and maybe killed? Comer credits Larry Hurtado when he says,
“It was precisely Christianity’s difference and distinctiveness to the culture that made it so attractive and appealing, not its relevance or relatability.”
Christians who assimilate into the right or the left are not living authentically Christian lives. If you are just adapting Christianity into your conservative or progressive worldview, that is a stopover on the road to becoming post-Christian.
Christians need to be distinctly different than any strain of worldly thinking. We need to refuse to be part of that dilemma, and be a place of refuge for the people burned out on both sides, says Comer. The only option that gives life and speaks truth is the third way – the Jesus way. As the two spirits of the age fight it out in the public sphere, Christianity is the safe harbor, the place where true life and love and faith and hope exists.
As Glen Scrivener says, multiple things can rightly be labeled the “spirit of the age”, even things that seem opposite to each other. Christians need to be careful not to follow the spirit of the left or the spirit of the right because these warring factions emanate from powers and principalities that do not find their source in God, according to the Apostle Paul. These forces have no hesitation in bending Christian principles to their own ends. Right or left, it doesn’t matter which way.
Christians should listen only to the Holy Spirit and be grounded in scripture and follow Jesus as he urged us to follow him. We fight against powers and principalities, and they are not flesh and blood. Those powers are not people; they are influences that move people.
We spend too much time attacking people, and that is just as satan would have it. We need to resist those powers and stand firm on the narrow path, loving people of all stripes as Jesus did.
We don’t overcome those powers and principalities by fighting them on their turf and in their ways. They will continue to reign on this Earth until Jesus comes again, but we can pray to the Father, “Thy Kingdom Come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” and we can live according to the principles of the kingdom of heaven now in this earth.
Yes, the kingdom of heaven is here now, and we can live in it, and we can live according to it now. Indeed, that is the call of Jesus and the conviction that comes from the Holy Spirit.
The kingdom of God is not an earthly kingdom that we can establish through earthly means like power and influence. Jesus showed us the way to overcome the powers and principalities. His way is through the cross (Colossians 2:13-15):
“When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.”
Jesus triumphed over the powers of the word by the cross! And he calls each of us to do the same. THIS is how we triumph in the Christian life. This is how we are salt and light in the world. This is how we advance the kingdom of God in this world – not by power, but by the foolishness of the cross.
Jesus calls each of us to pick up our own crosses and follow him, walking in the way he did, and abiding in him as he abides in us. We need to resist the temptation to follow any spirit of this age, because those are roads that lead us away from the kingdom of God into the kingdoms of this world over which the powers and principalities have control. Those powers and principalities have no problem with us calling ourselves Christians as long as they are able to influence us to follow in their ways rather than the ways of the risen Christ.
If indeed we are in a time of surprising rebirth of belief in God, the powers and principalities that control this world are aware of it, and they will do what they can to steer Christians and would be believers down a different road. Pick your path – left or right. It doesn’t matter. If satan can lure people away from the narrow road, he will take them wherever they are inclined to go.
We need discernment. We need to be more grounded in Scripture than ever. We need to keep our eyes on Jesus and the way he walked. We need to do as he did.
He spent far more time among “sinners” then overturning tables. The tables he overturned were in the Temple. Let that sink in…. Let us not be influenced to go left or right but to walk straight in the way of Jesus as we navigate the battlefield of this world.
Navigating by Faith 