Tag: culture war

In Response to the State of Our Culture, Do We Carry the Cross or the Sword?

Jesus told us to follow him by picking up our crosses, but many of us today are picking up our swords.

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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.

Sociologist, Jean Twenge, finds sharp changes in teen behavior and mental health starting in 2012, which she attributes to teen use of smartphones and other hand-held devices. Her findings about the changes in the behavior of teens is a yardstick to measure the pulse of society.

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).

So, what does this have to do with Donald Trump and Christians fighting a culture war to try to preserve their power and influence in a society that seems to be pulling away from us? I seem to have wandered far afield, but now I am going to pull it in and get to the point.

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.

Continue reading “In Response to the State of Our Culture, Do We Carry the Cross or the Sword?” →

Current Lessons in the Parable of the Good Samaritan: Focusing on the Weightier Matters of the Law

We often fail to help people in need because we are focused on the good things we are doing

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I have been involved in the faith-based legal aid organization, Administer Justice, in different capacities for about 12 years. I am an attorney. AJ is an organization founded by an attorney, Bruce Strom, who left his lucrative law practice to provide pro bono (free) legal services for people who can’t afford a lawyer. AJ helps churches run Gospel Justice Centers.

Bruce’s book, Gospel Justice, describes his calling and the journey he began over 20 years ago. Gospel Justice follows the familiar parable of the Good Samaritan and what it means to love your neighbor as God commands. Implicit in the parable is the question: who is my neighbor?

I have learned recently, that parables were common in the rabbinical tradition of the time, and the set up of a priest, a Levite and a third person was a common parable structure. It is the equivalent to the modern set up for a joke: a priest, an Irishman, and a Scotsman walk into a bar…..

According to Marty Solomon of the BEMA Podcast, the third person (the one through whom the lesson is learned) was often a Pharisee in the rabbinical Jewish tradition of the First Century. Jesus turned the tables by making the third person a Samaritan.

Samaritans had Hebrew DNA. They were ancestors of the Israelites who were left behind during the exile. They had intermarried and changed their religious practices to accommodate their mixed marriages and life without the Temple. The Jewish remnant that returned to rebuild the Temple saw them as mongrels who abandoned the faith. For Centuries, Samaritans were despised by the Jews who rebuilt the Temple and carried on the traditions of the Mosaic Law.

The priests and Levites represent good, religious people and the devotion to traditional values. They represent respectable, hard-working people who have faithfully kept those traditional values through hundreds of years of faithful adherence in difficult times.

When the priest and Levite in the parable pass by the anonymous, injured man on the road, we react with modern sensibilities that are honed by two millennia of Christian thought, tradition, and conditioning to judge them. First Century Pharisees, however, would have viewed the situation differently.

The injured man had no identify. They might have wondered who he was. (Raising the question: who is my neighbor?) Pharisees and Sadducees may have disagreed on whether aid should be offered to Gentiles, but they would have agreed that the mongrel Samaritans did not merit their aid.

They also would have recognized that the priest and the Levite had good reasons to pass over to the other side of the road and keep going. Among other things, priests were forbidden to touch a corpse. (Lev. 21:1–3) Touching a corpse, or even being in the same space as a corpse meant impurity, and they needed to maintain purity to perform their duties.

The rules that governed these things were complex and nuanced. (See Introduction to the Jewish Rules of Purity and Impurity) Becoming impure meant that a priest could not attend to his ritual duties without going through a time of ritual cleansing. The risk that the injured man might be dead was no small consideration to them.

Perhaps, this seems like being generous to them, but their lives revolved around the rituals handed down centuries ago in the Torah. They were sacred, and their identity and their purpose in life revolved around maintaining those rituals, which they had done since the time of Moses, the great, great grandson of Levi.

If we think times and people are different now, they are, but less so than we might be tempted to think. Most modern Americans (even religious ones) do not practice ritual like First Century Jewish leaders did. We are less religiously ritualistic, perhaps, than ever before. Yet, we are no different, really, in our devotion to our own values and doctrines.

Continue reading “Current Lessons in the Parable of the Good Samaritan: Focusing on the Weightier Matters of the Law” →

Gospel Shoes

The art of music has a way of moving us and conveying messages that might not be as well received more directly and bluntly spoken

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Blindfaller by Watchhouse

What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? ….
God will judge those outside….

1 corinthians 5:12,13

Paul wrote these words to the Corinthians while urging them to deal with sexual immorality in the church that was so bad it would not have been tolerated by pagans. (1 Corinthians 5:1)

I am reminded of these words that Paul wrote as I listen to Gospel Shoes by the folk/Americana group, Watchhouse (formerly Mandolin Orange) from Chapel Hill, NC. This isn’t a “Christian” song written by people who profess to be Christian, but it speaks with poignancy, clarity, and tenderness. This version is particularly well done:

 Some set their heads to swimming, nothing to lose
Drift about their good times, slivers in their boots
Some walk the straight and narrow, only passing through
Trading this world over for a pair of gospel shoes

The opening stanza of the song contrasts the “pagans” of the world with the “Christians” (more or less). Andrew Marlin (the writer of the song) may put it another way. He might say that he is contrasting “normal”, average, typical people with “religious”, church-going people.

To be fair, the caricatures of religious people do not accurately describe most of the people in my church (or in any church I have gone to, for the most part). BUT, those caricatures do have some elements of truth to them about some people, or some segment of people, who are religious in our society.

Those who “set their heads to swimming, nothing to lose”, are living this life for all it can give them because they believe this life is all there is. They “drift about their good times” because they have no particular aim, meaning, or purpose. They are looking for whatever fun and pleasure they can get, though they accumulate “slivers in their boots”.

Those who “walk the straight and narrow, only passing through”, are the religious people, of course. They are people who profess to believe in a better life after death, “trading this world over for a pair of gospel shoes”.

The term, “gospel shoes”, finds some resonance in Isaiah:

“How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, ‘Your God reigns!’”

Isaiah 52:7

The word, “gospel”, of course means “good news”. The feet are beautiful of those who say “God reigns!” because it is news of peace, good tidings, and salvation. Or so it should be. Paul says, our feet should be “fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.”

Ironic, isn’t it? That Paul in talking about the “armor of God” includes “shoes” made of the “gospel of peace”. (Ephesians 6:15) It’s no wonder that we send mixed messages out into the world. But, that isn’t the “fault” of scripture; it’s our misunderstanding of it and of the upside down nature of the kingdom of God that Jesus preached.

The armor of God does not protect us against people (flesh and blood) but against dark spiritual forces. (Eph. 6:12) We are not intended to use the armor of God as a weapon against people.

Of course, some people often don’t want to hear about God. They don’t want to do be accountable, so the news of God is not “good” to them. The people who set their heads to swimming, who think they have nothing to lose and drift about the good times, however, are bound to gather slivers in their boots.

Drifting through life doing “whatever feels good” inevitably results in hardship and heartache. These are people, however, for whom God emptied Himself to become human in Jesus and for whom Jesus gave up his life, dying on a cross. He didn’t come to condemn them; he came to save them. (John 3:16-17)

Those slivers in their boots are problems that will fester and get worse. People often do not wake up to the folly of our youth until we have accumulated more hardship, difficulty, and pain than we can handle. And sometimes, those slivers cause problems that linger for a lifetime.

God who loves “those people” so much that He gave His son for them. He loves them no less than any religious person in the world, no matter how devout. Thus, God desires to reach them with His Gospel, the good news that there is a way for them to avoid the pain of their own doing and judgment that inevitably follows this life and enter into relationship with the God who created them and loves them.

As I recall Paul’s words to the Corinthians, I am struck that we often seem to have gotten things backwards. Instead of loving the world and seeking to reach them with the good news, we condemn the world and preach judgment.

Continue reading “Gospel Shoes” →

The Rise and Fall of Christian Nationalism Experienced in My Own Journey of Faith

“Christian nationalism is an ideology that seeks to fuse Christian religion with a nation’s character.”

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People are talking about Christian nationalism everywhere. The term, Christian nationalism, is often used and often invoked, but I don’t see it often defined. It can mean different things to different people. The phrase has increasingly become a pejorative label, though some people wear the pejorative label proudly now like a badge of honor.

My concern about “Christian nationalism” grows out of my own Christian experience. I admit that my experience is primarily anecdotal, but I find in Scripture adequate cause for that concern, and Scripture shines light on my experience and on any form of Christian nationalism, as I will explain.

I am chiefly concerned about the Church’s faithful witness and faithful adherence to following Christ. I am concerned that the world often confuses Christianity with particular political expressions, and I am concerned that Christians often do exactly the same thing.

The very fact that “Christian” nationalism has become a pejorative label suggests my concerns have some warrant. And not just me; I see a rising tide of concerned followers of Christ wrestling with the issue.

Jesus was clear to his detractors, and to his followers, that people should give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s. (Mark 12:17) I don’t see Jesus confusing or conflating what is Caesar’s and what is God’s, but the idea of Christian nationalism does both.

The very term, Christian nationalism, blurs the lines between what is Caesar’s and what is God’s. It suggests a conflation of biblical and political principles. It creates confusion that results in (or from) not knowing where politics end and Christianity begins.

I have the same issue with the way people use the term, evangelical. Originally, the term had a purely religious and theological meaning. Today, media and political pundits ascribe a political meaning to it. For the majority of people today (perhaps), the meaning conflates political and religious ideas into a confused mess that can mean very different things for different people.

As for a definition of Christian nationalism, I “asked” Bing’s Copilot for help. The resulting definition is my starting place for the rest of my thoughts today (not that I think it is a particularly good definition):

“Christian nationalism is an ideology that seeks to fuse Christian religion with a nation’s character.”

I would agree that Christian nationalism is an ideology, but ideologies do not seek. (People do.) (So much for the power of AI.) It seems more accurate to say that Christian nationalism is an expression of Christianity and of nationalism that fuses the two ideologies together. Whether people seek to fuse them, or simply do fuse them, together may be splitting hairs.

Having become a Christian in college in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, I can attest to the organic nature in which patriotism fused with my own newfound beliefs in the milieu of the post-Jesus Movement. I didn’t seek or set out to fuse them together. They just became entangled.

Before I became a Christian, I grew up pledging allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, as did all public-school students in the 1960’s and 1970’s. The Fourth of July rivaled only Christmas on my list of favorite holidays. Parades and flags and fireworks were the traditional rituals of the observance of nationalism and those rituals continue today.  

Columbus Day served as reminder of our good fortune that God-fearing explorers with perpetual good will braved stormy seas and the specter of a flat earth to discover our fair land. Thanksgiving was encouraged as reminder that God ordained these things and established our manifest destiny in His good graces.

The groundwork for nationalism was laid in my life long before I became a Christian. I am a Boomer who was educated in an atmosphere of post-war optimism, but I am also a late Boomer. I was born on the cusp of the tumultuous 1960’s.

I witnessed the backlash against that post-war patriotism on the nightly news. The protests and protest songs, the burning of American flags, the “sit ins” and “love ins”, and increasing counter cultural attitudes pushed back against that patriotism institutionalized in the 1950’s and ingrained in my educational experience in the 60’s.

Many people in the American Church resisted the rising tide of rebellion against conventional norms, both in the Church and outside the Church. Many people clung reflexively to patriotism and national pride in reaction to the countercultural protest and unrest.

If traditional churchgoers were like the older son in the parable of the prodigal son in that time, the protesters were like the (younger) prodigal son. Our focus may be drawn to the excesses of the younger son, but we realize in the back of our minds that the older son is prodigal too.

My own story links up with the Jesus People Movement. The Jesus People were countercultural prodigals who found Jesus. They repented, turned from their rebellious ways, and embraced the Ancient of Days, God who became incarnate and died for the sins of the world.

I became a believer in 1980, and I joined a church with roots in the Jesus People Movement in 1982. The “radicals” who got saved in the early days of the church had long turned from their rebellious ways, when I joined them, and they had settled into a cultural conservatism that belied their former years.

Sometimes, we throw out the baby with the bathwater. Sometimes, in rescuing the baby, we take some bathwater in. Their newfound cultural conservatism was turning political and patriotic when I arrived. It was a patriotism not simply informed by secular pledges of allegiance; it was a patriotism that was infused with biblical blessing and mandate.

I spent six years in that church formed by hippies who migrated to the northeast in the late 60’s and early 70’s and found Jesus on their way.

These people had turned from flower power to a higher power, from the Rolling Stones to Randy Stonehill, and from sticking it to the man to worshiping the God who became man in Jesus and died for us.

When I joined this church, the original members had already closed their candle shops to become landlords and insurance salesmen. They no longer lived in communes where they shared resources in common. They were no longer long-haired hippie freaks. They had stable families and businesses and owned their own houses. 

With their conversion, they repented of their sins, and they rejected their former radicalism. In rejecting their former radicalism, they embraced a newfound conservatism that included a renewed sense of patriotism.

While I was living with them, I saw the influence of the Moral Majority take hold. The post-war patriotism of the Baby Boomer generation turned religious when hippies converted, rejected their former radicalism and were welcomed into the church by older prodigals who championed the Moral Majority.

I also saw portents of a darker future. On the edges of that idyllic, “New Testament church” with communal roots from a more radical past lurked associates of the John Birch Society and sundry other political influences.

My church embraced politics as an expression of working out God’s purposes in our local community and to the ends of the earth. But the path to the kingdom of God is always a narrow one. We don’t have to wander far from it to find ourselves invoking God to work out our own purposes in our local community and to the ends of the earth.

Christian nationalism involves a blurring of the lines between God’s purposes and our own purposes. Christian nationalism is a form of syncretism – the blending of Christian belief into a new system, or the incorporation of other beliefs into the expression of our Christian beliefs.

Continue reading “The Rise and Fall of Christian Nationalism Experienced in My Own Journey of Faith” →

Through a Glass Darkly

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canstockphoto11358956

“We just can’t continue to look into the filter of our politics at our spirituality. It’s got to be the other way around ….” (Spoken by Andy Stanley speaking at Catalyst West at Mariners church, Irvine, CA April 17, 2015 as reported in Christian Post)

Are we, Christians, more identified by our politics than our faith? If it is the former, we have terribly missed the mark.

It may not be completely “our fault”. Political pundits are constantly categorizing and labeling Christians and determining our political leanings. Political analysts and prognosticators are continually defining and redefining Christians and their politics.

But, we do play along and allow ourselves to be pegged by political affiliations and positions and, thus, allow ourselves to be defined by them. We allow ourselves to go with the flow and become indistinguishable from the world around us. Continue reading “Through a Glass Darkly” →