Newsweek magazine knows what Americans want to read. Their best-selling issues have always been those with Princess Di, JFK Jr, or the Christian Faith on the cover. Significantly, two of those cover icons are no longer among the living, and many insist the Church is on its way out as well.
So I wasn't surprised when the news mag recently featured a cover story, "The Decline and Fall of Christian America." In fact, the essay found inside was not nearly as grim as the cover, designed to gin up controversy and sell magazines. The resulting debate was colorful, with some Christians agreeing with the thesis and others insisting its not true. One writer for USA Today insisted Christianity is alive and well- just evolving into new forms. Hmm. You mean like self-worship and consumerism? You just made their point.
Like many popular religious discussions in the country, this one comes way too late. Dr. Francis Schaeffer called the US a "post-Christian" society four decades ago! In a 1969 book entitled Death in the City, he tracked the spread of materialism into education, entertainment, and across society. He concluded, "Our generation has nobody home in the universe, nobody at all." That forty year old book is still more accurate and more insightful than the 2009 Newsweek article.
Don't bother asking if we're a post-Christian nation or not. The heart of the Christian Faith in the American colonies was New England. Today that region is the national capital for atheism and unbelief. The cancer has metastasized. In fact, Americans are living in a post-Christian age.
Forget that question, and ask this one: "Are we a post-Christian church?" We follow a Savior who was so counter-cultural that his own nation killed him. But today, our strategy for success is to blend in. "Don't challenge the culture: win them with tolerance."
Houston, we have a problem! Our tolerance and hip refusal to be shocked isn't working. We aren't winning them over, but they are beating us at every turn: courts, schools, the media, even government. And lots of former church-goers are now finding they have gradually evolved into non-church goers because the new church feels so much like the old, familiar culture. Why drive to a church house for the same attitudes and platitudes you can TIVO on Oprah and watch at home in your jammies?
John Lennon is most famous for "Imagine," his melodic hymn to atheism. But I remember him for a different recording. Writing a song to his infant son, he mused "Life is what happens to you while you're making other plans." That's what happened to the church. While we were reaching for a nugget of cheese offered by the culture, something clicked and- out of nowhere- the hammer came slamming down to trap us. Now we find ourselves pinned hopelessly to the mousetrap and wondering "Hey, how did everything go south so quickly? What happened to us?"
Life happened, dudes! When repentance happens, God will smile again on his post-Christian American admirers.
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