The Light Before We Land

On one particular occasion, it was pointed out to me that being a cubicle farm witness is hardly an ineffective end to meet as a servant of God – that even two or three fellow workers who meet Christ due to your interaction with them over the course of your entire career is not a waste. There is much to agree with in this view. Certainly witnesses in this area of American life are needed, and certainly many people will answer to this particular calling. But it does not mean that all will, nor that all should. Two or three people brought to Christ is not a waste in and of itself, by no means – but what if you had felt and answered a different calling that would have brought thirty people to believe, or three hundred, or three thousand? To not do so would make it seem that something is being wasted.

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So over the last several months, I’ve given some careful consideration to what I could possibly do with my life that would make some kind of positive (and, God willing, substantial) contribution to Christendom as we know it today. And in searching for the problems that seemed most in need of solving, I stumbled across a truth with profound implications for the future of the whole religious landscape in this country:

Christianity is dying.

This is a fall that has been three decades in the making on the outermost surface alone, and tracing its roots as far back as possible steps through several decades more. The basic idea – which I will expand upon in detail at various later times – is twofold.

1. The majority of American Christians have fallen prey to a particularly virulent strain of nationalism that has captivated and corrupted their vision of being servants of Christ. It has convinced them that the secular government of the United States is to be used as a tool of Christian moral enforcement. It has constrained their vision of a newly moral society to include little aside from upholding of traditional “family values.” This takes its form in intense and near-exclusive dedication to being pro-life and anti-homosexual, and it comes at the terrible price of almost entirely precluding the universal calls to peace, generosity, and love.
2. Many of those who do not believe in this way have by now seen more than enough of Christians being publicly arrogant, ignorant, and hateful. Their experiences in these areas and others have given rise to an ever-growing anti-religion movement, the size and intensity of which have never before been seen within the borders of this country. Christian responses to this movement have thus far been impulsive and misguided, and have only served to add fuel to the fire. Already the conception of Christianity as obsolete at best and dangerous at worst has gained significant ground. Left unchecked, it could easily come to force a popular perception of irrelevance (or worse) onto all who call themselves Christians - bringing with it the potential to irrevocably hamper the efforts of even those Christians who do not believe or operate as per the aforementioned popular perception of Christianity.

That “popular perception of Christianity” is largely what I refer to when I refer to Christianity’s “fall.” I have no doubt that there are more solid Christians than those I mention above who will ensure in some capacity that the Gospel will not be entirely lost. But the behavior of the majority of Christians will always have an immense impact upon the ability of Christ’s Word to flourish rather than simply survive – and it is here where Christianity is facing monumental obstacles.

I know from personal experience that a very large number of these types of Christians have excellent intentions - but I also know that their chosen methods of ministry and activism are ineffective at best, and that their vision does not even begin to approach the (admittedly quite broad) range of commands that Jesus laid out for those who follow Him.

I am also quite aware, however, that many others – perhaps the majority – deal in Christianity as a means of validation of their own personal hatreds and bigotries. When asked to produce an image of these types of “Christians,” the image that likely comes to mind is that of Westboro. But the truth is that it’s not at all difficult to quote the Big Three of the Christian Right (Pat Robertson, James Dobson, and the late Jerry Falwell) with quotations that rival even those of Fred Phelps. One example out of many:

The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians. – Pat Robertson

It is all too easy to dismiss this kind of thought as simple psychosis. But people like Pat Robertson are still considered mainstays of American Christian leadership; to this day they retain massive numbers of followers. It is not entirely surprising that this brand of thought has become the public perception of Christians everywhere: intolerant, ignorant, hypocritical, unloving, uneducated - even dangerous.

And there is little to no distinction in the collective non-Christian mindset between Pat Robertson and even the most loving and learned Christians among us.

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Realizing the full extent of this from within the bounds of InterVarsity has been more than a slight challenge. This, of course, is to the infinite credit of IV and its adherents here, through whom I have learned so much about walking in the footsteps of Christ and who give me hope that Christ’s Word will endure the new era, as it appears to have endured through the era previous.

But the overall reality remains the same. The increasing public hostility towards even individual Christians is already producing new types of barriers to the spread of the Gospel that we simply have not encountered before. If we wish to become (or remain) successful as witnesses, if we wish to see the Gospel regain some level of public credibility, then we must know how we are perceived, we must know how to recognize legitimate criticism of ourselves, we must know how to counter our deficiencies at the deepest levels – and we must make it known that, though we may (and absolutely should) try, the perfect example of Christian behavior will never be found in a Christian, but in Christ.

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These are hardly circumstances I would have chosen. I have a very distinct feeling that this won’t end up being a fight so much as an exercise in damage control. But these are the circumstances nonetheless.

So here (at least for now) is where I will be trying to counteract the flow in the only way I can think of: analyzing and spreading information; discerning where Christianity has gone wrong and how it can right itself, separating the valid criticisms of nonbelievers from the misconceptions, and (hopefully) facilitating greater understanding and more civilized discussion on behalf of both Christians and non-Christians. I certainly don’t believe I’ll be promoting the purest possible truth at every turn I make – I’m only human, after all - but then that’s why I said I’d be trying.

Below is a list of topics I intend to discuss at some point or another. It is in no particular order, it is definitely incomplete, and many or most of them will require being handled in multiple stages.

• Abortion
• Homosexuality
• Creationism
• Faith vs. Works
• Nationalism
• Corruption Within Christian Leadership
• Christian Hypocrisy
• History of the Christian Right
• The “Culture War”
• Capitalism
• Materialism
• Why Christians Don’t Have Life Easier
• Religious Violence
• Brutality in the Old Testament
• War and Peace
• Fundamentalism
• Religion and the Public Square
• Religion and Politics
• Submission to Public Authority
• The End Times
• Biblical Authority in Witnessing
• Distribution of Religious Knowledge
• Faith and Independent Thought
• Repercussions of the Fall of Christian America

I’m quite open to additions to the list, suggestions of what topic to start with, etc., so feel more than free to voice your thoughts in a comment. I can’t say exactly when I’ll get around to actually dealing with the next entry; I picked an awful stage of the school year to start this up. I might also try to finish dealing with the site layout before writing anything else (let’s face it, this lightish-turquoise post background color has to go). But I promise I will get to it as soon as I can.

*phew*… I think that’s enough for now.