The Christian world was recently jolted when the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) was released. Newsweek magazine reported these findings in their eye-catching lead story, “The End of Christian America.” Many of the statistics were indeed alarming. From 1990 till 2008, the number of Americans who claimed to have “no religion” almost doubled from 8% to 15% making it the third largest religious group in the country behind Catholics and Baptists. The Northeastern United States, once a Christian stronghold, became the strongest center for those who no longer identify with any religion. Over the last 18 years, 50 million people have been added to the United States, yet almost every denomination had lost ground. Baptists, once comprising 19.3% of the population, are down to 15.8%. Methodists dropped from 8% to 5%. Muslims grew from 0.3% to 0.6%. Disturbingly, 2.8 million Americans now refer to themselves as Wiccan, pagan or spiritualist, which is more than claim to be Episcopalian. The number of people describing themselves as atheist or agnostic rose from one million in 1990 to 3.6 million, almost quadrupling in nineteen years. While 69% of Americans believe there is “definitely a personal God,” the God they believe in is not necessarily the one described in the Bible.

On another front, a significant political shift could be detected when President Obama refused to allow the annual National Day of Prayer observance to take place at the White House as it had in the past. It became clear that evangelicals would not benefit from the support of the president as they did under George Bush.

What does this mean? Should Christians in America be concerned? What should the church do?

Here are some observations:

First, the Newsweek article, “The End of Christian America” is overstated. Despite the heroic attempts by many to retroactively baptize many of the founding fathers into the evangelical faith, the fact is that in every generation there have always been many Americans who did not embrace the Christian faith. In fact, the reason many early immigrants came to America was to escape Europe where your religious identification was prescribed for them as Anglican, Catholic, and Lutheran. In fact, there were periods preceding some of the great awakenings in America where religious observance and Christian practices were in such short supply that church leaders all but gave up on the viability of the Christian church in America. Before the Second Great Awakening in the 1800s, it was almost impossible to find a Christian in any of the Ivy League schools. Drunkenness and debauchery were widespread. The “filthy speech” movement was popular. Regardless of how the nation was founded, the reality is that America has always been just one generation away from paganism. The degree to which America has been a Christian nation has always depended upon the vibrancy of its churches. While it is true that the word “God” and references to Scripture are present in its founding documents, the United States has never been a country in which you could declare all of its citizens were adherents of Christianity. So the term “Christian America” is somewhat misleading.

While we must acknowledge that the percentage of Americans claiming to be Christian is declining, it is also premature to declare that Christian churches no longer have an influence in America. Christianity is still the overwhelming majority among America’s religious options. 69% of Americans still believe in a personal God. While far from what it should be, the vibrancy of Christian churches in America far outdistances similar denominations in Europe. Reports of Christianity’s death in America have been greatly exaggerated.

So what do these statistics mean for the Christian church today? At least three things:

First, Christians need to stop placing their faith in the government or the establishment to support their efforts. Evangelicals spend way too much time complaining about God being “taken out of the schools” and not enough time reaching out to share the Gospel with school children. I recently heard a woman complain that “They have taken God out of the schools.” What disturbed me is the knowledge that this woman’s church (a large one), did not hold a regular prayer meeting. If this woman really wanted her children to begin each day with prayer, she could gather them around the kitchen table and lead them in prayer. But she did not. She was regularly complaining about the public school teachers no longer leading her children in prayer but she expressed no concern that there was no longer any appointed times for her kids to pray at church or at home. I recently spoke with a woman involved in evangelistic efforts in the public schools. She complained that evangelicals like to complain that children can no longer pray in schools but when she invites those same people to join her in evangelizing school children, they are too busy.

Yes it is disappointing when government leaders do not support the efforts of Christians. I have attended the National Day of Prayer observance at the White House and it was a deeply meaningful time. But we must also realize that, historically, the church always loses when it partners with the state to do church work. Evangelicals are disappointed that the public schools do not allow the kind of praying they are comfortable with. But what will we think if evangelicals become a smaller and smaller percentage of the population? What if Muslims or Wiccans came to dominate regions of the country as well as its school systems? Would we still be clamoring for them to lead our school children in prayer every morning? We need to worry less about what the government is doing to promote our faith and get out into our world to promote our faith ourselves!

Second, while the number of people attending our churches is declining, there are still vast numbers of Americans who profess belief in God. What does this mean? It could indicate that people are giving up on the established church more than they are rejecting God. The impression people have of the church or their past experience with the church has led them to believe that there must be a better way to relate to God. Sadly, the countryside is littered with churches that have been ravaged by church splits, immorality and lack of concern for hurting people in their midst. Many Americans are walking away from the church and don’t plan to return. But that doesn’t mean they have given up on God. The church still has the answers to the most important questions people are asking today. However, if “doing church” the way we have been has brought the nation to the spiritual condition it is in, then continuing to do church in the same way will probably not make things any better.

Finally, today’s church needs revival. When the church truly acts like the church as God intended, God’s kingdom is expanded. In the first century, the church found favor with the people and thousands of people chose to join it (Acts 2:47). Today’s church desperately needs revival. Blackaby Ministries International is traveling around the world promoting revival from its Fresh Encounter materials. Let’s stop blaming the darkness for acting like darkness. Instead let’s beseech God to revive His people so we behave as salt and light in our darkened and decaying world (Matt. 5:13-16).

Books

I recently read Manley Beasley: Man of Faith–Instrument of Revival by Ron Owens. If you are unfamiliar with Beasley’s story, read this book. He suffered from chronic, life-threatening illnesses for twenty years but lived his life by faith. Here are a couple of quotes:

Volitional Faith = “Acting as if a thing is so when it is not so in order for it to be so because God says it is so.”

Prayer = “You either have the answer in your hand or in your heart.”

“You see, if what you have said to God has not caused God to say something to you, there is no communion.”

“You can have as much of God as you are willing to pay the price for.”

“The mark of a godly man, or church, is that everything they do is God-initiated.”

“Our faith must rest on God’s will that is revealed to us in His Word, not on what we’d personally like to do or see happen.”

“Faith enables the believing soul to treat the future as the present and the invisible as visible. Faith is dependence upon God and this God-dependence only begins when self-dependence ends.”

“Faith is the God-endowed ability given to every child of God to convert divine truth into present reality.”

“Theological concepts that are created by mental gymnastics will not save you in the storm. If our theology will not work in the storm, it will not work anywhere else.”

“Doubt is not sin—staying there is sin.”

“Many Christians stop short of experiencing all that God has for them because they have never understood that there is such a thing as perseverance in faith.”

“A priest is someone who with one hand knows how to reach up to God and all His supply. With the other hand he reaches out to man and all his need. He then brings the two together.”

“The faith life is a life that is initiated by God, sustained by God, maintained by God; a life where God gets all the glory and you get the benefit.”

You can order this book at www.beasleybiography.com or 479-366-1341.

Posted by Richard Blackaby at 9:31 am