Tim Keller, Ross Douthat, and
Christianity’s Decline in the US
Over at Redeemer’s City
to City Blog, Pastor Tim Keller has written a post in
which he interacts with some of the ideas in NYT columnist Ross
Douthat’s upcoming book entitled Bad
Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics.
Per the publisher’s request, Keller does not quote from,
or offer a formal review of, Douthat’s book, but instead
pens a post regarding Douthat’s essential premise:
Christianity has been and still is in decline in the United
States. Keller calls Douthat’s ideas “essential reading
for all Christians seeking to understand Christianity’s
relationship to culture in the US.†While that may seem to
some people an overstatement, I don’t think it an
exaggeration. Most people recognize this premise as a
reality (whether they view this decline as a problem or a
victory is another question). However, far fewer people seem
to recognize the essential nature of the problem, much less
the sense in which they might be participating in it.
While Keller’s post is worth reading in full, one
particular section is noteworthy. Referencing Douthat’s
second chapter, Keller offers five “major social
catalysts†for Christianity’s decline since the
1960′s:
1) First, the political polarization that has occurred
between the Left and Right drew many churches into it
(mainline Protestants toward the Left, evangelicals toward
the Right). This has greatly weakened the church’s
credibility in the broader culture, with many viewing
churches as mere appendages and pawns of political
parties. 2) Second, the sexual revolution means that the
Biblical sex ethic now looks unreasonable and perverse to
millions of people, making Christianity appear
implausible, unhealthy, and regressive. 3) Third, the era
of decolonization and Third World empowerment, together
with the dawn of globalization, has given the impression
that Christianity was imperialistically “western†and
supportive of European civilization’s record of racism,
colonialism, and anti-Semitism. 4) The fourth factor has
been the enormous growth in the kind of material
prosperity and consumerism that always works against faith
and undermines Christian community. 5) The fifth factor
is—that all the other four factors had their greatest
initial impact on the more educated and affluent classes,
the gatekeepers of the main culture-shaping institutions
such as the media, the academy, the arts, the main
foundations, and much of the government and business
world.
What’s striking to me is how self-evident these points
seem even here at Christ and Pop Culture. All you
need to do is read Alan Noble’s column “Citizenship
Confusion†each week to see how confused a good many
Christians are about points 1 (political power posturing)
and 3 (the perpetuation of racism and imperialistic
kingdom-building is more than an impression, is it not?). Or
take, for example, some of the comments in Faith Newport’s
most recent “The
Female Gaze†column to see almost word-for-word
evidence of point 2 (Christianity’s “old fashionedâ€
sexual ethic). One commenter suggested the following
regarding sexual ethics from a Christian perspective:
Having a discussion based on intellect, exploring ideas
other than the ones we have shoved down our throats every
Sunday, admitting that the things we’ve been told might
not be entirely accurate or relevant anymore[.] . . .
Christians today are so against questioning the Bible, the
church teachings, and “the way it’s always been†and
I cannot be a part of something so disconnected from
logic.
While point 4 (materialistic consumerism) is in many ways
connected with the 1st point (political power posturing),
the 5th factor seems especially important: those in charge
of the major culture-shaping institutions have been most
significantly affected by the first four factors. For a
thorough examination of this top-down institutional
phenomenon, UVA sociologist James
Davison Hunter’s book, To Change the World: The
Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the
Late Modern World, is an absolute must-read. Or, at
the very least, Carissa Turner Smith’s excellent essay
on Hunter’s book is well worth the time.
What seems especially evident is that Christians recognize
the above issues but often misunderstand the nature of them.
How many see Christianity’s decline as a culture war that
needs to be won by electing the right political officials?
Or, how many see Christianity’s decline as attributable to
risque television programs and increasing rights for
homosexuals, and yet overlook our in-house troubles with
sexual promiscuity and essentially-dead marriages? Or, how
many see Christianity’s decline as a battle to be won with
the Middle East? Or, how many see Christianity’s decline
as the slow uprising of “socialism,†and thus the
repression of financial and material prosperity? Or finally,
to speak to the 5th point, how many Christians see
Christianity’s decline as the triumph of “leftistâ€
institutions, and yet fail to equip and support people to
enter into these institutions instead of perpetuating the scandal
of the evangelical mind?
In my opinion, Keller pointedly adds to the discussion when
he invokes Lesslie Newbigin:
Lesslie Newbigin blames the marginalization of
Christianity in the West on the outworking of the 18th
century Enlightenment—which promoted the sufficiency of
individual human reason without faith in God—for a great
deal of the shift. In this he understands historical
patterns as being caused by ideas and intellectual trends
working their way out through a society’s institutions.
I see no reason why Newbigin’s history-of-thought
approach and Douthat’s sociology-of-knowledge approach
cannot both be right.
The story of autonomy’s enthronement and steady decay
centers on the imperative to qualify freedom with
self-restraint. If nothing else, the 20th C. taught us that
Reason itself isn’t a sufficient cultural authority.
Indeed, you might say that the decline of Christianity comes
down to this issue of cultural authority, from who it
derives, and how it ought to be achieved. Perhaps, in our
attempts to maintain a dominant cultural position and fend
off any decline, we have in many ways become a religious
mirror of what it is we are fighting against by adopting a
stance more concerned with the kind of freedom that forces
the Other to submit to one’s purposes. It’s that false
freedom that is essentially self-absorption cloaked in
nobility.
It’s no secret nor coincidence that Christianity
flourishes when people are willing to put their lives on the
line to love their enemies. It’s urgent that we American
Christians reevaluate our purposes and cross-check them with
He whose name we claim to bear witness. Christian love is
costly, but not more costly than selling our souls to
achieve America’s driver seat. Particularly when not only
do the ends not justify the means, but the means aren’t
even producing the ends. We need to take seriously the
outlined factors above, and learn how “love the Lord your
God†and “love your neighbor as yourself†might be
judiciously applied to them. Christianity’s resuscitation
to authenticity in this part of the world depends on it.
