Re: Following article There is a difference between sufficient cause and necessary cause. It may be that Christianity is collapsing in America but is it a sufficient response to do the things that Eric Metaxas says we should? These things, repentance of our sins, rededication to Christ, loving our neighbor in ways we should know are for everyone's benefit, and all of that are good things but is that the whole story? Or are we missing something else that is necessary? A related question is whether many Christians are able, conceptually, to recognize what is necessary because the traditional mindset does not allow what we may call "outside the box" thinking. Let me put it this way: What if you were called upon to renew Christianity and you lived in Hawaii or Singapore? These are not random examples. Each is a place where Christians are a minority, where other faiths, added up, comprise the majority of the population, where the general population sees choices other than a Christian church as altogether viable and possibly as better for them. Or where people may think that no religion is just as viable and potentially is a positive good. That is, these examples may well represent the future of the United States at large, whether Chicago or Seattle or Atlanta or Pittsburgh. This kind of future may well take longer to arrive in Wyoming or Alabama than in California or Massachusetts but as of 2016 it seems inevitable, regardlessly. It seems clear enough what will not work: * Not thinking long and hard about the impact of mass media on religious faith * Not analyzing the changes in how people think about faith that are the direct result of the Internet and computer technology generally * Not thinking about the positives, all those things in other faiths that many people regard as true and good but that are not found in Christian faith or are only found in limited form * Not thinking through psychological insights and discoveries about religious phenomena * Being dismissive of people for whom any kind of "orthodox" approach to faith isn't plausible yet who have deep interest in things of the spirit, as if the only conceivable alternative is traditional Christianity * Being dismissive of people who regard science as a realm of truths but who nonetheless regard the Christian message as valuable in their lives. In about 1450 no-one in Christendom could conceive a society radically changed the way it was after Luther, but that was, in fact, the future. Our crisis of faith needs even greater changes, but it will continue to be impossible to conceptualize what is really needed unless there is soul-searching honesty and a lot of "re-learning" about questions of faith generally and Christian faith specifically. Billy =========================================
American Christianity May Be Collapsing. What Should We Do? By _Eric Metaxas_ (http://www.christianpost.com/author/eric-metaxas/) , Christian Post Contributor August 1, 2016|12:12 pm When Chicken Little said the sky is falling, we all laughed. Well, maybe it's time we stopped laughing. It seems Chicken Little may be on to something. My friend Rod Dreher is as sane and stable as anyone I know, and he's saying, in essence, that the sky is falling. I reference his new article in The American Conservative, called "_The Coming Christian Collapse_ (http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/the-coming-christian-collapse/) ." He begins by saying that the two-thirds of millennials who were raised religiously unaffiliated still have no denominational identity today. Unlike previous generations, they're not joining churches as they get older and raise kids. Second, Rod says, "Millennials, even those who identify as Christians, are shockingly illiterate, both in terms of what the Bible says and more generally regarding what Christianity teaches." This growing biblical illiteracy has led to a moral decline of our young people into consumerism, drug abuse, sexual liberation, and civic and political disengagement. Third, Rod says that the working class has largely abandoned the church, and that if the middle class follows suit, as appears likely, the church will be in a world of hurt. He quotes the late Michael Spencer, who warned of a coming evangelical collapse: "We Evangelicals have failed to pass on to our young people an orthodox form of faith that can take root and survive the secular onslaught." These are chilling words. We talk a lot on BreakPoint about external threats to our souls, and rightly so. But as Abraham Lincoln once said in another context, "If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher." Yet I am hopeful, as every Christian must be. As my colleague John Stonestreet says so often, we are part of the grand story of the universe. And God is the author of that story. Yes, as Peter reminds us, we will have to suffer "various trials." But why? "So that the authenticity of [our] faith . . . may result in praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:6-7)". This is not new. Back in the '30s and '40s, German Christians had to take a clear stand or be absorbed or compromised by evil — and some, like Bonhoeffer, chose the cross. Look at our brothers and sisters in the Middle East. Now, I'm not ready to say we American Christians may soon have to apostasize or die, but I can't help but think of the words of the late Cardinal George, who said he would die in his bed, his successor would die in prison, and his successor will die a martyr in the public square. So, what do we do? We repent — repent of our sins, the sins of the church, and, yes, the sins of our nation: the sins of pride, racism, sexual libertinism, greed, lust for power, and a callous disregard for human life among them. Second, we must recommit ourselves to Jesus. We need to seek the mind of Christ, to think and to act as Christians, to know our Bible and to live by it in the power of the Spirit, "making the most of your time, for the days are evil." We must commit anew to forming a biblical worldview and evaluating everything in our lives in light of it. We must recommit our time and our treasure to evangelism, missions, and Christ's command in Matthew 25 to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, heal the sick, and visit the prisoner. Christian faith is not a nice add-on to our agendas, it's the very marrow of our lives. The question is this: Will we love God with our whole heart, soul, and mind, and our neighbor as ourselves? But don't be intimidated by the internal and external challenges we face. Remember that God can do very much with very little, and that success doesn't depend on political or cultural power. While the Church may face trials, the gates of hell will not prevail, and Christ's victory is assured. -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
