The Church in a Post-Christian society

Much discussion has occurred in recent years, and will continue to occur, regarding what the Church's response should be to the growing number of non-committed, agnostic, and atheist young people in the Western World.  One of the motivations behind the conscious decision made by Pastor Andy Stanley eight years ago to change his approach to evangelism is his desire to make a greater impact upon a post-Christian America.  While it remains to be seen if we truly are entering into an era of post-Christian society, after all a majority of Americans still self-identify (I know the accuracy of such things is debatable) as Christian and trends can run both ways, but given that a significant portion of Millenials and other young people have a negative view of the Church, Scripture, and God, it behooves us to consider whether or not we ought to change our ministry approach in response.  Those churches which have embraced a seeker-friendly attitude are one such attempted response.

Let me, however, offer a counter-point and word of caution.  If indeed our society continues in its current direction of removing the sacred and the divine in the process known as secularization, does it really seem wise for the Church to imitate them by downplaying Scripture, prayer, or worship?  Shouldn't we maintain our emphasis on the exalted nature of our worship services so as to provide a contrast to the secular world?  Aren't we showing the world what it is missing as God's Creation when we continue to hold high not only the authority of Scripture, but the sacred qualities of prayer and worship?  For a church to downplay its religious symbols and to make worship more approachable for the Lost by putting the Bible and God in a lesser role, is not making them more appealing to those who need God, but removing from them the one element that society without God cannot imitate, the presence of the Holy Spirit in our midst.
It is absolutely legitimate to hold a rally or have a special gathering that is seeker-friendly, but this cannot be what we allow our worship service to devolve into.  Why are we in the house of the Lord on his day?  To lift his name, to worship the Almighty, and to be molded and shaped as his disciples.  The Lost are absolutely welcome to join us, to observe our worship, and hear the Word of the LORD preached, but it would be a mistake for us to remove from our worship the things that make them uncomfortable.  The Lost should feel welcome in our midst, but they shouldn't feel comfortable, for the wrath of God abides on them until they repent; seeker-friendly can't change that fact, and the Church should never try to hide it.

Why the Church shouldn't be afraid of the "Nones" - Romans 11:36

Much has been made of the rapid increase here in America (and previously in Europe) of those who consider themselves to be a "none" regarding faith and religion.  While it is certainly true that those who do not consider religion (Christianity in particular) to be worthwhile have been on the rise of late, historically speaking a generation or two does not make a break from all of human history.  Since the beginning of recorded history, mankind has consistently sought after a connection with the divine.  The ways in which this goal has been attempted have varied a great deal, but the need has always been nearly universally felt, throughout the world and across the barriers of culture.  The reason for this is quite simple: We were made this way.  It is a part of our DNA, as it were, a portion of humanity that cannot be quantified by science, but the evidence for which is abundant.  Modernity may have given some people the sense that they no longer have to look to the heavens for the meaning and purpose of life, but science will not and cannot answer these questions, nor can human philosophies nor trivial self-centered pursuits; people will always in the end lift their eyes to the heavens and consider what God requires of them.
Paul wrote about this in his letter to the Romans, describing our relationship to God in poetic form in Romans 11:36, "For from him and through him and to him are all things.  To him be the glory forever!  Amen."  Paul understood that the glory of God and the happiness of mankind are not divergent goals.  It is only when we obtain the spiritual transformation of new life in Christ that we truly understand and experience the purpose for which we exist.

To illustrate this point, in the September 26th 2016 issue of Time magazine, in an essay by Susanna Schrobsdorff, a self-described member of the "none" group, Susanna speaks about her experience with religion, about her mother's loss of faith, and why her mother reached out to God as she was dying.  Reflecting on her mother's return to faith at the end, she writes, "It was a comfort I envied as I watched her slip away...but when she was gone, it felt like a void had opened up.  Then, as now, I long for faith.  That essential human need might just be proof that God does exists...We have innate cravings for food and sleep and love, and so perhaps a desire to identify with a higher power is not an accident of our design...That built-in yearning is there because there's something worth yearning for."

And that is why I'm not afraid that we are about to become a nation of "Nones".  Humanity cannot escape its connection to God, no matter what it may try to put in God's place, no matter how loudly people protest that they don't need God nor believe he exists.  The fact is, he does.  God does exist, he did create you, and me, and he put within us a longing to have a relationship with our maker, a longing that will in the end always gnaw away at those who deny him.  For our part, the Church needs to remain faithful to its proclamation of the Gospel, maintaining the witness of our forefathers on back to the apostles, and continuing to live righteously in an immoral world.  It may not be "If you build it he will come", but the idea is similar, the Gospel will draw people by the power of the Holy Spirit, as long as we continue to lift high the cross of Christ.

Sermon Video: Turn to the Living God - Acts 14:1-20

Is there anything in common between the audience in Lystra that Paul preached to who mistakenly thought him to be a god, and the modern skeptical audience most likely to believe that there is no God?  At first glance there might not seem to be, the world has changed so much, but the humanity that inhabits it still has the same spiritual need.  Paul was mortified that the local responded to his miraculous healing of a lame man by trying to offer a sacrifice to him, so he responded by telling that that he was just a man like them.  It was not to Paul that they needed to turn, but "to the living God, who made heaven and earth".  The kindness of God, who sends rain in its seasons, was the way in which Paul attempted to share the Gospel with this crowd who had mistakenly put their trust in may gods who could not save them.
When talking to an agnostic or atheist in America today, the lack of worship for God, or gods, is not an indication of a lack of worship.  The worship of self has replaced the worship of God for many people, but the need for a relationship with the God who created us is not something that will go away.  On that level, the deep and abiding spiritual need that we all have, our efforts to share the Gospel in America today really aren't that much different than Paul's efforts so very long ago.

To watch the video, click on the link below:
Sermon Video

The End of Morality?

There has been much speculation in recent history about the possibility of mankind's "liberation" (as Karl Marx put it) from religion.  If mankind were to unshackle himself from the bondage of the superstitions of our ancestors, so the theory goes, a new age of freedom would dawn.  For many, the father of modern agnosticism and atheism was the critic of Christianity, Friedrich Nietzsche.  Nietzsche was himself the son of a Lutheran pastor, but he rebelled against his father's beliefs to find, as he thought, freedom in the "death of God".  Yet Nietzsche himself was aware that to rid mankind of religion must by necessity in a Darwinian worldview bring about the end of morality as well.  With an odd sense of hope, Nietzsche wrote, "morality will gradually perish". (Genealogy of Morals, III, p. 27)
The irony of the post-modern revelry in the "death of God" is not that it has, or will ever, led to the liberation of mankind, but rather it simply confirmed mankind's enslavement to a survival of the fittest world where morality has no meaning or purpose.  Without God in the equation, as C.S. Lewis argued in Mere Christianity, morality will cease to exist.  If there is no life after death, only this life matters.  If there is no ultimate judge of mankind, only my own opinion matters, and if there is no ultimate value to each and every human life, none of them really matter when being weighed against the self-interest of each individual.
If this seems like a bleak analysis you understand the point.  Without God, and specifically the morality taught and demonstrated by Jesus Christ, all other attempts to impose an arbitrary morality upon society are doomed to failure.  The Soviet Union committed countless horrors upon its own people in the name of God-less Communism, but were left in the end with a bankrupt society where self-interest could not be overcome by endless propaganda espousing the joys of collective goals.  The world could see that the Soviet Union had become an "evil empire", the phrase Ronald Reagan made famous, long before the system itself collapsed of its own decrepit inertia.
Am I advocating clinging to religion, Christianity in particular, regardless of the evidence simply as a bulwark against an amoral society?  If I was, this effort of whistling past the graveyard would ultimately end in failure.  If the claims of Jesus Christ are not true, then nothing built upon his foundation will long endure.  On the contrary, I am simply pointing out that the alternative to God's redemption is not the liberty that is advertised, but a form of enslavement with no more hope than the pagan religions of the ancient world.  Friedrich Nietzsche may have smiled at the "death of God" and dreamed of a world free from Christian morality, but the horrors of Nazi Germany forever dispelled the myth that mankind released from Judeo-Christian ethics would be anything but a monster.