Today’s spiritual vacuum should be the greatest fact of our time.
Few speak optimistically about the 1980s. This is understandable; the threats to peace and stability are so numerous that many believe only a miracle will prevent a serious crisis. On almost every front—political, economic, social, ecological—our world seems close to the breaking point. Think of the chaos that would come to the industrial nations if, for instance, the flow of oil were cut off. The list of potential disasters lurking around the corner of the 1980s is almost endless. George Orwell’s 1984 seems frighteningly close.
No one knows, of course, what the 1980s will really bring to our nation and world. Only time will tell if the decade holds some cataclysmic event that will rock our civilization (and others as well); but few observers discount the possibility.
Yet for Christians this issue is only part of a greater question: Will we, as Christians, be up to the challenges of the 1980s—whatever they may be? If our sovereign Lord allows us another decade before Christ comes again, will we be able to look back in ten years and say honestly that we have been “good and faithful servants”? As the Apostle Peter says, speaking of the transitory nature of this world and the imminent second coming of Christ, “In view of the fact that all these things are to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be?” (2 Peter 3:11, Phillips).
At root, the answer should be the same as always: We must be God’s people, faithful to him in every circumstance, no matter how difficult. No one has ever found it easy to be a true disciple of Christ; every age poses its temptations to divert us from the path of faithfulness. Sometimes these burst upon us blatantly; sometimes they slip up subtly. The Christian appreciates this if he reads his Bible because “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Eph. 6:12, NIV).
The Christian also knows, both from the Bible and church history, that Satan’s assaults take different forms in different generations. And he knows the church’s opportunities differ in different times. So Christians today must always be alert, asking what specific challenges and opportunities await us as we face a new decade.
What, then, must be the agenda for those of us who are evangelical Christians in the 1980s? To answer that let us look at three questions.
What Sort of World Will We Face?
We would be presumptuous to act as if we knew in detail what the world will be like. Nevertheless, barring major upheavals, we can suggest broad outlines by projecting into the future some of today’s significant trends. Five seem helpful.
1. Great problems will continue to afflict the world. The growing interdependence of nations means that problems once affecting only a few now affect virtually everyone on the planet. Problems tend to become magnified; a domino effect has set in, so that a revolution in Iran or a crop failure in the American Midwest now have serious worldwide repercussions.
These problems will inevitably affect the church. Take, for example, the worldwide economic situation. Few economists believe inflation will disappear soon, and some suggest it will become a permanent fixture on the world scene. No church can build a new building without considering this. No mission board can make long-range plans without allowing for it. No parachurch organization or Christian school can undertake massive expansion without thinking carefully about world economic problems. Many groups are already feeling the pinch, and some may even go out of existence in the 1980s through indifference to economic conditions. The temptation may well beset us to resort to unspiritual gimmicks and unscriptural methods of raising money.
2. The decade will see staggering scientific and technological change. We hear of advances in such areas as medicine and electronics almost every day, and we can expect that trend to continue. Whether countries will always utilize such advances for beneficial purposes is, of course, a different question. And we may wonder whether scientists can solve some of the critical intractable problems we face; but the advance of exotic new discoveries and inventions will surely continue into the 1980s.
Again, evangelicals must be alert to developments that affect our work in the world. Recently I helped dedicate the new facilities of a Christian broadcasting network. I was amazed at the sophisticated equipment, some of the finest in the broadcasting industry. While we must not be dazzled by technology, we must be ready to use every means God gives us to proclaim the gospel. We must also be aware of the ethical issues that accompany the application of certain scientific discoveries, and be ready to give moral guidance to a world that easily succumbs to the manipulation of the many by the few, sometimes in the name of progress.
3. We should remember that a large part of our world continues to drift toward secularism. Large sections of Europe have become virtually secular in outlook, with empty cathedrals standing as monuments to a faith almost completely relegated to the past. In our own nation we see encouraging signs of revival, with countless people coming to faith in Christ; at the same time, secular humanism is still the dominant philosophy. Wheat and tares are growing, almost flourishing, side by side.
The secular mentality is not always openly hostile to religion; it simply leaves God out of life. Our national institutions—education, for example—often exhibit a strong bias against Christian convictions. Charitable deductions and tax exemption for religious organizations will probably continue under fire in the 1980s because of the prevailing secular mentality. Along different lines, the moral decline accompanying our secular trend shows few signs of leveling off. Tolerance toward such patterns of behavior as homosexuality, unmarried couples living together, casual drug use, and numerous other social customs, will probably grow. I am convinced, however, that such behavior also wreaks inevitable havoc in the personalities of many. Will Christians be prepared to minister compassionately to those who have bought the lie of secular promises and reaped the bitter fruit of such experiences?
4. The massive resurgence of militant religions is another factor in the world of the 1980s that moves directly counter to the secularizing trend. I suspect that such movements are only vaguely comprehended in the West, but they are one of the most important facts of our time. I disagree with those who suggest that this represents merely a last desperate but futile attempt by doomed and dying faiths to grasp new life. Militant religions are on the march, and may well become aggressively evangelistic in this decade. I can only imagine what the use of petrodollars to support religious movements might accomplish. Christian missions in the 1980s must cope strategically with resurgent non-Christian religions.
The 1980s therefore may also see an upsurge in religious persecution of Christians. This will not come from militant non-Christian religions alone. As has been true often in church history, secular states can also be savagely anti-Christian. We should never forget that Satan often directs his attacks at areas that have been especially noted for spiritual victories. Uganda experienced great revival, but Satan still used political chaos to persecute God’s people. No nation, including our own, can ever assume it is immune from the persecution of true believers—even by the state.
5. I want to register my enthusiasm about the world of the 1980s: it will offer vast opportunity for Christians. Partly I am convinced of this because as long as we are on this earth God gives us opportunities to serve him. Who of us can say we have seized even one-tenth of those he has already given us? But I believe the 1980s could be a time of special harvest, one of the greatest in the history of the church, if we rise to the challenge.
We could easily concentrate on the problems. But we must ask, what has the chaotic condition of the world done to people today? We can summarize the answer in one sentence: It has brought countless people to the end of their spiritual rope. Many have run out of answers, and are desperately casting about for something that will bring inner peace, stability, and assurance. I see an unprecedented spiritual hunger today, a restlessness of spirit that can only be satisfied in Jesus Christ. The massive outpouring of emotion and interest during the visit of Pope John Paul II to the United States is but one evidence of the spiritual hunger that characterizes our world.
To evangelical Christians, today’s spiritual vacuum should be the greatest fact of our time. Having tried everything except Christ, modern men and women will yield either to despair or to Christ. Like Paul, God is sending us “to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me” (Acts 26:18).
What Will Face Evangelicalism Internally?
Especially in the United States the decade of the 1970s brought a new fact to the evangelical movement: prominence. Who would have guessed several decades ago that Time would proclaim one year in the 1970s as “The Year of the Evangelicals”? Who would have suspected evangelicals would become a major and highly visible movement in America? Evangelicalism is now playing an increasingly prominent role in many denominations and interdenominational agencies. But will this visibility continue and become even sharper in the decade ahead? A discussion of this question must be on the agenda of evangelicals.
Prominence has it advantages, but it also brings a new set of problems, ones we must determine to face. Two seem particularly important.
First, prominence means we are in the public eye, so our faults, our shallowness, our moral failure, our inconsistency—will also be in the public eye. The moral or financial indiscretions of a prominent television preacher or the racism of a supposedly evangelical denomination now may make Newsweek or CBS Evening News. In such a situation the cause of Christ suffers. Ever since my own ministry became widely publicized I have been constantly afraid I would say or do something that would bring disrepute to the cause of Christ. I believe every Christian, especially one in a position of leadership, must be sensitive to this problem.
Second, evangelical prominence confronts us with temptations for which we may not be fully prepared. Chief among these is the temptation to preserve that prominence even at the risk of compromise. Instead of being a prophetic voice boldly declaring the clear Word of God to our secular society, we are instead tempted to become bland and innocuous, knowing that the world does not like prophets who challenge its cherished unbeliefs.
Or again, we may be tempted to use prominence for the wrong purposes. I am concerned, for example, about those who would use present evangelical visibility to pursue solely political goals, be they conservative or liberal. The issue of how Christians should exercise political influence is complex, I know. Individual evangelicals should be active in the political arena, and I am thankful for those who have sensed a special calling to politics. However, I agree with the insight of Pope John Paul II that many clergy in becoming involved with political and social affairs have lost their spiritual impact. Somehow they failed to bring the Scriptures to bear on the issues they faced. This mistake has often been made, I believe, by theological liberals, and we must be careful not to fall into the same pattern. We must be committed to the priorities God has given us in his Word, and be faithful in carrying out the mission he gives his people. I have personally discovered many traps and pressures that would divert me from proclaiming the gospel, and absorb me in things that might be good but are not my calling from God.
Yet, having said that, I must add that evangelical visibility is also an opportunity to be heard. The new prominence of evangelicals has given us significant access to the mass media, and as a result many people listen to what we have to say. Will we use this visibility for God’s glory in the coming decade?
The internal situation of evangelicals also involves other issues. For example, there are disturbing signs that internal dissension could blunt the force of our witness. Sometimes this dissension is over nonessentials. Evangelicalism is, after all, a very loosely-knit movement, which means that whatever unity we have can be rather fragile. One of Satan’s strategies in any time of renewal is to divide believers and divert their energies from attacking the kingdom of darkness to attacking each other. We must have room to disagree honestly on some issues, and some matters we can settle only by thorough discussion. But Scripture commands us always to be “speaking the truth in love” (Eph. 4:15), and warns us repeatedly against unwarranted bickering and fighting. Sometimes we differ because we fail to recognize that God has given different gifts to different people, and even to different organizations. He has raised up some specifically for evangelism, or teaching, or other ministries, and they would be wrong to broaden their activities beyond God’s call. Individuals and organizations alike constantly face the danger of being diverted from the specific and unique ministry God has given them.
We should consider one other possible trend within the evangelical movement in the coming ten years. Evangelicals from widely varied backgrounds have the possibility of a new unity. When I was a boy, Christians from my background had little to do with those from different religious backgrounds, such as Lutherans, Pentecostals, and Plymouth Brethren. Now, of course, I find close fellowship with many from those backgrounds. Evangelicals are discovering one another, regardless of labels. This is happening not just in America but in other nations.
Evangelicals are also discovering they have much in common with those from more diverse backgrounds. Many are joining in Bible studies and prayer meetings with those from Roman Catholic and Orthodox backgrounds, and are discovering that God is at work in those communions as well. In an age when the ecumenical movement of the last decade has met with a yawn from many church members, evangelicals during the 1980s may prove to be in the forefront of truly biblical ecumenical activity. They may well seek new ways to express this spirit of unity, including possible formation or revitalizing of national and international fellowships.
What Witness Must We Bear in the 1980s?
The church’s mission to the world includes both proclamation and service. The subject of our witness must always be the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, given in the power of the Spirit. The gospel does not change; it is the Good News “that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:3–4). This is the kerygma, the proclamation, God has given us—a proclamation solidly rooted in historical fact. We also are called within the church “to declare unto you all the counsel of God” (Acts 20:27, KJV), to the end that “we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves.… Instead … we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ” (Eph. 4:14–15, NIV).
At the same time, the circumstances of each age play a part in determining the way we bear our witness to Christ. As we approach the 1980s, what sort of witness must we bear, if the world is to hear our message?
First, it must be a proclamation and service marked by integrity of life. The world has always correctly demanded that our words be backed by our lives, but today it places an even greater premium on this. One reason is the higher visibility of evangelical Christians. Another is that in our age talk is cheap. Each day the average person is bombarded with an incredible variety of messages through the mass media—messages to which most people pay little attention. In a pluralistic society, also, people have come to suspect that one religious viewpoint is about as good as another. But a life that is different—a life marked by purity and integrity, refusing to fall apart when circumstances are less than perfect—will command the attention of people who are weary of words and want something that works. As Peter, echoing the Sermon on the Mount, says, “Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day He visits us” (1 Peter 2:12).
The genuineness of our life in Christ must extend to every area of our personal and public lives. God is not honored by a Christian businessman who deals unfairly with his employees or cannot be trusted in a business deal. God is not honored by a Christian employee who is a clock watcher, grudgingly doing the bare minimum to keep a job. God is not honored by a Christian student who cheats or studies with a lazy mind. God is not honored by the breakup of a Christian marriage, something happening in evangelical circles too often today.
Second, our proclamation and service must be marked by compassion. Job said, “Man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upward” (Job 5:7). I recently heard someone say, “Life is cruel to young people today.” He meant that so many promises of happiness and security are made on the condition that a young person follow a certain path. Yet those paths are too often dead ends, cruelly destroying the hopes of those who follow them. No matter where we look we see pain. Often it is physical suffering, brought about by hunger and sickness. Sometimes it is psychological and spiritual suffering, bringing despair because of sin. Many people live lives filled with fear of the future, of failure, of death. Others are caught in the agony of loneliness. This February I will be conducting university-wide missions at Oxford and Cambridge. Student committees have asked me to be sure to speak on the subject of loneliness. Recently I spoke on television about loneliness and received more mail about this message than for virtually any other television message I have ever preached. One of our leading political commentators said recently that loneliness will be a major political issue in the 1980s.
God calls the Christian to show compassion. Our example is Christ himself, who looked out at the people of his day and “had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” (Matt. 9:36). Like Paul, we must inwardly sense that “Christ’s love compels us” (2 Cor. 5:14).
This gives the context for concern about our world’s great social problems. Injustice is not God’s will, nor does he wish millions to starve while nations spend $400,000,000,000 on armaments annually. Historically, evangelicals have been in the forefront of the great social movements that have shaped civilization for the better. In recent decades we have sometimes lost sight of that, but now we are learning again what it means in practical terms to have compassion on those who suffer. That does not mean social action is our sole or even primary calling, but it does mean that we are called to deal with human needs of all kinds with compassion in the name of Jesus Christ. The pendulum here tends to swing toward extremes, and we find it difficult to keep a proper balance. We can become so involved in either the social or the redemptive aspect of our mission that we lose sight of the other responsibility. Recently I received a letter from a well-known evangelist on another continent. God had greatly used him, but he confessed he has become so wrapped up in the social problems of his troubled nation that he was no longer being effective in the special work God had called him to.
Is it not true that the Christian has a special opportunity to sense the deepest dimension to human suffering? Our greatest problem is sin. Man is alienated from God, his Creator, and his agony of spirit bears vivid witness to this. If we are marked with the love and compassion of Christ, we will always keep before us the sobering fact that we live in a world under God’s judgment. We could conceivably bring about a somewhat more just society and reduce suffering, but it would be an eternal tragedy if we failed to give humanity what it needs most—salvation and new life in Christ. It is precisely because we have Christ’s love and compassion that we will not be satisfied with temporary solutions to eternal problems. The suffering we see all around us is only a shadow of the eternal separation from God that is the destiny of those outside Christ.
This is why if we are truly filled with God’s love we will seek to be clear and open in our verbal witness. Our words must be backed by our deeds, but our deeds without our words are not enough. Christ healed the sick and fed the hungry, but he also came preaching and teaching. The gospel is a message to be communicated and understood before it can be accepted or rejected.
That has always been true, but if anything, we will need to be even clearer in our verbal witness in the 1980s. We cannot assume that people in our pluralistic and secular society know what we mean when we talk about Christ. The average person even within the organized church today often has little understanding of the facts of the gospel. We have not communicated the gospel unless our hearers have understood, no matter how many words we have spoken.
Last, our witness in the 1980s must be marked not only by integrity and compassion, but also by a vision for the whole world.
Christ has never rescinded the Great Commission, but still commands us: “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:19–20, NIV). God’s plan embraces the whole world. Christ came because God loves not just Americans, or Jews, or Westerners, or those for whom we feel an affinity; in dying, Christ “purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Rev. 5:9). Whether it is the “world” of a foreign country, or the “world” of our business, or the “world” of ethnic groups in our cities, we are commanded by our Lord to declare his gospel.
An Awesome Responsibility
Out of the great 1910 Edinburgh missionary conference came the cry, “The evangelization of the world in this generation.” Seven decades have passed and the task is not done. Every generation needs to be evangelized, of course, but this has never been accomplished completely. And yet, if ever it was possible to fulfill the Great Commission, it is in this new decade of the twentieth century. Perhaps our cry today should be, “The evangelization of the world before 2000.”
The day of the missionary is far from over. Strategies and methods may change, but we will never reach vast areas of the world for Christ unless people are willing to give themselves to the task of cross-cultural missions. American evangelicals have an awesome responsibility before God to spread the gospel of Christ. Where are the men and women who will yield themselves to God, willing to be his instruments to the ends of the earth?
Surely the 1980s will pose problems. But for the Christian there is no more exciting time to be alive! God is at work in our world, calling men and women in every nation to follow him. And he would remind us how glorious is our calling to be disciples of Jesus Christ.
Through Scripture he would remind us that the greatest glory is yet to come. We are “aliens and strangers on earth”; “he has prepared a city” for those who are his (Heb. 11:13, 16). Someday Christ will come again, and our labor will be over. But meanwhile, we are to be faithful—faithful to God, and to his Word.
Donald Grey Barnhouse was once asked what he would do if he knew Christ was returning tomorrow. He replied that he would do what he had planned. He knew he was doing God’s will, and that was all that mattered. Whatever the 1980s hold for us, God calls us to be one thing: faithful. We must commit all that we are to him at the beginning of this new decade, with confidence in the one who said, “Surely I will be with you always, to the very end of the age.”
Carl F. H. Henry, first editor of Christianity Today, is lecturer at large for World Vision International. An author of many books, he lives in Arlington, Virginia.
