Light In the New Dark Ages

Much has been written in the past few years about the loss of “Christian America.” A convincing case has been made that we no longer live in a culture that accepts Christian values as normative. When important decisions are made in courtrooms, businesses, or mayoral offices, we cannot be as sure as we once were that the decision makers are guided (at least subconsciously) by the Ten Commandments or the Golden Rule. Today it is just as likely that the mother’s milk of our leaders was laced with the relative values of secularized pop morality, and they are now suffering from undiagnosed moral malnutrition.

Conventional wisdom says we must do something fast. That has usually meant restoring our moral majority by uniting for political action, or being more precise about our Christian political philosophy so we can clothe Richard Neuhaus’s “naked public square,” or doing a lot more praying and evangelizing so we can once again make the moral fiber of individuals strong enough to outdo the forces of evil. There is nothing wrong with these strategies.

But perhaps a bit more attention should be paid to the other side of the coin. Although we would like to think we are fighting a battle that can be won, that some semblance of a “Christian America” can be restored, this may not be the case. The Bible nowhere guarantees that the United States of America will always have a Christian majority population. The same fate may await us that befell Western Europe in the past 200 years: fewer Christians, empty churches, and spiritual apathy.

Yes, we need to fight to restore good values to their primary place. At the same time, we must also prepare to face the possibility of a new Dark Age in which our values come under increasing attack. That means tightening our spiritual belts and facing head-on the possibility that some of the suffering and persecution we have been spared is now coming our way.

Proclaiming, Not Pitching

Perhaps the first thing to do is to realize that evangelism is going to get tougher and tougher. We have already seen what fighting for television time and viewer attention has done to the quality of the gospel message presented on some televangelists’ programs. That will get worse. Competition and bottom-line mentalities will force increasingly aberrant theologies to surface. No longer will the majority pressure of basic Christian values control them.

Instead, our minority vision will have to be precise and well-focused. It must win its way with the authoritative ring of solid truth rather than the sensuous appeal of a mass-marketed product. To be sure, this is a more difficult task. It will take greater personal effort and sacrifice. We will have to suffer unpopularity and ostracism. But the joy of proclaiming a scripturally solid message, instead of delivering a slippery pitch based on popular public opinion, will make the church stronger.

The Western Taint

Second, we will have to come to grips with the extent to which our theology has become Westernized with the taint of materialism and success. We have forgotten the forgotten of society and left the field wide open for secularism, New Age movements, and liberalism. Liberation theologians, for example, kill the essence of the gospel with their support of the downtrodden, but at least they recognize the problem.

We must develop an orthodox theology that addresses today’s problems. The major themes of such a theology must deal with poverty as well as wealth, feelings alongside thought, a God who acts in the world instead of a God who merely once acted, and miracles to complement science. It must be sewn with the threads of suffering and persecution, as well as those of happiness and victory. Only when we have such a theology for our day will we be ready to face the future confidently.

The Down Side Of Freedom

Third, we must learn to deal more constructively with our intrachurch disagreements. We have long enjoyed the luxury of free debate with other Christians. No state church tells us precisely what to believe. The down side of such freedom has been the elevation of our intramural differences over eschatology, spiritual gifts, and the like to the point where the more significant differences between Christian and non-Christian are sometimes forgotten.

As the world turns, we cannot afford wasted energy. True, we must continue to sharpen our faith. But the essential unity of the universal body of Christ needs to become far more important to us than it is currently. We must take more seriously Christ’s comment when his disciples came to him wondering about a Christian whose teaching was different from their own: “He who is not against you is on your side,” Jesus said—to them and to us.

Facing The World’s Worst

Fourth, we must further follow Christ to the Garden of Gethsemane. We have shown ourselves quite capable of walking with Christ on Palm Sunday, waving as the throngs cheer. But in Christ’s darkest hour, the throngs did not cheer. As he prepared to confront a horrible death, he prayed at Gethsemane, first for release from his impending humiliation, then for strength to face it.

We do not care for the Garden of Gethsemane. Praying for the grace to face humiliation goes against our grain. We would rather figure out a way to avoid the humiliation in the first place. We flee like the disciples did. And even though we live after the Resurrection, we have yet to show the courage the faithful disciples demonstrated in spreading the gospel after Jesus rose from the dead. The point of the Christian life, so movingly illustrated by the work of our Lord, is that we cannot expect to avoid the world’s worst. That lesson, and the strength to face it, can only be learned in prayer.

Beyond Wondering

As we look at the rest of the world, we find that much of it has already learned these lessons. Armando Valladares (in Against All Hope) has written movingly of the courageous Christians he witnessed in Cuban prisons. And Nien Cheng (in Life and Death in Shanghai) has painted a picture of her discovery of Christian values in the most secular of societies. It is not easy to be a Christian in the Middle East today, where the forces of Islamic fundamentalists question their right to exist; yet we read story after story of Christians who not only survive under such conditions, but prosper in their faith.

In the face of Communist governments, Islamic culture, and totalitarian regimes of all kinds, Christians have learned to live the gospel, and they have learned to preach and teach the essentials, support one another, and pray.

What do they see when they look West to America? Some wonder whether we are ready to face similar challenges to our faith, should they come. We must wonder ourselves—we must go beyond wondering and prepare.

By Terry Muck.

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