Recently the editor of Christianity Today magazine, David Neff, identified 6 trends facing Christians in the U.S. Here are my notes from his informal, insightful presentation:

TREND 1: People are choosing their moral framework.Alan Wolfe argues in Moral Freedom: The Search For Virtue In a World of Choice (W.W. Norton, 2001) that we have a moral consensus in America, but it's built largely around tolerance. A large percentage of those surveyed disapprove of homosexual activity, for example, but few want to impose that disapproval on anyone.

Wolfe points out that in the 19th century, economic freedoms emerged; in the 20th century, political freedoms emerged, and in the 21st century, moral freedoms are emerging. People today are born into a time when no moral background binds them, and so they freely adopt a moral framework for themselves. Surprisingly, this is true even for conservative Christians. While holding to the value of the Ten Commandments, they view the Ten Commandments as an avenue ...