Aaron Renn writes about Christianity in the United States as it relates to American society. His position is that Christianity has been in a slow decline in the United States for more than 50 years, and that Christians have lately lost their cultural dominance and in that way are now a minority. The Christian worldview and values are no longer mainstream, he says; our society is increasingly hostile to traditional Christian values.
Lately I’ve tried out this viewpoint as a lens through which to view the world. It’s been illuminating.
In Aaron’s July newsletter he remarks that because we are a minority now, we should start to act like one. But because we were the majority for so long, we have little idea how to do that. He believes we can learn from historical American minorities such as African Americans and Jews. We can even learn from Catholics, who have been a minority within American Christianity. These groups have historically done concrete things to sustain their communities and uphold their values. He urges Christians to do the same kinds of things so we can hold fast to what we hold dear in a world that woos us away.
There are arguments on both sides of whether the United States was founded as a Christian nation. Either way, we have functioned as a nation whose way of life was strongly informed by Christianity and Judeo-Christian values. As a result, it has felt like we were a Christian nation.
But now with Christians in the minority, values incompatible with classic Christianity are becoming mainstream. I think this is causing a lot of confusion, fear, and anger among many American Christians. We feel alien in a land we still think of as ours.
This is driving some Christians to fight for our worldview and values. They speak stridently about it, and they organize politically to try to make sure they endure, and restore them where they’ve eroded.
I think we should back off.
We Christians were are not here to win. We are not meant to force non-Christians to live up to Christian values no matter how much we are convinced our values are right. Andy Stanley, a pastor of a megachurch in the Atlanta area, preached a two-sermon series about this in May this year that was really good. Watch it here.
As I’ve written before, it’s not a Christian’s job to tell any non-Christian how to live. As I wrote then:
The Christian has three major jobs:
- Be the conduit for God’s love into the world
- Introduce people to God through Jesus Christ
- Encourage other Christians to become better disciples
There’s so much work to do in just these three jobs that we should be too busy to pronounce condemnation on anyone*. There will never be a shortage of people in need: sick, poor, addicted, grieving, lonely, incarcerated. Go and do for them.
* Or insist that they adopt our values and live according to them.
Christianity is meant to be a faith of attraction — we attract people to our faith through giving our witness and doing good and helpful things for people in God’s name. These things express our values and worldview in a compelling way because it shows that we are living them. That makes people curious and draws them in. It is here that we can begin to share why we hold these values, which leads us to sharing the Gospel. Those whose hearts are ready will join us. And that’s the thing God wants to win — hearts, because that’s the beginning of securing their souls.
When we insist that others live our values, especially by forcing them through legislation, we drive people away from the faith. We need to cut it out right now.
