Will the real believers please stand up, please stand up . . .

The USA Today has recently reported that "the percentage of people who call themselves some type of Christian has dropped more than 11% in a generation". The latest American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) reflects dramatics shifts in America's religious landscape in the last 18 years. In fact, the only religious group that made significant gains in the last 18 years was (ironically) those who answered "no religion", up from 8% to 15%.

However, I am not panicking yet. My suspicion is that it is largely due to the growing popularity and mainstream acceptability of atheism. It is no longer expected of every American to claim the religion of their country (how long has it been since this was really a Christian nation anyway?). Religion has become so personalized, it is no longer taboo to have no religion or even no thoughts at all on spiritual things. Many people who a couple decades ago would have answered with their parents' religion (even if they haven't been to church since they were a kid) now feel more comfortable in answering honestly (atheist, agnostic, no religion, don't know).

My point is this: the drop in numbers in the Christian denominations and rise in "no religion" numbers may be largely due to a thinning in numbers of the nominal Christians (Christians in name only, not in practice). Those who called themselves Christian only because of their parents, or their country, or a childhood baptism, or a yearly visit to church on Easter or Christmas are finally comfortable confessing the true state of their beliefs. This is actually an improvement since, in my experience, nothing has been harder to overcome in my witness than the nominal Christians who live like the world.

While the numbers of Christians may be declining in the polls, my hope is that the remaining numbers reflect more accurately those who are sincere in faith and practicing in belief. Much like the Christians of Asia and South America, when Christianity is not the expected social norm (or even an unwelcome element), nominal Christianity seems to be weeded out and passionate faith seems to thrive. As a result, this may help in our evangelistic efforts if those claiming Christianity are more Christ-like and those rejecting Christianity are more honest about it.

Is Christianity really losing ground, or are the poll numbers finally beginning to reflect what has been going on in American hearts for generations? It seems to me that the people who have been living their entire lives like atheists finally feel comfortable enough in our current social climate to own up to it.

"They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us." - 1 John 2:19

Prayer and Evangelism within God's Sovereignty

One challenge that I have heard often leveled at those who have a high view of the sovereignty of God goes something like this: "If God is sovereign, why does He need us to pray and evangelize? Why must I be involved if, in His sovereignty, His will will be done and the elect will be saved?"

It is a fair question, one I have wrestled with in the past myself, but it betrays our tendency to think of God's commands in terms of His need rather than our own. For instance, when God gave us the ten commandments, it did not grow out of God's fear that the world would spiral out of His control if we didn't have some rules. Rather, God knows His creation so intimately that He knows that not committing adultery (and obeying all the other commandments) in the long run result in a happier, healthier humanity.

Perhaps you see where I am going with this now. Can God accomplish all He desires and ordains without my prayers to assist Him or "grease the works"? Of course. Can God save the lost without my participation in evangelism? Certainly. BUT . . . can I benefit from evangelism and prayer if I'm not actively participating in it? I think not.

You see, just as humanity benefits from living within moral guidelines God set for our good and ultimate pleasure, healthy Christians benefit from prayer and evangelism. When you become a Christian, you become a part of the body of Christ. Through this union, we are given the Holy Spirit and the heart of Christ. The "heart of flesh" that God puts in us desires the things of God. Nothing breaks that heart and makes it beat sluggish and slow like living a placid, menial Christian existence. God desires our obedience in prayer and the great commission for our own good.

Should we pray and evangelize because we love God and want to obey Him? Certainly this is the primary reason every Christian should. But I believe that our ultimate satisfaction and fulfillment as a child of God is at stake as well. Are evangelism and prayer hard work? Of course they are. But so is the fruit of the Spirit. Yet when I work at being more loving or patient or kind, I become a more satisfied and fulfilled Christian as those things come more naturally and with less work. So it is with prayer and evangelism. They should not be simply designated as tasks we do while the fruit of the Spirit (and the rest of the Christian walk) is seen as something to aspire to for happy, healthy Christian living.

Evangelism and prayer begin to make sense within God's sovereignty when we begin to see them in the context of our need rather than God's.

Tragedy strikes!

In a freak accident, I deleted almost half of my posts from this blog today. Easy, easy, all you haters, don't start the party yet. All is not lost. I've recovered most of them, and will be adding them as soon as I can.

So anyone with my blog on a blogroll will get a lot of posts from me that you may feel like you've seen before. Don't worry, it's not your coffee OD. And it seems I'll even be able to get them back to their original dates, so you may not even have to deal with the blogroll updates (not quite sure how all that works). If you made any comments on those, however, I am afraid they're gone forever.

On the bright side, I've been able to streamline my blog, trimming the fat from my tags. So enjoy browsing my newly condensed categorized tags, or check out My Book List and the posts my reading has inspired.

Is Christianity relevant?

The relevance of Christianity and the gospel has been a dominant theme in my thinking lately. So when several quotes in my reading and podcasting (or should that be podcast-listening?) addressed the issue, I couldn't put them down. I think it all started while reading Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller, but since I can't quote the whole book here, I'll just endorse the book as a case study in the relevance of Christianity.

However, there were some quotes I did want to (and have the room to) share with you:

"Entertainment has destroyed our ability to think and prioritize. We lack discernment. We care about irrelevant things and ignore what is actually important. Unfortunately, the Christian community often responds by heaping 'Christian' noise on the rest of the noise. Attempting to be 'relevant' to students, we instead contribute to their appetites for distraction. Entertainment has made us silly and Christian entertainment has made our students silly Christians."
- John Stonestreet, Summit Ministries

"Under pretexts such as 'contextualization,' 'missional living,' and 'relevance,' an unbridled willingness to accommodate Divine truth to human preferences is now going on virtually unchecked in the modern and postmodern evangelical movement. Multitudes of Christians today think it is their prerogative to mold and shape everything—worship, music, and even the Word of God itself—to the tastes and fashions of the world."
- Phil Johnson, blogger with Pyromaniacs

"You are at your most relevant when you are at your most loving."
- Paul Matthies, guest preacher at The Village Church

I can spend so much time trying to watch the right movies, read the right books, and learn up on all the right topics that I neglect the "greater things". It's not that I'm avoiding working on becoming a more loving person. But if I am investing more time and effort to bolster my relevance than I am to build of my love for others, I will constantly be falling flat on my face.

Now, in reflection, my motives were good enough. I wanted to show the beauty, hope, and relevance of the gospel of grace and salvation in Jesus Christ. But if I only feel relevant while talking movies, books, and ideas that everyone else is talking about, I am deeply missing something. If I think that being able to talk about Lost, The Shield, American Idol, The Shack, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and all the other stuff gives me an edge over simply being loving (and growing out of that: gracious, winsome, humble, teachable, honest), then I have bought into a sad lie. If I understand all mysteries and all knowledge but have no love, I am nothing.

Read the Bible like a newspaper

"Do you take the Bible literally?" This is a question that I've been asked on more than one occasion and it seems to be a common challenge for the Christian. While my first reaction was to say "yes, of course", I realized this wasn't true. I don't take Jesus' parables literally. I take them for what it seems the speaker and author intended: a fictional story to illustrate a literal truth. I don't take some of the Song of Songs literally. I take it for what it seems the author intended: poetic literature. (I'm certain that Solomon's wife didn't really have a neck like a tower)

I've found that one of the easiest answers to this question is this: "I read the Bible like I read the newspaper". As I considered this further, I found it to be a very effective analogy (though never perfect, as no analogy ever will be). Consider: a newspaper is written by many different authors and in various styles, so different portions must be interpreted accordingly. But the reader can't just interpret the paper however they like. One must read each article and section in the way that the author(s) intended. Consider the confusion if the comics section were taken literally. And just like the Bible, the context of the surrounding page and section helps clarify the author's writing style and intent.

So just as we read and interpret the cover story in the newspaper differently than the advice column and differently than the political cartoons, we read the historical naratives in the Bible differently than the Proverbs and differently than the parables.

And now a couple qualifications for those over-analytical minds. Of course the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and moral authority in Scripture put it on an entirely different level of writing. I use this illustration simply to show how familiar people really are with the concept of interpreting one body of literature in different ways based on context and author's intent. It also serves to show that the reading is not entirely subjective and up to the reader to decide "what it means for them".

Who dies with toys anyway?

Have you noticed how popular our cars have become as a medium for our beliefs and arguments? For Christians, you can buy a fish. For evolutionists, a fish with legs. For Christians fighting back, a TRUTH fish eating the fish with legs. And, in return, a Darwin fish with legs eating the Jesus fish. There's pro-gun and anti-gun. There's pro-choice and pro-life. If you've got anything you feel strongly about, it can probably be boiled down to one terse sentence and stuck on your car.

One of the "bumper debates" I've seen taking place on our highways revolves around materialism. One bumper sticker reads "He who dies with the most toys . . . wins." And in reply, "He who dies with the most toys . . . still dies."

I remember growing up learning about the pharaohs of Egypt and their practice of being entombed with their chariots, jewelry, furniture, and everyday necessities. I was also horrified to learn that a pharaoh's servants, concubines, and even pets would often be killed and buried along with him. As I recall this now, I can think of no better picture of the dies-with-toys-wins mentality. And yet, I think I live in a nation of people who would amass, hoard, and kill to be buried with such things if only they had the clout, power, and god-status of a pharaoh. The only thing sadder than dying with your stuff is dying (and killing) for your stuff while you're still alive.

Which brings us to the latest book I am reading, Worldliness: Resisting the Seduction of a Fallen World. And as contributor Dave Harvey asserts, "Austerity and indulgence won't cure the bankruptcy of soul and emptiness of life that commonly result when our covetous desires are allowed free reign . . . Jesus was quite serious in saying, 'How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!' (Luke 18:24). But this doesn't mean God is biased against the rich; it means the rich are often biased against God. Their affluence feels like it meets needs, but it really diverts attention from the Savior to their stuff."

Unfortunately, most Americans (even the Christian ones) have fallen in to the trap of materialism. We neglect those in need, those in third world countries and those next door, for the sake of a nicer car, newer house, or an impressive DVD collection (yes, that one's me). In this way, we are dying and killing for stuff. We choke our hearts with the fat of possessions, rather than the lean love of Christ. Of course, I am not advocating selling every possession and living on the street. But when we love what we amass more than Christ, we are becoming like the pharaohs of Egypt. Who will suffer and die just so you can have more things in your tomb?

How do you respond?

I've had my share of spiritual conversations, and I've been audience to a few as well. I have found that being a faithful follower of Christ is often as much about how you answer as what answers you give.

When engaging a person who doesn't claim to be a Christian, they will almost always have reasons. Some will be well thought out, like the problem of the existence of evil. Some will be less so, like "I just don't think much about that sort of stuff". Some will be historical, like the Crusades and witch trials. And still others will be emotional and experiential, like the personal experience of being browbeaten by a Christian parent.

What ever the case may be, we are always presented with a choice of how to respond to challenges, doubts, questions, and criticisms of Christianity. In order to stimulate some self-reflection, I'd like to discuss a couple of the ways one may respond:

Retreat. This is often the path of least resistance. I've been guilty on more than one occasion of simply biting my tongue when I didn't even want to involve myself in a conversation. While Christ and his followers were metaphorically smeared in the mud, I stood idly by. This can be a tempting course especially if one is new to Christianity or feels unprepared to talk about their faith. While I personally devour any book on apologetics (the defense of the faith), one doesn't have to be well-versed in all the arguments for Christianity to get involved. Often a personal account of a life changed is more powerful than a book full of arguments. Of course, there are times when not saying anything can be the most effective witnessing tool. However, I've found St. Francis of Assisi's quote "Preach the Gospel at all times, and when necessary, use words" as an easy excuse for those too lazy to read up or too afraid to speak up.

Retaliate. This is returning challenge for challenge, and intensity for intensity. Retaliation lies on the other end of the spectrum from retreating from a conversation. I've seen conversations go bad very quickly as a "defender of the faith" burns all their bridges by being defensive, aggressive, close-minded, or just plain hateful. Retaliation can rear its ugly head in many different ways but it is characterized more by the tone and intent than by the content. For just one example, there is a way to discuss the reality of hell, and many ways not to. While, at times, retreat can be a proper response, I've never seen retaliation used well.

Reject. This seems to be a popular angle in today's culture. Since Christianity is getting such a bad rap, I'll just reject what ever is most offensive and keep the rest. This can be as simple as rejecting the title of Christian ("I'm not a Christian, I am a follower of Jesus"). Or it can be the rejection of orthodoxy and parts of Scripture that don't sit well with us or others (like the rejection of hell resulting in the rising popularity of universalism). The question of whether rejection is a good approach or not lies squarely upon what it is you are rejecting. While I don't have a problem with it in principle, you can only reject so much of what is offensive about Christianity before you are either forced to reject Christianity altogether or resort to the last response.

Reform. While changing a person's heart is in the hands of God, we can often help remove some of the roadblocks in a person's mind. This is rooted in reforming a person's concepts (or more often misconceptions) of Christianity in a way that is winsome, honest, humble, and gracious. For instance, every time someone wants to bring a laundry list of Christian tragedies (from the Inquisition to Ted Haggard and everything in between), I carefully remind that one can't judge a belief on its abuses. In fact, against most criticisms and challenges, I find the life of Christ to be the most compelling answer on almost every level (historical, spiritual, existential, etc.) I see my role as simply one of removing myself and as many misconceptions as I can out of the way so that they may see the beauty of the gospel.

"Conduct yourselves with wisdom toward outsiders, making the most of the opportunity. Let your speech be seasoned with salt, so that you will know how you should respond to each person." Colossians 4:5,6