"The apostasy from Christianity will not come about by everybody openly renouncing Christianity; no, but slyly, cunningly, by everybody assuming the name of being Christian."
These words were written by Soren Kierkegaard, a Christian author and philosopher, somewhere around 1950. Who would have known that it wasn't in his time that this "prophecy" would be fulfilled, but that it would esssentially come to fruition in the first decade of the 21st century?
The United States of America is supposedly becoming more and more Christian. When you look at polls, you see that somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of people living in the U.S. consider themselves Christians. We may look at that information and get excited about the results of our evangelism efforts - "Look at us! Our nation is becoming a Christian nation! More and more people are becoming Christians, so we must be doing something right."
In his fantastic essay in Harper's Magazine (entitled "The Christian Paradox: How a Faithful Nation Gets Jesus Wrong"), Bill McKibben doesn't argue with the poll, but disagrees with the outcome. Other polls taken have shown that our "Christian" nation may be filled with name-only Christians:
- only 40% of Americans can name more than four of the Ten Commandments, only 50% can cite any of the four authors of the Gospels.
- 12% of Americans believe that Joan of Arc was Noah's wife.
- 75% of Americans believe that the Bible teaches that "God helps those who help themselves."
And this is where McKibben goes off. He provides a very convincing argument that the above statement is truly what Americans live out in their lives - a statement which was written by Benjamin Franklin - and a statement that conveys the state of American's current "individualistic politics and culture." McKibben goes on to say that not only is the statement "God helps those who help themselves" not blblical, it is in fact counter-biblical, and that "few ideas could be further from the gospel message."
The paradox that he demonstrates in his essay is this: America is simultaneously the most professedly Christian of the developing nations and yet the least Christian in its behavior.
"America is a place saturated in Christian identity. But is it Christian? Christ was pretty specific about what he had in mind of his followers. What if we chose some simple criterion - say, giving aid to the poorest people - as a reasonable proxy for Christian behavior?"
He goes on to show that in 2004, as a share of our economy, we rank second to last, after Italy, among developed countries in government foreign aid.
"By pretty much any measure of caring for the least among us you want to propose - childhood nutrition, infant mortality, access to preschool - we come in nearly last among the rich nations, and often by a wide margin."
He goes on to say this:
"This Christian nation also tends to make presonal as opposed to political, choices that the Bible would seem to frown upon.
- we are the most violent rich nation on earth, with a murder rate 4 to 5 times that of our European peers.
- our prison population is 6 to 7 times higher than Europe.
- we are the only Western democracy left that executes its citizens, mostly in statest where Christianity is theoretically the strongest (like Texas - my two cents here).
- our marriages end in divorce 50 percent of the time.
- teenage pregnancy is at the top of the charts."
He goes on to demonstrate what he (and I) believes is the explanation - that most Americans have replace the Christianity of the Bible, with its call for deep sharing and personal sacrifice, with a competing creed - one that is individualistic, consumeristic, and ends up being a kind of soft-focus, comfortable, suburban faith.
One of the best parts of this article for me was the example he gives of a church that demonstrates this individualistic creed - because the church he describes was located within the same community that I lived in when I was in Arizona, a church that I attended a couple of times to see what they were like, since they were booming in attendance. He also gives Joel Osteen, the popular minister (and author, gag) of Lakewood Church, a megachurch in the city of Houston. Osteen's book, Your Best Life Now, has been described as "a treatise on how to get God to serve the demands of self-centered individuals." (Ironically, the youth minister of the church I talked about above has Osteen's book as his favorite book. Hmmm.)
McKibben doesn't give these examples to show that all of this is bad in itself, obviously some of the churches in America are doing good things, even megachurches, it's just that we "somehow manage to ignore Jesus' radical and demanding focus on others, not ourselves."
I'm reading a great book right now, recommended in John's blog, titled Mere Discipleship. Although sometimes this book gets weighed down in intellectual trains of thought (chapters 3 through 5 come to mind), the author makes a convincing argument that American Christianity has diverted from the narrow road of discipleship to the wide road of individualism, capitalism, and especially nationalism. (His section where he talks about Christians and war is incredible.)
I honestly believe that the American Christianity landslide of individualism, comfortable faith, and consumerism has gained too much momentum to stop it. Although I see the ideology of the emerging church to be refreshing, biblical and hard-hitting, I just don't see it making a huge dent in what's already happened. I firmly believe that the only way that the church will turn back to following the actual ways and teachings of Jesus will be for an intense persecution of Christianity in America to happen. Then we will see who really is on "God's side". Then we will truly find out who wants to be a disciple of Jesus, to take up his cross and daily follow him, even in the face of persecution, torture and even death. I haven't gone so far as to pray for persecution to happen to us in this country, but perhaps its high time to do just that.
I like what Roger had to say about America when we were talking one day about whether it was appropriate to do a certain patriotic song or not. He said something to the effect of: "Why do we keep saying 'God bless America?' Hasn't God blessed us enough? Why don't we say 'God bless Kenya' or 'God bless China' or a country that actually needs to be blessed?"
He had a great point. God has blessed this country, and we've gorged ourselves on His blessing. What we need to do now is to share His blessing with those who actually need it.
4 comments:
"God helps those who helps themselves." it sounds a lot like another clever saying i heard: "do what you must." this saying is by a man named anton levay. he is the founder of the Satanic church. In fact, real satanism doesn't worship a devil in a red suit, it worship one's self. the concept gets lost among biblical followers, but our consumeristic, capitalistic society would like us to think that doing what is right for you is ok, even biblical. this is just not the case. to really get crazy, most "conservative" american Christians would make it seem like capitalism and consumerism go hand in hand with Christianity. but if you study the Gospels and Acts, you will see a much different story. they were living in a more communistic fashion: sharing everything, nobody in need, selling their property to supply for the group. but in america it is heretical to equate Christianity with communism. so i won't do that, i will just say that the New Testament shows a much different picture than what we are taught today.
Unfortunately, communism gets associated with fascism and other political agendas and ideas, so saying Christians should be communistic tends to scare people off.
However, you're right - the early church was communistic. The end of Acts 2 and the end of Acts 4 both show that.
But again, I can't see how American Christianity will ever get back to the early church, unless something major major major major happens that blows up everyone's twisted and distorted idea of what being a Christian is all about.
Wow 75% that's a majority that believe the total opposite of what Christ teaches us Unfortunately you're right it will take a major shaking up to weed out the true Christ followers I personally don't like "big" mega churches I see too many people slip in and out with no commitment but call themselves "christians" It hurts sometimes to care about others to reach out to others and to sacrifice for others and alot of people aren't willing to put themselves in that situation and honestly "love others"
"America Bless God" is what my spiritual Mother always says. God is not mocked whatever this country has sown it most assuredly shall reap. i just pray that i be counted worthy to escape those things that are to come.
Post a Comment