It’s a new day in American Christianity. Our culture is naturally separating itself from “Christianity” like any other self-proclaimed Christian nation has in history. The days when the suburban majorities were at church on Sundays and Wednesdays are coming to an end. As families carry on with everyday life, “church” is losing its slice in our time and priority pies. You all (my assumed readers) know this, and I’m not trying to inform anyone of these things as if I am a prophet proclaiming a new truth. I just wanted to take time to say that this “new day” scares me.
It doesn’t scare me because I think America should continue to cultivate easy and consumerist discipleship, or foster the self-help patriotic gospel. It scares me because my faith is going to have to rely on a lot more than just the cultural norm to sustain itself. I may actually need to turn to and rely on Jesus! I may need to start learning how to live a radically different life and not just chase the “blessed” American dream.
My convictions to become more self-sacrificial with my money, time, and energy are too strong to ignore. But these convictions run right into the face of everything I’ve grown up on and know as a “normal life”. I am now forced to start making daily choices. There is the daily choice to have my “church pie piece” shrink and “carry on with everyday life” to flow with my culture. And then there is the daily choice to give my whole pie to God, and be a pieless fool living on earth.
All of this is not to say that I’m not excited for some of the beautiful things to come in the light of these changes, such as; The movement and enthusiasm in social justice, The fight against poverty, The concern over our stewardship of this planet, and many other movements that seem more relevant to the american church now then ever.
The bottom line is that I don’t want to be a fool. But I guess that’s what I’m being convicted to be. And that is what scares me in all of this cultural change.
Now this may sound like foolishness to some, but I hope it can bring comfort and hope to you if you feel the same way that I do.
“For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone. If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord” Romans 14:7-8
Authored by William Slack
