Sunday, May 25, 2008

Post-Christian America?

As we didn't have a missions service scheduled anywhere this weekend, we attended Heartland Christian Fellowship. (Actually, we have very few services scheduled for the coming months.) At any rate, it's nice to be able to attend our "home church" now and then. We attended my dad's Sunday school class, which is studying the book A Life that Matters by Ron Hutchcraft. The chapter they were discussing today had to do with the lostness of those around us. It included some shocking statistics regarding how little knowledge Americans have of the Bible, Christ, the church and Christian philosophy. If the statistics are accurate, they are fairly damning of the church, pointing out that despite 200 years of cultural dominance, Christians have failed to be salt and light in American society. I actually question the validity of the statistics somewhat. While I certainly concede that America is a post-Christian culture, the remnants of its Christian heritage are everywhere evident. Even soap operas often have a church as an oft-visited site and a priest as a secondary character; sometimes the plotlines are overtly spiritual. While some--okay, many--Americans do not avail themselves of the opportunities they have to become Biblically literate, etc., there is no lack of resources for them to alleviate that situation. If there is not, then the church is failing miserably. To the extent that the church's leaders are hypocritical CEOs of corporations and the rank-and-file membership are passive consumers of the pablum of pop Christianity, we as the church should be horribly ashamed.

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