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3 Reasons You Don't Have to Panic about the Death of Conversion

  • Carrie Dedrick What topic related to Christianity, faith, and the Bible is trending online and in social media today?
  • Updated Jul 20, 2015

“The sky is falling!” 

Recently there has been a Chicken Little-like feeling of imminent danger surrounding the Christian community. Christians are panicking in their belief that secular culture has taken over completely. The fear is that no one immersed in today’s secular culture will be able to find their way out and into the loving arms of Christ. 

But Desiring God blogger John Piper says the sky is not really falling on Christianity. This is not the end of people breaking free of secular culture and turning their lives over to Christ. 

Piper points to three reasons why there is still hope for revival. 

1. People are individuals that God can loosen from unbelief. 

Piper writes, “...we make a huge mistake if we forget that people get saved one at a time as unique individuals, not as mere specimens of the ‘culture.’”

That said, people have different experiences at different times. Someone could be mourning the loss of a family member, battling mental illness or watching a friend’s life change and wondering how it is happening. Circumstances will arise in life that can bring people closer to faith

Piper points to Romans 2:4 which says, “Don’t think of people as specimens of culture. Think of them as individual people that Providence may well be leading to repentance.” 

Though there is a groupthink mentality of unbelief in America, God meets people where they are as individuals. 

2. Animosity from people in secular culture does not mean rejection. 

Remember that old phrase, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again”? It applies here. 

When reaching out to an unbeliever, it is likely that your faith will be rejected before it is accepted. It may even cause anger and hostility. But do not accept that response as a final answer. As God works on that person’s heart, continue to speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15). 

In the meantime, keep your behavior honorable so that secular culture cannot point to your sins as a reason to reject Christianity.

1 Peter 3:16 says, “Have a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.” 

3. It is no harder to convert people in today’s culture than any other time in history. 

Piper says that the Calvinists of Puritan America faced the obstacle of secularism just as much as the Christians of today. But just as He has done for thousands of years, God can still revive the “spiritually dead.” 

Ephesians 2:4-5 says, “God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.” 

We do not need to panic about the current state of our culture. Tune out the naysaying Christians that tell you that secularism has finally won. 

David Burchett wrote in a recent Crosswalk.com blog,

“Nothing has changed in the Sovereignty and Holiness of God in the past month. Nothing. So I am not afraid. If fact, I am excited to see what God will do now that many of us have shifted our focus back to where it should have been all along. On a God who is loving, holy and sovereign and still very much in the business of accomplishing His eternal plan.”

Carrie Dedrick is the editor of ChristianHeadlines.com.