Modernity as a Barrier to Belief

On a spring afternoon in 1929 theologian and defender of the Christian faith, J. Gresham Machen shared the following words with the graduating class of Hampden-Sydney College.

If Machen were alive today he would likely agree that the 'whole current of the age' has very nearly succeeded in wiping away all that remains of true Christianity in America.

Now you may think this an overly pessimistic appraisal of the matter but consider the state of our culture today. All remnants of our nation's Christian heritage have been systematically removed from the public square and virtually every institution of culture is no longer led by Christians or the biblical view of the world. American Universities and Colleges are dominated by fundamental secularists who see higher education as a platform for liberal political indoctrination. The public education system has been reduced to a mechanism for the production of "standardized" thinking if it could even be called that and the mere mention of anything Christian, including overtly religious holidays such as Christmas, will trigger a reaction on the scale of an international incident. With the loss of thoughtful Christian influence, art and music have been reduced to their most base forms; devoid of any objective standards by which we may judge the true, the good, and the beautiful. Secular driven art deconstructs these categories as historically understood and pop music has degenerated into a primitive, sexualized, and bombastic praise and worship medium for hedonism.

The most recent political season exalted the position that one's "private" beliefs should not influence their public policy, meaning that religious beliefs in particular should be excluded from the public policy arena. Of course this perspective is telling in that it confirms that most people today categorize religion as a secondary source of knowledge and therefore non-religious belief systems are regarded as both rational and thus the primary source of "real" knowledge.

Former Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich articulated this perspective quite clearly in an article which appeared in The American Prospect in which he said, "The great conflict of the 21st century may be between the West and terrorism but terrorism is a tactic and not a belief. The underlying battle will be between modern civilization and anti-modernist fanatics; between those who believe in the primacy of the individual and those who believe that beings owe blind allegiance to a higher authority; between those who give priority to life in this world and those who believe that human life is no more than preparation for an existence beyond life; between those who believe that truth is revealed solely through scripture and religious dogma, and those who rely primarily on science, reason, and logic." You can see the distinction; any attempt to derive truth from a religious worldview is openly deemed irrational.

Culturally speaking the last century has seen the legitimization of abortion, sex outside of marriage, and homosexual behavior. The whole shift in sexual ethics has completely undermined God's design for the natural family to the extent that we stand on the brink of legalizing the unthinkable: marriage between persons of the same sex. A standard never before codified in the most pagan of cultures and yet here in America, a historically Christian nation, this notion is today advancing in our public policy. While the last presidential election and the defeat of same-sex marriage legislation in eleven states offered some cause for celebration, I fear based upon closer examination of the values and beliefs of the forthcoming generation this celebration is temporary unless something dramatic occurs in the spiritual life of America.

The lack of influence and subsequent exclusion of Christianity from public life has resulted from and further encourages a "privatized" faith among many professing Christians today. Unfortunately the "private" version of the Christian faith is no better than its public effects or lack thereof.

According to a recent national survey by George Barna only 4% of American adults have a biblical worldview as the basis of their decision-making. While this in and of itself should be adequate to raise alarm over the state of Christianity in America this is only the surface evidence of a much deeper crisis unfolding in the Church today. The criteria Barna and his team used in defining a "biblical worldview" were as follows:

This is hardly a comprehensive biblical framework for analyzing, evaluating, and guiding one's responses to the challenges and opportunities of life. These are merely the fundamental tenets of the Christian faith, the very basics of what it means to believe as a Christian! Again, according to this survey only four percent of American adults even believe these basic tenets and yet 85% of Americans claim to be Christian. What is worse is that according to a later study using these same criteria only 51% of Protestant pastors agree with all seven of these statements.

To be continued...

[This article appears in the Reformation & Revival Journal - 4th Quarter 2005]