“For
the first time in its history, the United States does not have a Protestant
majority, according to a new study. One reason: The
number of Americans with no
religious affiliation is on the rise. The percentage of Protestant adults in
the U.S. has reached a low of 48 percent, the first time that Pew Forum on
Religion & Public Life has reported” (Associated Press, 10/9/2012).
This study goes on to say that the fastest growing segment of adult
Americans is those who have no religious affiliation of any kind. Approximately
20 percent identify with this group, which is currently growing at an amazing one
percent per year.
During the first week of April
2009, two significant events spoke to this issue. First was the cover story of Newsweek magazine, “The Decline of
Christian America,” a well-written and thought-provoking piece. The second was
a statement that President Obama made while speaking in Turkey: “America is not
a Christian nation.” What an interesting place the President chose to make this
statement. Turkey is a predominately Muslim nation.
Frankly, I don’t have an argument
with either the Newsweek article or
the President’s statement because I think they are simply confirming the obvious.
We live in a post-Christian nation and the quicker we awaken to this fact and
embrace it, the better off we will be. In the three years since the Newsweek article and the President’s
statement, the number of people claiming to be Christians in America has
continued to decline. Currently, less than 19 percent of Americans attend
church regularly and that percentage grows smaller every year. While we rejoice
in the growth of a few mega-churches, the hard fact is that Christianity is
declining — it’s dying in America!
More than once in the last few
years I have written that we are in a critical time in the Church and that stormy
weather is ahead. The dark clouds now gathering on the horizon are more
significant than any we have previously experienced.
You may think I’m crazy, but
stormy weather actually can have a positive effect on the Church and its future.
Harsh attacks on the Church that threaten its existence can have a cleansing
and refocusing effect. Rodents that have been a nuisance, that have brought
filth into the ship of faith, and have fed on food that was not theirs, will
clear out or be washed away. Everything that is not tied down will get blown
away and many believers will find their voices in witness and new power in
prayer.
When the early Church had
difficulty fulfilling the Great Commission and simply wanted to hang out in
Jerusalem, God put an end to their unwillingness by permitting the hammer of
persecution to fall. God took a missionary in pre-training and used him to
scatter the Church (see Acts 8:1). Before his conversion, Paul (then called
Saul) was used of God to pressure the Church and cause them to spread
throughout the Roman Empire. They did not go willingly — they only stepped out
because they feared for their lives. Will God allow the hammer of persecution
to fall on America? Just how arrogant are we?
In China today, the Church is
spreading more rapidly than just about anywhere else on earth. The more the Communists try to stamp out
Christianity, the more it spreads. The more persecution falls on the Church,
the greater the purity of the believers; the greater the purity of the
believers, the more they are available to the Holy Spirit; the more they are
Spirit-led, the more the Church spreads, resulting in more evangelism.
I hope what I just wrote causes
some of you to be uncomfortable, maybe even angry. We call ourselves here in
the West a Spirit-filled community and yet the persecuted Church around the
world is more powerfully alive and well than we are, even though they have
almost nothing in comparison to our freedom and affluence. Our Church in the West
is shrinking and losing what little influence we had. The persecuted Church,
living under tyranny, is thriving, growing, and no matter what the oppressors
do, they cannot shut it down. When the heavy boot of persecution stomps on the Church,
the remnants squirt out the sides and start all over. What began as one body of
believers and was persecuted suddenly becomes several, and all of them have the
life of Jesus flowing in and through them.
I think the best thing that could
happen to the Church in North America right now would be a good slap of
persecution. Maybe a hard head-slap would knock some of the silliness out of
the Pentecostal/charismatic Church. Maybe throwing a few evangelical pastors in
jail would cause contemporary thinking to get reoriented to what is really
important instead of what is cool and culturally relevant. Maybe the blows of
the persecutor would cause some of the pastors of historic denominations to get
up off their padded chairs and walk the streets ministering the life of Jesus
to the lost, lonely and broken. Maybe a good punch in the nose would cause the
sleepy Church of 2012 to wake up and act like the Church was destined to be.
Maybe taking away the tax incentives for charitable giving and taking away the
tax-free status of churches would get us back to the basics of why we worship
through giving!
“The world would love you as one of its own if you
belonged to it, but you are no longer part of the world. I chose you to come
out of the world, so it hates you. Do you remember what I told you? ‘A slave is
not greater than the master.’ Since they persecuted me, naturally they will
persecute you” (John 15:19-20,
New Living Translation).
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