As changing views on gay marriage, among others, go to show, secularization marches on. Traditionalists may be on the losing end of historic real estate, at least for now, as well as booed out of the public square for their views on sex. Down the road, though, they still look to possess something else critical — a growing congregation without which every church, after all, is just a bed and breakfast waiting to happen.Oddly enough, it's what Edward Gibbon remarked on the strength and reason for growth in the early Christian church under the Roman Empire. Apparently "narrow" views on matters of everyday life can actually produce strength and growth in a culture that is explicitly contrary to those "narrow" views. And, oddly enough, she didn't consult me on the piece, so it appears that someone else besides Gibbon agrees with me on this. Now that is strange.
Monday, May 06, 2013
Orthodoxy is Winning
Mary Eberstadt is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. She wrote a piece for Time about what appears to be a surprising phenomenon of growth among conservative Christianity while liberal Christianity declines. She concludes:
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It's when we're burned in the public square that the church will be purest. The easy believers, the properity crowd, the liberals, the unregenerate, the lukewarm religious, none of those are going to stick to their similitude of faith when it gets expensive. I don't set much store by Gibbon for ecclesiology. The Lord will build His church and He did say that as His planned history winds up, the leaven eventually permeates the whole lump, and that the mustard plant becomes gigantic and a haven for the birds. The antichrist's global religion needs followers, from every camp. There will be many professing christians among them; otherwise, the man of sin wouldn't be significant as the false messiah, he would merely be just another heathen religious leader. We'll see increasing persecution, and a purer church under it, but the goats and their earscratchers won't go away; some might find pride and works-righteousness even under persecution. Oh look at me, I burned for God, now He has to let me in. Yes, the regenerate will function as salt; their surroundings will be influenced. But we must look very carefully at what is genuine beneficial influence, and what is merely lipstick on a pig. I read today that the US is 85% Christian. There is supposedly a similar proportion over here in Teutonia. Gimme a break...if there were that many genuine vessels of the Holy Spirit, would the culture look like it does today? And a couple of generations ago, the numbers were even better, and look what wonderful christian things they did. Churchianity vs real Christianity.....the remnant has always been very small. I'd say one in a hundred is a prudent estimate, at any time in history.
Jesus said, "When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on earth?" Looking around, I can understand the question. Interestingly, we're looking at it from an American perspective, and America is on a Christian decline. Other parts of the world are not. Some places to which we've sent missionaries in the past now view us as a vast mission field. So while it looks bad here, it doesn't to God.
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