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In a culture increasingly less Christian than the one in which we grew up, what is our challenge and what is our task?
Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #48 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.
"We live in a world that is de-Christianizing, often self-consciously and intentionally.”
You’ve heard of the Greatest Generation or the Boomers—my generation—and Millennials—so-called “digital natives,” the first to grow up with the internet and computers, and then Generation Z or “Zoomers”—the first cohort to grow up with social media and near unlimited access to screens.
“Generation Z are young people born between 1997 and 2015, and they are the least religious generation ever. Roughly one third of Gen Zers also claim that they have no religion whatsoever, but Gen Z’s percentage of atheists is 21 percent while the percentage of Millennials who are self-proclaimed atheists is 15 percent…Barna Research calls them ‘the first truly post-Christian generation.’”
And by the way, “alongside this (declining faith among young people) in America today, we have seen dramatic increases in the rates of anxiety, depression, and suicide. Both the decrease in overall faith and the increase in depression have been amplified by the pandemic.”
Our emerging generations hold a different view of truth. The general sense among those in Gen Z is that what is true for someone else might not necessarily be “true for me.” …52 percent of these young people have no trust in organized religion.
They have a connection to a religion, but it is completely different from what that meant in the past. Almost one third of the same group of affiliated individuals note that they do not believe that being a part of a religion means that you have a faith community. Barna Research also notes that (incredibly,) “more than one-third of Gen Z (37%) believes it is not possible to know for sure if God is real.”
If you think truth is a merely preference, and if you don’t know for sure if God is real, what does this say about your religious views? Certainly, you would not call these view “Christian.”
Some call this emerging culture “Post-Christian.”
“Postchristianity is the situation in which Christianity is no longer the dominant civil religion of a society but has gradually assumed values, culture, and worldviews that are not necessarily Christian. Post-Christian tends to refer to the loss of Christianity's monopoly in historically Christian societies.”
“A post-Christian society is not merely a society in which agnosticism or atheism is the prevailing fundamental belief. It is a society rooted in the history, culture, and practices of Christianity but in which the religious beliefs of Christianity have been either rejected or, worse, forgotten.”
In 2020, Dr. George Barna’s research found, “Evangelicals are rapidly embracing secularism, with a majority (52%) rejecting absolute moral truth, 75% believing that people are basically good rather than the biblical view of humans having a sin nature, and 61% admitting they no longer read the Bible on a daily basis. One-third to one-half of evangelicals (those that supposedly really tune in to the Word of God) embrace a variety of beliefs and behaviors in direct conflict with longstanding evangelical teaching.
Meanwhile, 60% of mainline Protestants’ beliefs directly conflict with biblical teaching. Their customized belief system revolves around three key values: truth and morality are decided by the individual, not God or the Bible; life has no inherent value or purpose, so individuals should pursue personal happiness or satisfaction; and traditional religious practices are no longer seen as central or essential to their Christian faith.
How can you call this Christian?
‘It’s one thing for Americans to be confused on the finer points or even hotly debated elements of theology,’ Barna explained. ‘But for Americans to misunderstand or to flat out reject the Bible as a foundational source of truth and moral guidance, to reject salvation by grace alone, and to reject core doctrines of the Christian faith points to a major crisis in our society.’”
This crisis starts, by the way, in the family. “Family breakdown is in fact the largest single social disaster plaguing the post-Christian society…When the family breaks down, we get crime, drug-taking, impoverishment, psychological problems, and much else at the personal level; and we get a cycle of deprivation, the growth of an underclass, spiraling social-welfare costs, over-government, and severe budgetary problems at a national level.”
“Only 6% of Americans possess a biblical worldview. biblical worldview – which refers to consistently interpreting and responding to life situations based on biblical principles and teachings.”
Some have called the emerging, ambiguous religious outlook a mouthful of a term, “Moral Therapeutic Deism.” This jargon probably does not help much, but it may be helpful to recognize what it stands for:
- God wants people to be good, nice, and fair.
- The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.
- God does not need to be particularly involved in one's life except when God is needed to resolve a problem.
- Good people go to heaven when they die.
Christians, those who actually believe the Bible for what it claims that it is, the inerrant, infallible Word of God, cannot embrace these watered down, fake Christianity viewpoints of so-called Moral Therapeutic Deism.
We do not just believe God exists but believe he is actively engaged in our lives.
Yes, we believe we should be nice, but the real challenge is we know we must follow the Lord and not sin. We know that in contemporary terms “fair” means everyone gets what he or she wants and everyone must get the same, which is not realistic, not always right, and ironically, in the end not “fair.” We know that being happy is not the end-goal of life; working to glorify God is our ultimate goal.
And Christians know that we are not righteous and not worthy of heaven no matter what life we lead, and that everyone needs to respond to the Good News of the Gospel, that Jesus died to pay for our sin so that we might be forgiven, liberated from sin, and one day indeed go to heaven.
Today’s post-Christian world, with its self-centeredness, its quest for happiness and rejection of sacred order and transcendent values, is a rival religion to authentic Christianity.
The term “post-Christian” has some value as a descriptor of an age, but frankly I don’t like it much, because I don’t believe the world will ever be without Christians or Christian witness and influence.
Our calling in this, our moment, is to discern truth from error, speak the truth in love, and to “always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect,” (1 Pet. 3:15).
We are to be real.
Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends. For more Christian commentary, check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com.
And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.
© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2022
*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.
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Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live during what the Scripture calls “the Last Days”? Well, you may know more about this than you think.
Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #33 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.
Maybe every generation facing some dark development of history thought it was facing what Scripture calls the Last Days. I don’t know because I didn’t live during those times.
I do know people honestly considered whether the End Times was upon them when the sadly named “War to End All Wars,” WWI, stagnated in the muddy trenches of Western Europe. I know, too, that more than a few people seriously believed Adolph Hitler was the Anti-Christ himself, heralding events leading to the end of the Age.
But what about now, 2022? Are we actually living in the Last Days?
I’ve noted before in this space that my 90-year-old Mother thinks we are living in the Last Days, and I’ve begun to agree with her. She knows, and I know, that the Bible warns us about setting dates, but it also gives us a heads up on the conditions human beings will experience during the Last Days.
Think of 2 Tim. 3:1-5: “There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—having a form of godliness but denying its power.”
Does that sound like the early 21st Century?
Or how about Romans 1, where the Apostle Paul tells us why humanity behaves the way we do in the latter days, and why we need salvation:
- suppress the truth by our wickedness,
- since creation God’s invisible qualities clearly seen, so people are without excuse,
- thinking became futile and foolish hearts were darkened.
- claimed to be wise, but became fools,
- sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.
- exchanged the truth about God for a lie,
- women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another.
- filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice, gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful,
- disobey their parents,
- have no understanding, no fidelity, no love,no mercy,
- invent ways of doing evil.
Again in 2 Tim. 3:12-13,
- everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,
- evildoers and impostors will go from bad to worse.
Luke 21:
- nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.
- great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven.
- when you see Jerusalem being surrounded by armies, you will know that its desolation is near.
- nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea.
- people will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken.
So, the Last Days is not a cakewalk. Things go from bad to worse, and it feels like this has accelerated in the past few years. But again, I don’t want to suggest I have an insider knowledge of God’s timetable, nor that we are living in the Tribulation Period, which will be much worse than we’ve so far witnessed.
But still, social conditions are worsening.
Once people embrace the idea there is no God to whom we are accountable and no truth standard to live by, which American culture has done, we’re left with moral and behavioral chaos. That’s what we see today.
- Increasingly rootless, anxious, alienated, sometimes rage-filled youth, resulting in a long list of personal and social pathologies, including mass shootings,
- not just a growing bias against but direct harassment, possibly persecution, of the Christian Church,
- sin and moral choices are medicalized, and the resulting emotional ripple effects are labeled mental illness,
- more pestilence, like pandemics, more wars, like Ukraine, more economic pain, including inflation, unemployment, lack of resources, supply chain problems.
Now what is the Christian response to all this genuine doom and gloom?
- Do we withdraw and hide? Live in our own churchy cocoon?
- Do we attack, attempting to slay the dragon, the Prince of the Power of the Air, Luther himself, and all his minions?
- Or do we sally forth with knowledge of the Sovereign God, the Word, and what he says about the end of history, then live out our life proclaiming the Lordship of Christ in all of life?
I like option #3, know the Word, proclaim the Lordship of Christ in all of life.
How do we do this?
- Well, we understand and share that we don’t have all the answers, but we have the answer, so, we place our hope in Christ, not politics, not political parties, not ideology, not politicians, which means we studiously avoid what a lot of conservative Christians seem to have done in recent years.
- We speak the truth in love, with gentleness and respect (2 Pet. 3:15). And we recognize that people around us, including family and friends, may not always want to hear the truth, and thus associate those who speak truth with something intolerant, holier than thou, or unloving.
- We demonstrate an attitude not of despair but of optimistic realism– recognizing the reality of sin in a fallen world but acknowledging that our Sovereign God is there, and he is not silent.
- We live not in fear but in hope – not a vain wish, like I hope my team wins this Saturday, but real hope in an event—the Parousia—already accomplished on the Cross and the empty tomb two millennia ago.
We live as unto the Lord. “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up” (Gal. 6:9).
Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best.
If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends. For more Christian commentary, check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com.
And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.
© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2022
*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.
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“We do not know why God is doing what he is doing, but we know why we trust God, who knows why…We may be in the dark about what God is doing, but we are not in the dark about God.”
I thought of this favorite Os Guinness quote this evening watching coverage of Afghanistan and Haiti, then hearing of a young family in our church just in an auto accident in which the teen daughter was seriously injured.
Why? I don’t know, but I am blessed to know and trust God who is at once the omnipotent, omniscient Sovereign God of the Universe and our Heavenly Father. These are not hollow platitudes. This is knowable truth.
© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2021
*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.
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Christianity is often reduced to “Don’ts,” restrictions, perceived prudish limitations. And it’s true, there are “Thou shalt nots,” but that list is actually rather short. These principles are given to protect us from harm and evil, so we ignore them at our own peril.
But Christianity is also about so much more, about goodness, order, blessing, peace. Christian faith in the Sovereign God provides meaning (w/o God you can’t determine who you are or why you exist) and truth (w/o objective truth you don’t know right from wrong, fact from fiction), defines reality (w/o the Creator you live in a world of your own making governed by unreason, irrationality, insanity), and produces grace (w/o God there is only power not mercy) and hope (w/o God, the future is an abyss).
The intellectual decadence of our age claims Christianity is irrelevant. But this is delusion for Christianity is in the 21st Century temporally applicable and eternally significant…and you are eternally significant, made in the image of God. Know Christ, live out a Christian worldview, experience light and life, and promise.
© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2021
*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.
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Year 2020 seems to be the Year-of-Discord. We’re a divided and fragmented people, and it feels like it’s getting worse.
Christians used to disagree about music, church worship format, versions of the Bible, and lifestyle issues. Remember the old ditty, “I don’t drink, and I don’t chew, and I don’t go with girls who do?” That was funny, and though it strikes us as innocent now, it captured some of the church battles of the past fifty years.
In 2020, issues are more intense.
We strenuously disagree about COVID-19: Wear a mask—Don’t wear a mask.
We disagree about how to deal with racism and position slogans in opposition: “Black lives matter” vs “Blue lives matter” vs “All lives matter.”
We disagree about sexuality – LGBTQ, same-sex marriage, and much more.
…about the 2nd Amendment and defunding the police.
…about climate change, and what causes wildfires or hurricanes.
…about immigration, borders, and how to help the poor.
…about “Make America Great Again” vs. “Build Back Better.”
These issues are dividing the Church. The Body of Christ is increasingly at odds with itself.
Yet God said, “Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.” There is one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all. (Eph. 3:4-6).
Discord makes a field day for the Devil. A divided Church, one lacking unity, is a less effective Church. If we are not able to get along with other Christians in our fellowship—or God forbid we’re exchanging rancor and distrust—we are not blessed with fellowship. And worse, we offer nothing to those seeking peace and hope.
Now this does not mean we cannot disagree. In fact, respectful disagreement promotes critical thinking or spiritual discernment and wise decisions. Nor is this an argument for the moral equivalency of all issues, because this is untrue. The Bible speaks directly to the morality of some issues, while providing principles upon which we can draw to decide our stance regarding other issues.
In all this, we must disagree in a context of a Christian faith, meaning
--we affirm biblical values,
--we embrace Christian liberty and allow for differences of conscience,
--we speak the truth in love,
--we exercise grace with humility, knowing we all see through a glass darkly.
Politics are important but not more important than Christian faith.
We must honor others above ourselves…even and especially those with whom we disagree.
© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2020
*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.
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Is it possible to feel safe in an unsafe world?
Years ago, political activist Ralph Nader wrote a bestseller about the auto industry called Unsafe At Any Speed. The book put Nader on the map and was the subject of controversy for years.
Most of us care about safety. We want our family to enjoy life but be safe in the process. Yet we live in what the Scripture calls a “fallen world.”
Sin affects everything in God’s beautiful creation. Criminal behavior, disease, conflict and wars, not to mention bad weather, all confront us.
So how do we stay safe in an unsafe world?
In Psalm 142, King David is hiding from his enemies in a cave. He says, “I cry aloud.” “I pour out my complaint.” “No one is concerned for me.” “I am in desperate need.”
Then he refocuses on what he knows to be true: “O Lord, you are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living.”
When the seas of life seem ready to overwhelm us, the surest way to steady the ship is to trust in our heavenly Father.
© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2020
*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.