The more we watch the media’s portrayal of Christians and the more we witness the leftist in Hollywood depict the church it is obvious there is a real cynical and disrespectful view of the church in our society today. The bias coming from the left towards those who believe in God and who hold scriptures in high regard is becoming more and more blatant. Recently Focus on the Family reported that in Washington D.C. a few thousand folks gathered to promote their hatred for Christianity. Richard Dawkins the famed and now diseased Darwinist urged those in attendance to “show contempt of religious beliefs. Tim Minchin, another speaker at the event dropped the “F-bomb no less than 75 times. Some in the crowd held hate signs that read, “So many Christians, so few lions.” David Silberman, who is the head honcho of the American Atheists, stated at the rally, “Make no mistake- We are not going to D.C. for dialogue with people who believe ridiculous things- we are going to have fun with other like-minded people.” Wow doesn’t sound like a lot of diversity and tolerance going on in his head. This is just a sample of the attitude that is becoming more and more prevalent in our post-modern climate. Ric Santorum in a recent article wrote, “We are at a critical time in America. Those on the left live this battle every minute of the day. They do it in their schools, in their homes, in their church, at work. They are constantly pushing their agenda and they are marginalizing anybody and everybody who disagrees with them.
Of equal concern is the number of people who were recently polled who stated they have no religious affiliation whatsoever. In the 1950’s only a small percentage of Americans checked the “none” box around 3% of Americans shared no religious connection with a church. Today that number is a staggering 20% and growing. What makes the “none” group so passively dangerous is to have no moral or spiritual compass to direct your path, to have no objective truth standards in your life means that one can chose to believe in anything and no behavior is deemed either appropriate or inappropriate.
We as Christians value the phrase “One nation under God” for in that phraseology comes our understanding as from whence our blessings come. When the framers of the Declaration of Independence wrote the words, “We are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights that among them are life liberty and the pursuit of happiness” they recognized again that all rights and privileges must come from a higher source than man himself. That is what separated the American Revolution from the French Revolution. While our Founding Fathers called for an allegiance to the Father, the French Revolution called for solidarity of mind to liberty, equality, and brotherhood. No allegiance to God or his truths. That is why today Europe is one of the most Godless continents on the planet. The Revolution in France called for a burning of churches and killing of clerics. Today the Christian faith is but a shadow of what it once was in Europe.
R.R. Reno recently wrote an article in the Imprimis magazine that comes out of Hillsdale College. In that article he made some very interesting observations in reference to the “Nones” Those who hold no religious affiliation in America. He observed, “Nones” are heavily represented in elite culture. A
great deal of higher education is dominated by “Nones” as are important cultural institutions, the media and Hollywood.” Now if you consider that fact that people in both of these highly influential outlets hold to know appreciation for God or his Word is it any wonder why Christianity is so marginalized and dismissed so quickly as relevant? R.R. Reno went on to write, “For the first time in American political history, the winning party deliberately attacked religion. Its national convention famously struck God from the platform, only to have it restored by anxious party leaders in a comical session characterized by the kind of frivolity that comes when people recognize that it doesn’t really matter.”
As the church we must reach out to the “Nones” with a convincing message of hope and truth. Paul did a masterful job in relating to those who had absolutely no affiliation with the Christian faith. He spent his entire ministry converting the Gentiles. He debated the men of Athens in Acts 17. He used logic and reason to evangelize to these philosophical elitist. And once he had their attention he preached the full gospel of Christ. Verse 34 states, “some men joined him and believed.” I believe one reason why many highly educated people find the church so irrelevant is because we no longer appeal to the educated audience. They witness a shallow “praise service” complete with dancing girls and strobe lights followed by a superficial story time with the “pastor”. They leave the service feeling as if the church has absolute no merit or practical use for them. We have so dumbed down the message and the worship service so to not tamper with the “superficial seeker” that honest seekers with real questions and a hunger for truth leave our worship services literally starving. It would seem in our effort to be culturally relevant we have now become irrelevant as a movement.
In closing I realize the closer we get to the second return more and more tribulation will befall the church. There will be less and less people craving the meat of the word. But we as a body of New Testament Christians cannot eclipse God’s glory with shallow preaching and biblically sound teaching. I believe there are a great number of biblically starving “Nones” out there who are open to the truth and would be far less cynical and abrasive if we, as Paul did, would sit down with them and reason through the scriptures and defend the gospel with boldness and clarity.
A Word from the Book 