Christianity is in trouble. The intellectual and moral challenges facing it are considerable, perhaps overwhelming. Intellectually: developments in almost every academic discipline are undermining traditional beliefs. To name a few: archeology, anthropology, biological sciences, neuroscience, psychology, paleontology. And morally: the child abuse scandal and cover-up is sufficient to defile the church forever. Often churches have sided with immorality—aggressive wars, persecution, slavery, apartheid, and dominance over women. When challenged by atheists about atrocities in the past, the reply is “well, atheists have done terrible things as well.” This is a non-answer. The point is that we should be much better. What have we done while claiming to hold to the transformative and reconciliatory message of Jesus?
The book I’m writing will look at how the life and message of Jesus can have transformative value in the 21st century. Part of the goal is to answer a question that people now ask: is there anything that Christianity can give us that we can’t get elsewhere? Here is the link if you are interested in supporting this project.
Christianity in trouble. ? It has been in trouble since the day it began. All these things you point out are nothing new. I put my faith in God.
Many of things I pointed out are new. The challenges posed are also new. As one example, evolutionary theory that undermines a host of traditional doctrines, as well as intensifying the problem of evil by drawing to light millions of years of apparently senseless suffering and extinctions.
[...] Leave a CommentOver at GospelFutures, Neil WIlliams has a post that asks the question “What Good is Christianity?”His point is basically this: Christianity is in trouble. Why? (1) [...]
I sincerely hope that the answer to your question, ‘what can Christianity give us that we can’t get elsewhere,’ includes the forgiveness of sins.
Should we be much better? Well, I suppose so in some aspirational sense.
Look at the heroes in the Bible and you will find some real characters doing some real wretched things.
I am just not sure about your writ of indictment. (And BTW, the wrongs you cite are pretty culture bound. Not building proper insane asylums or ending the trans-Atlantic slave would have been up there.) I cannot find anything in the Bible about outreach to the queer-questioning, although I am in no way in disapproval of that.
And not only has Christianity provided a stabilizing force, for better or worse – it has not done things like communism and kill 50 million people directly for the ideas.
That is just not so. Nor is it so that Christianity could have reached about and stopped all tribal violence, like was cited above, referring to Hotel Rwanda.
Unfortunately western, modern, people (not being limiting, people like might be on a blog like this) are looking for people to relate to them like Siri. Is this just a phase? Do people want an iChurch they can turn down -
The gospel used to be a glue, I think, a polite glue that was very important, mostly for the good in holding western civ together. Kind of like Miss Manners. Now there were people teaching more Bible-based, or academically sound, or enthusiastic gospel versions.
But using America as an example in the last hundred years. It was assumed that ALL things were mostly Christian in vague theology AND deportment.
People could be outliers. There could be some Jews. There could be some unwed mothers. There could be some porn, but you had to travel WAY out there to get it. And it was risky and morally degrading.
I think a great deal of this had to do with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Only sailors or middle-schoolers cursed like sailors.
I think that was better. And for a sound theological reason. I think people really thought it was wrong to do these things because of whatever bit of Gospel they heard or had written on their hearts.
So we maybe we need a distinction between civic religion and a transformative gospel.
One thing is for sure. You are not going to get doctrinal, confessional, creedal agreement before you anything like start something transformative like the Underground Railroad. (In that case you had some zealots, probably quite crazy like John Brown) – be careful what you ask for when you pray for change, your compatriots may have seen the glory of the coming of the LORD and carry Arkansas Toothpicks. matthew-11-12
re: “has not done things like communism and kill 50 million people directly for the ideas”: If we start adding people killed for being non-Christian–genocide of First Nation people in North America, genocide of Mayan, Aztec, and others in South America, the Crusades, religious wars in Europe, Inquisition, etc.–I expect the total would be pretty horrifying.
As for Jews being “outliers”–um, what about Jesus, Paul, and the disciples?
In addition, two thoughts: (1) what would be the “non-Christian” casualty rate if their persecutors had access to modern technology and weapons? (2) When looking at the causality rates in the 20th century and comparing them with previous centuries, note that the population figures were much higher in the 20th than in previous centuries. Steven Pinker’s book “The better angels of our nature: why violence has declined,” demonstrates the counter-intuitive conclusion that the 20th century wasn’t the most violent. He notes, for instance, “the death toll of the Crusader massacres as a proportion of the world population today come out at around 6 million, equivalent to the Nazis’ genocide of the Jews.”
Is Christianity, as we have known it, Christianity? Or is Christianity something larger, something bigger than we have realized? Isn’t the name itself limiting, suggesting that Truth is confined to history rather than to the present and future as well?
Suppose Christianity has barely scratched the surface of the meaning of the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ. Suppose that when Jesus said the kingdom is here is really what he meant and that His kingdom would grow just as other things grow. A seed is not apparently a tree, but after a long time that is what it can become. Do we really think that Christianity as historically defined is the Kingdom of God in all its fullness? Or that future generations will find themselves in no possession of truth beside that which we currently have?
If the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed then the fullness of the kingdom must be radically different in appearance than the humble beginnings. Who would ever deduce from appearances that a tree came from a seed? So it is with the Kingdom. To equate historic Christianity with the final and ultimate issue from the Seed, which is Christ, is foolishness. Eye has not seen, nor ear has heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man the things that God has prepared for us. This refers not merely to the eschaton, but to the reality of the growth of the Kingdom in this world.
Yes, and I think that is why it is helpful to see the gospel as a developing story. And like all good stories, it will have twists and surprises.
May I suggest the book by Dr. Edgar L. Eckfeldt titled “The Christian Legacy: Taming Brutish Human Nature In Western Civilization” (Life Wisdom Books, 2011). It subjects relate to many comments I see in this thread. It is a serious read. In hard copy, the book is 534 pages. It is available in Kindle. Dr. Eckfeldt was a chemist, research scientist, and in retirement, an artist. He was also my uncle. He wrote this book over the final ten years of his life, and passed on at age 98 in the year following its publication. It’s an extraordinary examination of Christian faith, what he calls “pristine Christianity”, in relationship to science, evolution, human psychology, and the history of Man from Cro-Magnon times though present in Western Civilization.