It is helpful to distinguish between cultural Christianity and convictional Christianity. Cultural Christians are those who are nominal (in name only) Christians. They identify with Christianity because of the social benefit, social status, or because it is the tradition. On the other hand convictional Christians are those who are true Christians. They follow Christ and hold orthodox beliefs.
Most of American history has been marked by a Christian consensus. Even those who where not true Christians still went along with basic Christian teaching and morality. But the Christian consensus has disappeared in recent times as society has been overtaken by secularism. Christian beliefs no longer dominate our culture after the rise of secularism.
In the secular city things such as homosexuality and transgenderism have become normal. The media, education, and entertainment industry no longer honor Christianity and are actually hostile to it. Since there is no longer a social benefit for identifying as a Christian, we are seeing the disappearance of cultural Christianity. For some millennials there is now no tradition of Christianity.
The disappearance of cultural Christianity means that fewer of those around us will hold the same values as us. But the disappearance of cultural Christianity is not all bad. We will begin to see who the real Christians are and who the nominal Christians are. When the culture turns against or becomes hostile to Christianity, those who are not the real deal will not stick around. We will see a purifying of the church and it will become stronger.
In reality America never was as Christian as some of us would like to believe. It never really was a Christian nation because there is no such thing. God's people is the church which is comprised of people from all nations.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.