It's exciting to be a Christian right now

I’ve been studying a lot recently on the radical cultural shift of the last hundred years or so in the West.  Most Gen-Xers would say it’s a cultural shift from only the last 50 years (as they’ve seen it in their lifetimes), and it is true that a lot has changed since the mid-60s (some good, some bad).  But the mechanics of the shift have been a long time coming in the West, and are, to borrow a phrase from the Bible, our culture “filling up the measure of our sins.”  In other words, things weren’t great before, because bad change doesn’t just happen without cause.  It happens because some blind spot isn’t being dealt with, so to deal with it, another one (or four) is created.

Post-modern thought – the dominant mindset of both millenials (and an increasing amount of the older generation) – is so radically different than modern thought that older people and younger people don’t know how to speak each others “language,” let alone think like one another.  Modern people believed (and practiced) that the individual’s rights and choice to pursue happiness on their own terms is an inalienable right.  Post-modern people have kept this conviction, and taken this to an extreme that modern people had no clue was even possible.  And the cultural rub is the post-modern person saying, “We’re just doing what you’ve told us to do,” while the modern person responds, “Well ... I didn’t think you’d go that far.”  And so today’s parents between the ages of 40 and 60 struggle to speak to or even understand their kids or grandkids.  The kids or grandkids don’t care – mom/grandma is the one who needs to change (as Bill Nye has recently said on his Netflix show).

And when Christian thought is annexed to politics and behaviorism in the minds of both modern people and post-modern people, both sides lose all connection with what God really is after.  The modern person is more interested in the world being simple like it used to be, while the post-modern person wants to make the world a new kind of simple.  All of this kicks against the reality of Christ’s coming into the world to save the world by ushering in a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17), establishing His kingdom of peace and righteousness (Mk. 1:15), and doing it all through the truth of His life, death, and resurrection, received with “repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus” (Ac. 20:21). 

These realities are only accessible to the one who is over the conversation about who is right and who is wrong and who will win the cultural battle.  The world is going somewhere – that is one of the pieces of the Christian message that has set it apart since the beginning of the New Testament church (see Charles Taylor's The Secular Age, the chapter "The Impersonal Order").  And where is it going?  A new creation where truth and rightness reign (2 Pet. 3:12), only possible through an honest reckoning of our own sin and injustice today.

This is why Jesus began his ministry with “repent,” as did the Apostles.  Repentance is turning from the world’s thought patterns, battles, and cultural arguments, and pursuing what God has for us.  Thus, true Christians are described as those who no longer walk after the pattern of the world (Rom. 12:2, Eph. 2:1-3), but are seeking a heavenly treasure in a place where the fleeting opinions of man can’t lower it’s value (cf. Matt. 6:19-21).  And while they wait here for the reception of the treasure, they live lives of repentance, with Christ alone as their treasure and source of joy (Psalm 73:25-26, Hebrews 11, and 1 Pet. 1:6-8).  And that makes the Christian message valuable and relevant to a world stuck in the whirlwind of emotions and arguments, because the message for all, regardless of what generation, is, “Repent!  Turn and believe, and God will give you life, which is what we were made for!”

Here is what’s encouraging: God is sifting out His Gospel message from a society that has been content to have Him only in the conversation insofar as He makes life here more convenient.  The Gospel message is about how all of our problems are rooted deeper than we can imagine, and so we are to repent of the pride of pursuing a self-sovereign convenience, and live under the risen Jesus’ true rule and reign.  And I believe God is working today in the midst of the chaos to get this message of reconciliation and redemption to every generation heard louder and clearer than it has been, perhaps in generations.  This explains the reports that churches with regular Biblepreaching are actually growing at the present time: Not because we are going “back” toward the fundamentalism of 50 years ago; but because people are genuinely interested in what God says, as they can no longer take the noise. 

It is an awesome time to be a Christian in America – we have truth that sets men free.  Let’s get busy with our prison keys.