Social Gospel Über Alles
Honestly, the real point I’m trying to make is that the Church here (I’m becoming more and more certain) doesn’t believe in it’s own message or it’s own story. They want to play interfaith niceness, and operate as a social services office with nice traditions.
.. Here’s the problem with all of these cases: after the decision has been made for Christ (and, if baptism and/or confirmation [in Orthodoxy, called chrismation] has been performed) … what next?
.. The Christian life, properly understood, cannot be merely a set of propositions agreed to, but must also be a way of life.
.. Bible Belt near-Christianity is teetering. I say let it fall. For much of the twentieth century, especially in the South and parts of the Midwest, one had to at least claim to be a Christian to be “normal.” During the Cold War, that meant distinguishing oneself from atheistic Communism. At other times, it has meant seeing churchgoing as a way to be seen as a good parent, a good neighbor, and a regular person. It took courage to be an atheist, because explicit unbelief meant social marginalization. Rising rates of secularization, along with individualism, means that those days are over—and good riddance to them.
.. Secularization in America means that we have fewer incognito atheists. Those who don’t believe can say so—and still find spouses, get jobs, volunteer with the PTA, and even run for office. This is good news because the kind of “Christianity” that is a means to an end—even if that end is “traditional family values”—is what J. Gresham Machen rightly called “liberalism,” and it is an entirely different religion from the apostolic faith handed down by Jesus Christ.
.. Rather, the question is, “What happens when the predominant faith tradition or belief system of a culture collapses and is not replaced by any new, coherent system?”