Political scientist James R. Rogers (a member of the LCMS) argues that a big part of the problem in American Christianity today is that, for a long time, churches have relied on the culture to instill morality, rather than instilling Christian morality themselves. Ever since the Sixties, though, the culture has been taking a different turn. . . .
From James R. Rogers, The Ecclesiastical Failure of Christian America | James R. Rogers | First Things:
American churches grew up and developed in a context in which the culture played a significant role in policing moral behavior. Churches could ecclesiastically free-ride on this cultural moral consensus. Churches and congregations did not need to invest heavily in developing and policing their own moral boundaries. The culture did a large part of the moral heavy lifting for them. In parts of the U.S. today one can still hear echoes of this old consensus. “Why of course I’m a Christian. I’m a Texan.”
Because churches could depend on culture to police moral boundaries, they did not develop—because they did not need to develop—ecclesiastical mindsets and practices to inculcate and sustain basic Christian moral expectations. The moral membrane between church and culture was relatively permeable, but that was relatively safe at the time. This is not to say that they were the same. Nonetheless, it was relatively easy for individual churches to gin up the moral heat for their congregation when the starting point was a culture that kept things at least morally lukewarm.
In the 1960s—actually, before that, but manifestly so in the 1960s—this cultural consensus began changing dramatically. Behaviors that the cultural consensus unquestionably understood as positively immoral the year before became tolerated, if not actually celebrated as positively good. This obviously occurred with respect to sexual behavior. Less appreciated today, this change also included consumer behavior in the form of demands to repeal of Sunday blue laws (including liquor sales), the democratization of conspicuous consumption (when was the last time you heard anyone admit they struggled with coveting?), drug use, etc.
The point of rehearsing this is not to suggest the shift constituted a moral threat to the church: the Church has survived, even thrived, in numerous times and cultures that did not share her moral practices.
The point is this transition constituted, and constitutes, an ecclesiastical threat to the Church. In effect, the Church contracted out moral discipleship and church discipline to the culture. American Christians had gotten used to and easy-going, non-threatening permeability of church and culture.
[Keep reading. . .]
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In