by Brian Miller
Civilizations rise and fall. The barbarians have been at the gates many times before at Rome, Constantinople, Vienna, and revolutionary Paris. The secular powers have not always survived these crises, but the Church has outlived them all. This should be of comfort to those of us fretting about the recent Pew study on religion. Christians are on the decline and “Nones” are on the rise. The effects of this can be seen everywhere in the culture around us. The common morality is no longer assumed to be Christian, and the sexual revolution has achieved near total victory in the courts of law and public opinion.
While barbarian armies are not literally battering down the doors, it is clear we are living through a historic moment. An old order is giving way to something new, and if you believe even just slightly in what Christianity has to say about sexual ethics then the new order can be nothing short of terrifying. In such a time it can be a great comfort to look back at history and remember that God’s work is not dependent on earthly kingdoms. Worse things have happened before, and the Church has survived them all.
Still, it seems appropriate and natural to mourn the fall of earthly kingdoms. Especially if it ever had any claim to goodness in this world. No place is perfect, but some places are better than others. Western civilization was built and maintained only by the hard work of many holy men. Again, history shows us we are not alone in feeling grief. Beginning with Jeremiah’s lamentations for the fall of Jerusalem, “My eyes fail with tears, My heart is troubled,” we see that our mourning is an appropriate response. Even at the fall of Rome, a city that had persecuted so many Christians and had only recently been Christianized, Jerome and other Church Fathers openly expressed grief and fear.
We grieve and despair in such times because even though we know the City of God is distinct from the city of man, it does not follow that the city of man is inconsequential to the Church and her mission. The Church is concerned primarily with the salvation of souls, but ideally the point is reached where so many souls in a concentrated area have become Christianized that Christian ethics become their common language. Such a place is usually only reached after much work and sacrifice.
Later generations almost inevitably become lazy and forget the sacrifices of the previous generation. They take for granted the benefits of a hard built culture without really believing in the foundations that made it possible. This partly explains the recent decline in religious belief. The “Nones” never really believed at all, and they don’t claim to believe now because it is no longer beneficial for them to do so.
One reaction to this is to say “good riddance.” The era of fake Christianity is over, and only the truehearted and pure will continue to claim the name Christian. Indeed, several evangelical leaders have said the decline of public religion is good for Christianity. Notably, Dr. Russell Moore, recently said, “Bible Belt near-Christianity is teetering. I say let it fall.”
The point that we are all being more honest with each other is well taken. Christians will now (hopefully) be Christians and atheists will be atheists. But is it really that simple? Moore cites as an example the fact that many people who wanted a divorce would never do so because of Christian societal expectations, not necessarily because they believed divorce was wrong.
But is it really better, in any sense, that social norms no longer restrain divorce? That it no longer does is a sign of the decay and death of a Christian moral order. An order that was built through centuries by the blood, sweat, and tears of reformers, saints, soldiers, and martyrs. Surely it deserves more than a “good riddance.”
To have this reaction requires Dr. Moore and other evangelicals to adopt the very modern assumption that a person’s actions are good only if freely chosen without outside influence. That assumption comes from the enlightenment’s vision of the state of nature, not the account of man’s nature found in the Gospels and the Christian tradition. Furthermore, it discounts the good that comes from having a common Christian social morality.
Yes, many in previous generations did not believe in marriage yet remained in marriage. And many took their children to Church without believing in all the hocus-pocus. However, through all that a common moral language was largely maintained. Children who would not otherwise have heard the Gospel went to Sunday school and saw an image, however imperfect, of marriage. After all, the Christian message of love is that we are to deny our own wants and desires for the sake of something else. What better analogy for that than parents who sacrifice their own dreams for their children?
The baby-boomer generation did many things wrong, but expecting people to go to Church and remain married was not one of them. They were cafeteria Christians to be sure, but they were more importantly cafeteria sexual revolutionaries. The bourgeois materialism they imported into the middle class gave them a feeling of superiority over communists and hippies, yet it simultaneously caused them to unquestioningly embrace modern birth control and divorce. Churches unquestioningly embraced sexual freedom so long as it was heterosexual. Indeed, the modern gay rights movement owes a debt of gratitude to the baby boomers, the generation that first freed us from the bonds of the natural family.
This gradually wore away our society and Christians did little, and still do little, to reverse it.
The passing of the common morality is not a cause for celebration. It means we have squandered our inheritance. We hypocritically said the sexual revolution was fine to a point, but at that point the battle was already lost. Speaking to the world will be much harder now. We have allowed it to evolve to a point where we speak different metaphysical languages.
The most constructive thing we can do at such a historical moment is not carry on with bravado as we have always done. Now is not the time for chest pumping and bragging about being the survivors and the true remnant. It is a time for introspection and critical self-examination about where we went wrong, or as the scriptures call it, repentance.
Brian Miller, a Florida native who now resides in Virginia, is an adherent to what Chesterton called the “Toryism of the South.” He has a J.D. from George Mason University. He’s a pretty big fan of Cicero and the Book of Common Prayer.
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