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<\/a><\/p>\nChurches took one approach to relating to the culture when it was pro-Christian.\u00a0 It took a different approach when the culture became religiously neutral.\u00a0 But what approach should it take when the dominant culture is actively opposed to Christianity?<\/p>\n
This is the theme of an important essay by Aaron Renn, published in First Things<\/em> and entitled\u00a0The Three Worlds of Evangelicalism.<\/a><\/p>\n Focusing on evangelicalism, he surveys the practices and tactics that Christians have been employing as the religious climate in the culture has been changing.\u00a0 You need to read the essay<\/a> in its entirety for its details, evidence, and nuances.\u00a0 I will quote his three phases and briefly summarize the church\u2019s response to each one:<\/p>\n Some Christians did get involved in politics, taking advantage of the positive cultural climate under the banner of the \u201cMoral Majority,\u201d the assumption being that they constituted the \u201cmajority.\u201d\u00a0 They successfully made themselves key players in the Republican Party, with the high water mark being the takeover of the House of Representatives in 1994.<\/p>\n Evangelicals\u2019 strategy for reaching this positively-inclined culture was \u201cseeker sensitivity.<\/em>\u201d\u00a0 This resulted in the Church Growth Movement, with its \u201cseeker sensitive\u201d approach to worship, preaching, music, and church in general.\u00a0 The assumption, though, was that non-Christians were \u201cseekers,\u201d who would be glad to be reached.\u00a0 This too met with success with the rise of megachurches.<\/p>\n As the society became more and more secularized, the new strategy became cultural engagement<\/em>.\u00a0 Christians would take a positive stance towards culture\u2013the arts, academia, law, the government\u2013and interact with it on its own terms, in an attempt to exert a Christian influence.\u00a0 This approach too enjoyed some success, as many Christians entered the professions and became part of elite social institutions.<\/p>\n The Supreme Court\u2019s\u00a0Obergefell<\/em> decision legalizing same-sex marriage marked a new phase of cultural hostility to any kind of orthodox Christianity.\u00a0 Even evangelicals who sought to engage the culture could not go along with the LGBTQ revolution and found themselves cancelled and otherwise threatened with expulsion from polite society.Churches have not fully faced up to this new climate, Renn says, but we can see several contending\u2013but related\u2013responses.<\/p>\n One is to fight the hostile culture.\u00a0 This impulse manifests itself in evangelicals\u2019 support for Donald Trump, even when that involves stepping away from traditional moral criteria for leaders in favor of a realpolitik\u00a0<\/em>that will combat progressivism and advance Christian interests, such as the pro-life cause.<\/p>\n Another is fighting within churches, as some members seem to bring views dominant in the culture (such as critical race theory, social justice ideology, feminism, and other progressive ideologies) into the church so as to correct what the culture is criticizing.\u00a0 The fight to do so is met with fighting back from members on the other side of these issues..<\/p>\n The third response is the \u201cBenedict Option,<\/a>\u201d in which Christians disengage themselves from the hostile culture to build\u00a0 alternative social structures (schools, families, communities, art, intellectual projects) of their own.<\/p>\n Renn concludes,<\/p>\n T<\/span>he future of the cultural engagers and megachurch people who have turned toward cultural synchronization looks grimmer [than the culture warriors]. The much-\u00addiscussed failures of the evangelical elite cannot be understood without reference to the way the ground rapidly and fundamentally shifted under them during the transition to the negative world. Their desire to remain members in good standing of secular elite society, their social-gospel focus, and their embrace of current secular academic theories are reminiscent of what happened to the mainline denominations (though this time the secular \u00adtheories are from the social rather than natural \u00adsciences). . . .<\/p>\n But rather than extend existing strategies forward into the future, evangelicals could, and should, grapple seriously with what it means for them to live in the negative world. What strategies should be employed for this era? Unlike previous eras, the negative world necessitates a variety of approaches to match the diversity of situations in which American Christians find themselves. Finding a path forward will probably require trial and error and a new set of leaders with different skills and sensibilities.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Renn says he is trying to do this with his American Reformer<\/a> project and website (which published the article The Lutheran Option<\/a> that we blogged about<\/a>).<\/p>\n So what is the \u201cpath forward\u201d?\u00a0 I welcome your ideas.<\/p>\n It seems to me that we should study and draw on the example of the early church, which faced an even more negative cultural climate and yet thrived and eventually converted the hostile society.\u00a0 We have much to learn here, including how the early Christians won over the Roman public by their radical virtue.\u00a0 But another factor was the popularity of Christianity among slaves, women, and the lower classes of Roman society.<\/p>\n Not all of American culture is \u201cnegative\u201d towards Christianity.\u00a0 Just our cultural elite.\u00a0 Though the most unchurched demographic is the white working class, they, on the whole, are not particularly hostile to Christianity.\u00a0 Churches might focus their outreach effort not so much on the affluent middle class or the culturally elite, but on blue collar Americans in blighted cities, boarded up small towns, and struggling rural areas.\u00a0 Yes, these folks, whom progressives used to cultivate but now look down upon as\u00a0 \u201cdeplorables,\u201d are largely Trump supporters.\u00a0 And, yes, they are entangled with moral problems, including drug addiction and sexual promiscuity, though many of them recognize themselves as casualties of this kind of behavior.\u00a0 If Christians and churches would abandon concern for their social status, they could find themselves ministering to the \u201cpoor\u201d\u2013not idealized victims but human beings with hard lives and rough edges\u2013who could be surprisingly receptive to the Gospel.<\/p>\n Also, as those phases show, culture changes and it changes rapidly.\u00a0 The ideas and the influence of the \u201cNegative\u201d phase may not last, as formidable as they seem.\u00a0 Though progressive politicians are in power and though the Left is dominating the public square, notice how all of their initiatives have been failing.\u00a0 A backlash seems to be building.\u00a0 As I show in my book Post-Christian<\/a>, postmodern thought and movements such as the sexual revolution are running into crises and self-contradictions, proving themselves to be untenable and themselves in search of change.\u00a0 What might emerge next is unclear, but Christians may well have an opportunity to contribute to the \u201cpost-secular\u201d era that some observers are heralding. In that case, what Christians need to do is hold on\u2013be faithful, don\u2019t give in, don\u2019t give up\u2013and wait.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n\n
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