Imagine, if you will, a world where people’s main motivation for prayer and worship is relief from emotional distress or physical sickness, or the pursuit of worldly prosperity. Since distress, sickness, and prosperity come and go, religious interest is variable and fleeting in this imagined world. Since different people have different levels of success with different spiritual traditions, loyalty to any one tradition is low. So people shop around for providers of religious services and adopt “cafeteria” approaches to doctrines and practices. They lose interest when their immediate needs are met or move on to something new when they are unhappy in their present religious circumstances. Spiritual fads are common in this world. The Next Big Spiritual Thing always makes a splash.

In our imagined world, many different religious traditions exist side by side. As a consequence, the general attitude is that each tradition is valid in its own sphere – if it works for those who subscribe to it, that’s all anyone can ask. There is some thought, too, that each religion is, in effect, in the same business: all religions are paths to the same destination, all have some way of connecting people to the divine, however that is understood. If some spiritual tradition did have the nerve to suggest it was the one and only way to God, this declaration would be greeted with something between amusement – “you just don’t get it, do you?” – and outrage – “who do you think you are?”

Another powerful entity in this imagined world which provides people with prosperity, health, and emotional satisfaction is the government. So long as religious fervor remains a private matter that does not interfere with public order or loyalty to the state, or with the ability to collect taxes or exercise military power, the government has no particular concern with it. But underneath this easygoing appearance is an iron commitment to keep religion within strict boundaries, and a demand that religion should serve social and political ends rather than critique them. Most religious people, of course, don’t wish to borrow trouble, and go along with what their religiously-indifferent elites ask of them.

I asked you to imagine this world. But in truth, imagining it is not very difficult: it’s the world 21st century Americans already live in. Spiritual consumerism, church-shopping, religious pluralism, relativism about truth, cultural resistance to the exclusive claims of Christianity (or any other religion), and legal restrictions on religious expression alongside a rhetoric of religious freedom are familiar and well-documented features of our contemporary landscape.

What may not be so obvious is that my imagined world is also a pretty good description of the Roman Empire, the world in which Christianity began and flourished. There, pagan cults vied for the donations of devotees seeking wealth or healing or status, and new cults from exotic locales sprang up periodically. The traditional gods of the various cities and provinces of the empire were acknowledged as more or less on a par, while the exclusive claims of the Jews (and later Christians) were problematic. Everyone, of course, had to acknowledge the emperor.

The world that we face is much like the Roman imperial world faced by the first generations of Christians. While the deities are different, the structural features of paganism are already here. Consequently, our relationship to the wider culture, in terms of evangelism, ministry, discipleship, and in many other areas, needs to reflect that fact. The surrounding paganism is relatively new, and it marks a tremendous change from the world that American Christians dealt with even thirty years ago.

What is fading fast is “Christendom,” a close partnership between church and culture, the result of a long seepage of Christian influence into the DNA of a society. Christendom reveals itself in big ways and small: in prayers at public functions, in the easy assumption that our country is a Christian nation, in the public respect and influence accorded to high-ranking religious figures, in the unelectability of atheists, in businesses closed on Sunday, in widespread knowledge of Bible stories and basic Christian doctrines. These vestiges of Christendom are far less prominent than they used to be, and the trend is downward.

We will have to adapt to this new reality. What is the particular draw of Christianity, when people believe that all religions are paths to the same destination? How do we evangelize, when we cannot assume that our audience accords the Bible any special authority? What does church membership mean, when people are ready to abandon it so quickly? These are just a few of the questions raised by our new situation.
I am happy to say that many intelligent and faithful people are beginning to answer these questions in creative and inspiring ways.

One piece of good news is in the creativity and faithfulness of many Christian leaders – space prevents me from going into any more detail here. Another piece of good news is that Christians have succeeded in this kind of environment before. Sociologist Rodney Stark estimates that Christianity grew at the phenomenal rate of 40% for the first three hundred years of its existence. So it’s not as if the challenges before us are insurmountable.
Those challenges ought to be cause for caution and prayer, however, because the analogy between the first three centuries and the twenty-first century breaks down at one crucial point. Philosopher Peter Kreeft illustrates that point by likening pre-Christian paganism to a virgin and post-Christian paganism to a divorcee. While the virgin was ready to fall in love with God, the divorcee carries an extra layer of cynicism and even bitterness that must be overcome. In some respects, wooing a virgin and wooing a divorcee are very different projects.

Christendom is disappearing, and the paganism supplanting it has already made significant inroads. Our new environment calls for creative adaptation and fresh thinking. We need not fear, however, for we can rely on the unchanging faithfulness of God, who, in Christ, was reconciling the whole world to himself.

Dr. Heath White, Ph.D is an assistant professor of philosophy at the University of North Carolina–Wilmington, and the author of Postmodernism 101: A First Course for the Curious Christian (Brazos Press, 2006).

The first Faith & Fellowship online book club!
Join us on October 4th as we dive into Heath White's book, Postmodernism 101: A First Course for the Curious Christian

Visit the Book Club website at www.ffbooks.org/bookclub
Buy the book at Faith & Fellowship Bookstore