The Last Christian on Earth by Os Guinness

Author:Os Guinness [Guinness, Os]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Christianity—20th century, Christianity—21st century, Secularization (Theology)
ISBN: 9781441223890
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2010-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Restriction to the Private Sphere

There have been two broad responses to the general evacuation of the Christian faith from public life. The first is the majority response, mostly comprising Christian movements at a popular level but including many individuals from higher levels too. This response has been to accept the restriction of religion to the private sphere.

We have already examined the trend of privatization and seen its decisive damage to the Christian faith. Secularization has been the major force behind the evacuation of faith from public life; privatization has been the principal reason why the extent and significance of the evacuation has not been noticed. Not only is the Christian faith restricted to the private sphere, most Christians like it that way.

A natural result is that forms of faith that have flourished are those best suited to the private sphere. Thus they have been tailor-made for manipulation. In America in the ’50s, for example, there was a religious revival that turned out to be little more than a suburban family boom. Spiritual indicators such as church membership, giving and education all soared, but social influence soon sagged.

Membership often turned out to be temporary, superficial and hypocritical. Why? Because parents were more committed to the idea of their children being “churched” (or better still, “Sunday-Schooled”) than to the church itself. They went on their own terms, not the Adversary’s. In addition, most of the churches’ booming activities related to the private life rather than the public, so that the church, apart from catering to the family, was socially irrelevant—and shown to be so by the subsequent events of the ’60s.

One enemy expert warned clearly that so naive and family-oriented a revival was virtually “the second Children’s Crusade.”5 Fortunately, he was ignored, but the ’60s proved his point. Members of the baby boom graduated from their Sunday Schools and their faith at the same time. When they took their stand in the streets of Berkeley, Columbia and Kent State, their earlier naive Christian faith had become their opponent, not their inspiration.

Decades after the 1950s boom, privatized religion is still as useful to us, though the forms have changed. It has come a long way from the innocence and intactness of the world of Eisenhower. Not only are new technologies available to it, new factors, such as the preoccupation with survival, are influencing its mood.6 Unlike their predecessors, today’s privatized parents are likely to feel increasingly under siege. Yet they are still glued to the television that simultaneously thrusts in the hostile outside world and offers the best escape from it. For some tips in catering to this present mood, listen to the televangelists. Electronic church-manship lacks nothing in market research.

I am sure you can appreciate the invidious choice now facing modern Christians. They can opt for a faith that is a matter of public rhetoric or one of private religiosity. The choice is between embracing a faith that has wider relevance, or a faith that is personally real. To the extent that

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.