Spring Issue 2008
1 Apr 2008
The recently released “U.S. Religious Landscape Survey” by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life is being touted as one of the largest studies ever conducted of religion in America. The study’s findings are absolutely frightening. They reveal a spiritual dearth in our nation that is most disconcerting. It is not that there is any lack of so-called spirituality or religious curiosity in America today, but that Americans now shop for a plan of salvation the same way they do a cell phone plan.
According to the study, the religious group with the greatest net gain is the unaffiliated—those disclaiming association with any particular organized religion. Having tripled since the 1980s, this group is now the third largest in America, outnumbering all others aside from Catholics (23.9%) and Baptists (17.2%). Contrary to common assumption the majority of the religiously unaffiliated are not atheists and agnostics, but people who describe their religion “as nothing in particular.”
The Pew Research Center’s survey, which was based on more than 35,000 telephone interviews, also found that 44 percent of those claiming affiliation with a particular religion have switched their religious affiliation at some time in the recent past, many of them doing so in desertion of the faith of their childhood. While Catholics have seen the greatest number of defections among their posterity, Protestants have lost significant numbers of their progeny to apostasy as well.
Despite the modern-day megachurch phenomenon, Protestantism in America has been declining since the 1970s. Among Protestants today, evangelicals are a slim majority, and more than one-third of them are unable to describe the basic tenets of their faith. According to USA TODAY, Protestant teenagers are leaving the church in droves. Interestingly, and much to the chagrin of today’s church growth gurus, many of these teens claim that the reason for their exodus from the church is the church’s failure to call them to a challenging faith. Instead of offering them a “rigorous, disciplined, stimulating, faith-filled life,” many youth complain that all the contemporary church has to offer them is “a movie night and a pizza.”
The bothersome picture of American religion brushed by the “U.S. Religious Landscape Survey” leads us to some inescapable conclusions. First, denominational loyalty is waning. Second, Protestantism is fading. Third, faith is fluid. Finally, and most disturbingly, doctrine no longer matters. As John Green, a co-author of the survey and a senior fellow at the Pew Forum puts it: “Fluidity is the rule today, not the exception…it will become increasingly difficult [in the days ahead] to find people who share a love for distinct doctrine. There will always be a place for religions that are strict. They [will] just cater to smaller numbers…Firm beliefs…are increasingly a thing of the past.”
While our nation’s dwindling Biblicists—those of us who insist that the doctrines (truths and teachings) of the Scripture provide the only sure foundation for faith—are appalled at the shifting sand of our country’s current religious landscape, USA TODAY applauds it for keeping faith in America from withering over a “lack of dynamism.” According to USA TODAY, faith in Europe “withered” over its lack of choice, a fate that shall never befall religion in America, since American individualists insist upon “shopping for religions the way [they] pick among lattes at Starbucks.”
Since they see “choice [as] a critical ingredient” in religion, just like “in coffee,” USA TODAY contends that no one should be disquieted over Americans shopping for a religion the same way they do for a latte at Starbucks. Yet, someone should point out to USA TODAY that the eternal destiny of your immortal soul doesn’t depend upon your choice of Starbucks’ lattes, but on your choice of faith; in particularly, upon whether or not you choose to place your faith in Jesus Christ. As Jesus Himself said, “He that believeth [in me] is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God” (John 3:18).
Contrary to USA TODAY’s belief that choice is the critical ingredient in religion, I contend that truth is the critical ingredient in religion. It doesn’t matter how many faith options we have, but only that we opt for the true faith.
If you were sick and the doctor prescribed the only known antidote for your otherwise incurable condition, would you complain over your lack of choices? Would you insist that bottles of placeboes, cyanide, strychnine and arsenic also be offered so as to allow you the all-important accommodation of choice? Would you argue that the important thing was not the prescription of the needed miracle drug, but that you were provided with additional choices, such as sugar pills and poisons?
If it is ridiculous to consider risking one’s physical health and temporal life for the sheer sake of additional choices—additional choices that amount to nothing more than a number of false antidotes offered in conjunction with the only real cure—why isn’t it even more ridiculous to risk one’s eternal life and immortal soul for the sheer sake of additional choices—additional choices that amount to nothing more than poisonous and false religions offered in conjunction with the one and only true faith?
If man is soul sick with sin, as the Bible contends, and the only cure for sin prescribed by the Great Physician is Christ Himself, then why should we be grateful for placebo religions and poisonous faiths offered to us in conjunction with Christianity by the likes of Mohammed, Buddha, Joseph Smith and L. Ron Hubbard?
Granted, many will angrily protest at this point what they perceive to be my intolerable arrogance. How dare I suggest that my Christian faith is the only true faith? Yet, if I didn’t believe this, what possible reason would I have for being a Christian? If it doesn’t matter what faith you have then why profess or preach any faith at all? If one faith is as good as another then faith is all together irrelevant.
Make no mistake about it; today’s politically correct crowd endlessly endeavors to reduce all religions to utter irrelevance. They attempt to do so by insinuating that no religious faith has any basis in fact. All religions are subjective rather than objective. Therefore, our religious beliefs should be confined to our personal opinions and private lives. They should never be spoken in the public square nor considered in political discourse, since they constitute nothing more than personal preferences and private (subjective) truths rather than proven facts and public (objective) truths.
With this sly sleight of hand, today’s politically correct crowd pats the religious on the head while gutting their religious beliefs of all significance. Religion is reduced to the fanciful and all that matters is whether or not one’s preferred faith is sincerely held. If it is, then no faith is to be deemed superior or inferior to another. All are equally valid, as long as they are sincerely believed.
It has apparently never dawned on today’s politically correct crowd that sincerely believing arsenic to be milk makes it no less fatal to someone downing a glass. Likewise, spurning the one and only true faith for false faiths of our own making is made no less deadly a sin by the sincerity with which we hold to false faiths. No one’s refusal to believe in Jesus Christ, the one and only true God, will be excused by the sincerely with which they believe in nonexistent gods.
If the facts are: (1) The God of the Bible is the one and only true God (2) Jesus Christ is God’s only begotten Son; that is, God incarnate, and (3) Christ alone is the hope and Savior of the world, then men who opt for other faiths over and against the Christian faith do so at the peril of their own souls. On the other hand, if these are not the facts, then the Bible isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on, Christianity is a sham, and one religion is as good as another, since none have any basis in fact and all are good for nothing.
Contrary to popular assumption, Christianity is not just another menu item to choose from at today’s ever-expanding religious smorgasbord. In fact, Christianity is no religion at all. It is as distinct from this world’s religions as night is from day. For instance, consider the following:
(1) Religion is man reaching up for God; Christianity is God reaching down to man.
(2) Religion is man hoping to gain salvation by his goodness; Christianity is salvation given to man by God’s grace.
(3) Religion is spelled “DO” (what we do for God); Christianity is spelled “DONE” (what Christ has done for us).
(4) Religion is all about trying; Christianity is all about trusting.
(5) Religion is the practice of rites and rituals for God; Christianity is a personal relationship with God.
(6) Religion requires external reformation; Christianity results in internal transformation.
(7) Religion offers a hope-so-salvation; Christianity offers a know-so-salvation.
Truly, no man needs “to get religion.” What all men need is to receive Jesus Christ (John 1:12). He is the only way to God (John 14:6). All other ways (religions) are spiritual dead ends. They lead us nowhere, but to a Christless grave and a Christless eternity. The unavoidable fact of the Christian faith is that you will come to God His Way—through faith in Christ—or you will never make it to God. The choice is yours, and this is the only real choice you have—“What shall I do then with Jesus who is called Christ?” (Matthew 27:22). Choose carefully, your eternal destiny depends upon it!
Don Walton
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