How the US has become a mission field

I’m sure we’ve all heard complaints on how bad things have gotten for the church. Maybe we’ve done it ourselves. But just complaining never did much good. What is the current problem of the church in America, and what should we do about it?

I. Has the US become a mission field?

Before we get very far, we ought to ask ourselves if this feeling is true. Have things gotten worse?

In a 2017 survey, lifeway research sampled 1,000 people to find out how many people have evangelical beliefs.

They defined evangelical beliefs using a rather minimal, four-point scale

The bible is the highest authority for what I believe

It is very important for me personally to encourage non-Christians to trust Jesus Christ as their savior

Jesus Christ’s death on the Cross is the only sacrifice that could remove the penalty of my sin

Only those who trust in Jesus Christ alone as their savior receive God’s free gift of eternal salvation.

This standard is probably fairly complete, but it does not exclude potentially a few people

It does not ensure that they believe in the full deity of Christ

It does not guarantee that those who hear believe in a literal heaven and hell; though without some penalty for sin, eternal salvation has little meaning.

It does not ensure those who hear believe that Jesus is coming again. That being said, most of those who subscribe to the four points probably do believe these things.

They found that the number of people who call themselves born again is higher than those who call themselves evangelical.

29% call themselves born again

25% call themselves evangelical

15% hold to the four evangelical beliefs.

In the northeast, only 5% hold to the four beliefs. In the south, 23% do this.

Other studies show that the number of those who call themselves any kind of Christian has been on the decline for decades; but those who truly know the Lord have remained fairly stable.

Pew Research notes that in 1972 90% of Americans call themselves Christians, but only 63% fifty years later.[pewresearch.com/religion/2022/09/13/how us religious composition has changed in recent decades]

The same study shows the rise of the “nones” has gone from 5% in 1972 to 29% five decades on.

Only about half of Americans in their 20s are Christian; while for retirees it’s 80%.

A related study estimates that if things continue at present rates, the percentage of Christians in this country would fall to 46% but still be in the majority. If the decline stops, because Christians tend to be older, the percentage of Christians will fall 10% to 54% [pewresearch.com/religion/2022/09/13/projecting Us religious groups population shares by 2070]

Yet, surveys show that the percentage of those who are truly Christians has not actually changed that much. Lifeway research has conducted surveys of Christian belief every two years for the last 8; and they get about the same percentage every time. Where the losses have come from are the “cultural Christians.”

It used to be that the dominate religious worldview was Christianity. Thus, while many did not know the Lord truly, they had a fundamentally Judeo-Christian worldview. This shared cultural heritage meant that those of us to know the Lord used to feel much more at home than we do today.

today, secular humanism is the dominate religious worldview taught in our public schools, in the media, in museums and history centers, and in universities.

II. Why has Cultural Christianity declined?

The loss of our philosophical foundation

Loss of mainline Protestant churches to the gospel. c.1900-1940

At the conclusion of the civil war most Americans thought of their country as a Christian nation and looked on evangelical Protestantism as their national origin.

The rise of secular humanism in the 19th century

Charles Darwin’s Evolution provided the cosmology

History of Religion’s School spread skepticism about supernatural elements of the Bible and began to explain every theological trend as the natural growth of humanity. This spread doubt about the Bible

Modernists built their foundation on this new anti-supernaturalistic worldview. By the end of WW1, these liberals were well entrenched in the major northern denominations. They made up perhaps half of the seminaries and a third of protestant pulpits.

Dictionary of Christianity in America Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy

Liberal theology placed particular stress on the idea of divine immanence. Enamored of evolutionary thought, modernists insisted that God revealed himself through the progress of history. This affirmation led to an optimistic world view manifested in an irrepressible faith in the goodness and freedom of mankind and the inevitable movement of history toward the fulfillment of the kingdom of God on earth.

Experience provided the final religious authority for modernists

Scopes Monkey Trial 1925

Dictionary of Christianity in America Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy

To halt this apostasy a number of Southern states had, by the mid-1920s, passed laws banning the teaching of organic evolution in the public schools. This movement resulted in the famous Scopes trial of 1925 where Bryan and agnostic lawyer Clarence Darrow faced off amidst a carnival atmosphere in Dayton, Tennessee. Though John Scopes was convicted of teaching biological evolution in a local school, the Eastern press coverage, which characterized fundamentalists as ignorant hicks, and Bryan’s simplistic defense of the Bible under Darrow’s cross-examination, did irreparable damage to the fundamentalist cause.

Abandonment of the Bible as the widespread cultural instruction - Bible taken out of public schools, 1962.

Thus, those who derived their worldview by “osmosis,” that is, they adopted the perspective of the broader culture around them have gradually lost first

Their spiritual foundation - they still believe in God, heaven. Many still believe in hell and in Jesus as God; but they no longer view the world with the broadly judeo-Christian theology of most Americans of yesteryear.

Their moral foundation - with the loss of the spiritual foundation, they became adrift morally. Therefore we have seen

crime skyrocket as people no longer were restrained by their religious values

Advocacy of a wide range of “replacement morality” That is, instead of making Christian values their moral standard, they look to whatever is the latest moral fad, and adopt it so they will be affirmed as moral by their peers. This includes

Environmentalism/climate change. - there have been other variations - the ozone layer, save the whales. The latest one is all about receiving moral validation.

lgbtq+ advocacy - here it is all about looking compassionate, which is the dominate virtue of our age.

Gender identity weirdness - the purpose for the radicals is to destroy judeo-Christian social norms; the purpose for the vast majority of those who shout it? to loudly preach their own compassion.

abortion as “woman’s health”

The loss of the family unit. Among those who grew up in two-parent households, a disproportionate number of them are religious; among single-parent households, more of them are irreligious. There are many exceptions on both sides, of course. There are faithful Christians who grew up in rough, single parent households, and many two-parent children who are atheists. But in the main, this loss of family structure contributes the loss of cultural Christianity.

This has not been the case for true believers, but it certainly impacts how isolated and strange we feel in our culture.

III. What has not changed

Before we figure out what we ought to do about this problem, I think it is helpful to think about what really hasn’t changed. Quite a few of the responsibilities of the church haven’t actually changed, despite the changes in the dominant religion of our country.

The “cultural Christianity” of yesteryear was certainly better than we have today, but that’s not the same thing as saying what America used to have is exactly what God expected of us. At no point in American history has every American been a true Christian.

A significant number of the founding fathers were not on their way to heaven. Most famous, for instance, was Thomas Jefferson, who was a deist and didn’t believe in miracles. Now all of the founding fathers did hold to the ethical standards of Christianity, even if they didn’t have faith themselves, and that is certainly part of why God has blessed this country so much. But God’s demand is true faith for all; not cultural Christianity. 2 Pet 3:13; John 3:3; Jer 31:33-34

Jeremiah 31:33–34 (NKJV)

But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.

No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”

The New Covenant was made with only Israel, but notice what God wanted them to do:

write God’s law on their hearts and minds. I.e. regeneration. Now having the Law on your mind wasn’t new. Moses wanted Israel to do that in the old kingdom. It is nothing more than regeneration But what is new is that in Jesus’ kingdom all Israel will be regenerated. In the old covenant Moses pled with them to believe and be regenerated, but they could be part of the nation without it. In the new kingdom only the regenerated will endure

Deuteronomy 10:12–16 NKJV

“And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of the Lord and His statutes which I command you today for your good? Indeed heaven and the highest heavens belong to the Lord your God, also the earth with all that is in it. The Lord delighted only in your fathers, to love them; and He chose their descendants after them, you above all peoples, as it is this day. Therefore circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and be stiff-necked no longer.

Isaiah 11:9 NKJV

They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain, For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord As the waters cover the sea.

Lest you think that this is something for only Israel, God declares that the whole earth will be as full of the true knowledge of the Lord just as the waters cover the sea. How much of the sea is covered by water? All of it, obviously. It’s part of the definition of a sea. In the same way, in Jesus’ kingdom true saving faith and knowledge of God will be the normal experience of everyone.

John 3:3 NKJV

Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

We have all heard of the phrase “born again,” but have you thought about what Jesus means for the Kingdom? He is saying that you will never see that kingdom unless you are regenerate. Only the regenerate are allowed.

2 Peter 3:13 NKJV

Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

God’s desire for true righteousness will finally and ultimately be achieved in the eternal state, where righteousness is universal and complete.

Matthew 28:19–20 NKJV

Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.

The Great Commission commands us to make disciples, teaching them to observe all things Jesus commanded. Do you always do everything Jesus commands? then you are still a work in progress, just like me.

Now American is obviously not the Kingdom of God, nor should we expect it to be. But that doesn’t change the fact that God’s standard for a nation isn’t “cultural Christianity” but universal confession of the Gospel. There has never been a nation in the history of the world that did this, America included. So for America’s entire history, preachers have needed to proclaim the gospel, and urge people to repent and believe and be saved.

This need to preach the gospel is an inevitable part of the world we live in until Jesus returns. Since the Bible also predicts false teachers, we know that our preaching of the gospel will not save everyone, but it will save some. Thus, the Great Commission isn’t something we can “fulfill” but something that we ought to be occupied with until He returns. How many people in our country choose to accept the gospel doesn’t change this reality. Obviously as the nation turns collectively away from God this task becomes harder; but it doesn’t change our responsibility to do that.

But evangelism should never be divorced from the church. Thus, our preaching of the Gospel is tied to the task of the church. We should be about the business of the church, 2 Tim 4:2

2 Timothy 4:2 NKJV

Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.

This task doesn’t depend on what our culture does. And it isn’t just something pastors should do. the Saints are the ones who do the work of the ministry. Thus in one sense it doesn’t matter if the US has lost its cultural Christianity. We still have the same job to do; let’s do it, for our work will be rewarded by Jesus. In fact, the harder that is, the more will be our reward in heaven.

This means that our task isn’t finished with evangelism. Once someone is a new believer, they need to be added to the church, discipled, and equipped to serve the Lord themselves. Keep being faithful, and the Lord will reward you.

III. What has changed

However, while the primary task of the church is the same, the loss of cultural Christianity does have an impact on our methods.

Most notably, our evangelism must take into account that more and more people lack sufficient Biblical literacy to understand a quick gospel tract or appeal. It’s not like that method never works at all, but the methods that were spectacularly successful in the 50s depended on that cultural Christianity. If everyone had the primary Judeo-Christian assumptions, then it didn’t take much to push them over toward salvation. But if someone is largely pagan, then at first they are very likely to find it difficult to even make sense of what you are saying.

When I ministered to the Chinese, I found this to be true. So many of the Chinese who first came to church understood so little of the gospel that it was just unintelligible to them. They needed a little time to absorb the entirety of the Christian worldview. So how did evangelism work? people built relationships with them, and over time, as their knowledge of the gospel grew, they pieced together what Christianity meant, and those that God moved, did trust Christ for salvation.

Thus, our evangelism need to focus on making connections with the lost, and building long-term relationships with them. This is quite a bit more labor intensive than a five-minute gospel presentation, but in our increasingly Biblically illiterate world, this method will pay off.

How do you make these connections?

Look for unique opportunities in your area

I heard of a church where the town had a huge community garage sale with vast numbers of people. Since there were no bathroom facilities in the area, they opened up their church to people. They began handing out free hotdogs and bottled water too. This built connections that the people could later follow upon.

In our church, we found out that the local youth organization had no good place to practice basketball. We had a gym we were not using, and a couple of members willing to run the program. Thus, we have had some 80 people coming through our building, and raising the visibility of our church. From this, they have been able to start some evangelistic bible studies.

I had the opportunity to become the chaplain of a local granite company. this sounds fancier than it is - one afternoon a month, I go down to the company and talk to people, making sure they are OK socially, spiritually, physically, financially, mentally. This helps the company, because workers worried about a problem aren’t thinking much about work. And in an environment where a lot of heavy stone is being moved, an inattentive worker could be seriously injured. I’ve had numerous opportunities for spiritual conversations as a result of this.