The U.S. was once a Christian nation, at least nominally. The majority of Americans self identified as Christian and the majority of them self identified as Protestant. I suspect it was a stream of faith 2,800 miles wide and an inch or two deep. In other words, it was never a Christian nation, it was a secular nation of Christians for whom the civic religion was a gentle salve. Social upheaval in the 1960s helped accelerate the secularization of American society, a process likely to go on for some time.
That is very disturbing to many people. The Christian nationalism movement, which has little to do with Christianity, is one reaction. So are the many church growth schemes most denominations have tried to implement with less than satisfactory results. It’s hard to build numbers from a traditional population (white low to upper middle income) that is both aging and declining as a percentage of the overall population.
The time is not far off when we Christians, stripped of our ethnic and race conscious baggage, will find ourselves to be a permanent minority. Will that mean the church is near death? Absolutely not! Jesus Christ died once for all and was raised that all might live. Christ cannot be killed and the church is Christ’s body in this world.
I think we will be called to get serious about what it means to be Christian, to follow in the way of Jesus and show by word and deed what the kingdom of God looks like. Sometime in the last century Cambridge University stopped requiring chapel attendance which subsequently dropped to a handful. C.S. Lewis is said to have remarked, “Now we know who the Christians are. The revived church in a more secular age may be like that.” The church, meaning the assembly of Christians, will be more like the apostles Peter and Paul, and less like Popes Peter and Paul.
It isn’t a vision of pious holier than thou churchy types walking around with pretend halos and fake smiles. Neither is it a vision of moral perfection. It’s a vision of imperfect people in their imperfect clothes going about their imperfect ways in the same ordinary lives of everyone else. Their first and most important identity will be as Christians in spiritual kinship with all other Christians. Their habitual sense of what is right and good and how to act will be anchored in scripture, tradition and reason.
Oddly enough I believe Christians will have social and political influence beyond their numbers, because they will not deviate from advocating ways of healing, reconciliation, love of neighbor, and peace. Powerful elements in society will be dismayed at their steadfastness in the face of strong opposition.
We are not without elders from whom we can learn. Jews have four thousand years of experience at being a minority in steadfast commitment to God. Theirs is a story of self inflicted moral failure, oppression on every side, pogroms and genocide. Yet they are still here bearing God’s holy word as a torch leading their way. Have they stumbled badly along the way? St. Paul said so but not to their condemnation. Consider today when Netanyahu and his supporters have committed atrocious sins agains peoples who, by their own admission, are bitter enemies of Israel. God has no part in the debacle no matter how often he’s used as an excuse by Israel and Palestinians alike. In the meantime, the hard work of being a God fearing jew in the greater world will go on and the world will be better for it.
We Christians can learn from that. Christians will go on following in the way of Christ, even as Christian nationalists stumble into the pit they have dug. Christians will continue to advocate for godly justice even when some go another way. It will be true because God is true. God, who is faithful will not abandon the earthly manifestation of his body no matter how many abandon him and his ways. And the point of it all will be to continue bearing the unquenchable light of salvation for all. How that will happen we do not know. All we are required to do is to bear the light as faithfully as we are able.