Christianity

Last month, according to the Congolese military, a militant group attacked a Pentecostal church, killing at least 10 and wounding scores of others. Though incidents like this are hardly new, they rarely make the news. Many in the Western world simply don’t realize how prevalent Christianity and Christian persecution are outside of Europe and North America. Plus, the creeping influence of “the critical theory mood” leaves the impression that because Christianity has been so influential in Western history, Christians must always be villains and can never be victims.

This caricature of Christianity as a sort-of tribal faith of Westerners is flawed at the core.

Pew Research Center estimates that Christians could make up a minority of Americans by 2070. According to sociology professor Stephen Bullivant, a practicing Catholic who teaches in London and Sydney, there are three main reasons for this decline in religious commitment and the concomitant rise of the nonreligious: the Cold War, 9/11, and the internet.

The host of the popular faith-based Unbelievable? podcast says today's church must be able to explain why "Christianity is good" for society if the Christian faith is to flourish in the 21st century.

Salvation won’t arrive on Air Force One, and a perfect world won’t come through the ballot box. But a better world is possible if all our actions, political and otherwise, flow downstream from our Christian convictions, and not the other way around.

Christianity has changed the world in so many significant ways, many of which we are probably not even aware of on a daily basis. In his new book "Unimaginable: What our World Would be Like without Christianity," Dr. Jeremiah J. Johnston explores the ways in which Christianity has impacted the world for good and also what the world would be like if not for Jesus and the values He instills in every human life. Dr. Johnston looks at the impact Christianity has had--and is having--on the world from a cultural, historical, political, and personal standpoint. Below are excerpts based on Dr. Johnston's new book which draws attention to ten specific ways in which Christianity has influenced and changed the world for the better.

The percentage of Americans who consider themselves Christian may fall from 64 percent to under 50 percent by 2070 if current trends continue, according to a new Pew Research Center report. The percentage of people who describe themselves as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular” may also top 40 percent, the report found.

In recent years, many Christians have either abandoned or deprioritized the notion of truth, elevating personal experience over what God has revealed about Himself and His world. Years ago, Chuck Colson warned in his book The Faith that Christians must not give up on the idea of truth nor downplay its importance, even in an attempt to gain a wider hearing. Christianity matters precisely because it is true. If it isn’t true, it doesn’t matter. Here’s Chuck:

Our hurting world desperately needs the gift of authentic Christianity. Lives being transformed every day by the living Lord Jesus are proof that God’s word is true and his grace is amazing. Unfortunately, many of us settle for a religion about Jesus when we could have an intimate relationship with him. To experience such a relationship daily, as Oswald Chambers reminds us, I must give up “my claim to my right to myself.” When I do, “The free committal of myself to God gives the Holy Spirit the chance to impart to me the holiness of Jesus Christ.” When last did you make such a “free committal” of yourself to Jesus?

As I document in my latest book, The Coming Tsunami, our culture brands Christians as outdated, intolerant, oppressive, and dangerous on a level unprecedented in our nation’s history. As a result, it is imperative that you and I become the change we wish to see. We cannot give what we do not possess or lead others where we will not go. As I noted yesterday, our example as Spirit-empowered Christ-followers can attract our secular culture to the One who is transforming us by his love and grace. But if we are “conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2), why would the world want what we have?

The latest data from the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary shows seven “encouraging” trends for Christianity, according to Lifeway Research.