In my childhood church growing up, I remember hearing our senior pastor speak about a massive missed opportunity by the American Church (he was speaking about evangelical Protestants but I’m sure it would include other groups too). According to him, the 1950s and 1960s were a time where many Christians were fervently praying for revival, especially among young people. This is when evangelists like Billy Graham and organizations such as Campus Crusade were really gaining momentum. These Christians, especially members of the “Greatest Generation,” longed for another Great Awakening and for millions of Americans to wholeheartedly turn to Jesus.
Then, my pastor explained, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, arose the Jesus Movement–a massive wave of young people passionately pursuing Jesus! But these weren’t buttoned-up, clean cut Christians like their parents; these were long-haired, barefoot, jeans-wearing hippies. They listened to rock-and-roll, went to Woodstock, cared about Civil Rights, and also loved Jesus. I count both my parents and most of my aunts and uncles as participants of this movement, and many of them were first saved in “Christian Coffeehouses” that functioned as the informal headquarters of the Jesus Movement. All of them are still practicing Christians today.
But unfortunately, the broader American Christian Church was not ready to receive these Jesus Freaks. If these guitar-strumming radicals weren’t ready to conform to what “Christians” were supposed to look like, then they weren’t fully welcome to join the existing churches. Eventually some members of the Jesus Movement assimilated to the mainstream church culture, others started their own churches, and others slowly faded away from Christianity altogether. [Thus perhaps the 1980s Moral Majority movement can be seen as a mostly successful attempt to capture these young, unorganized Christ-followers within a more focused political and culture effort: the Reagan-era Republican Party.]
I don’t fully know why this story from my church’s pastor has always stuck with me. I suppose because it helped me to simplify and make sense of some generational dynamics that I had already noticed, as well as because it was one of the few non-triumphal stories I had heard about American Christianity. It was a story of where American Christians had messed up, a missed opportunity, of pride and selfishness getting in the way of the movement of the Gospel.
As I sit writing this in 2023, I am convinced that there has been another major missed opportunity made by the American Church, this time in the past two decades. You see, around the year 2000 I and many other evangelicals were part of many discussions, conversations, and seminars about developing a “Christian Worldview.” I even went to a Worldview Academy summer camp! A Christian worldview was one which thought critically about the world and responded to issues by asking insightful questions, sharing biblical truths in comprehensible ways, and gently probing at unchallenged assumptions by the non-Christian culture at large. There were a few aspects to this that adjoined a bit close to rightwing politics–such as when it came to economics– but for the most part my experience was that of a philosophy class. I think it was worthwhile and helped make me a sharper thinker.
At this time, the greatest threat that Christians saw to our worldview was that of “relativism”- the idea that there is no such thing as an objective truth or objective right and wrong. Relativism was seen as the root of sexual promiscuity (“if it feels good do it!”), selfishness, greed, violence, atheism etc. Relativism said that all humans were fundamentally perfect as they were, and just had to follow their hearts to discover their own paths forward. In contrast, a Christian Biblical worldview clearly stated that there was such a thing as objective truth. All humans were fallen and needed redemption from their sinful ways, which could only come through repenting from evil and following Jesus.
I believe there was a kairos moment in recent years, when it seemed to me that secular culture had all of a sudden turned away from the concepts of relativism! Instead of seeing humans as perfect, there suddenly arose an awareness that each of us bear some connection to and culpability for systems of greed, racism, imperialism, misogyny, and other manifestations of sin. There spread the idea that there is in fact such a thing as timeless truths and universal right and wrong–ex: The Founding Fathers were slave-holders, and slavery is wrong. We must not excuse them simply because it was common behavior or think that they didn’t know any better. “Social Justice Warriors” were everywhere, pointing out sins both big and small, both on the group level and individually. This secular culture has had numerous good outcomes across society, but wasn’t without its flaws. Some people were ‘canceled’ with little hope of redemption, while others cowered in fear, afraid to make a mistake.
And this is where the opportunity should have been for the Church to jump in– to say something like: “Yes! You are right! There is such a thing as right and wrong, and those sins you have mentioned are evil and condemned in the Bible! And you’re right that every individual and indeed every group is fundamentally broken in one way or another. As the Bible says, ‘for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.’ We Christians are also guilty of these sins–sometimes especially so– and have to constantly repent of them. Even just looking at someone lustfully Jesus counts as adultery–and we could say that is part of rape culture and misogyny. To name just one example. However, Jesus offers not only forgiveness of all our sin, but power to free us from shame and to live new lives of repentance and righteousness! By the power of the Holy Spirit we can live differently-not that we’re ever perfect, we’ll still make mistakes-but we can seek to continually be transformed day by day, loving God, loving our neighbors as ourselves, and praying for God’s perfect kingdom to be more and more present on earth as it is in heaven. Would you like to learn more about this Jesus?”
If the American Church had taken this route, we would have not only been able to speak into the social issues of our time, but would have offered a realistic path of redemption forward for those who struggle with fear of making a mistake or being forever ‘canceled.’ We might have seen more unexpected alliances forge across party lines to face real problems in society–like homelessness, AIDs, hunger, and more. We might have seen millions of young people once again take the words of Jesus seriously, wondering if he might indeed be the Way, the Truth and the Life.
But on the whole, what we saw was precisely the opposite. Instead of acknowledging the persistent existence of sin in America and pointing people to Jesus, we saw denial and self-justification by most conservative evangelicals. Too often the response has been: “I’m not a racist! I’m the least racist person you’ve ever met! And besides, Marxism and those George Soros globalists are far worse anyway. Also our Founding Fathers were chosen by God, how dare you criticize them! And how can I be a sexist, my daughter is a woman! We just need to cling ever more strongly to our country and to our Christian leaders. In fact, it’s probably a good thing if they swear, if they mock, if they lie, if they are willing to get their hands dirty–that’s what politics is you baby! Suck it up you crying libtard. All you’re doing is encouraging me to buy more ammo so I can get ready to waste these traitors. Let’s Go Brandon!” Now perhaps I’m getting carried away, but anyone who’s spent any time on social media in the past 10 years knows it’s not far from the reality. Just like Adam and Eve in the Garden, it is far easier to point the blame at someone else than to acknowledge our own failings, and American Christians are no different.
And interestingly, this is almost a complete inversion of the cultural situation from the year 2000. In many liberal secular circles, you can now see a Puritanical, almost religious culture that requires perfect behavior, language, rites, and rituals (e.g. land acknowledgments, “Latinx”, confessing one’s privilege, etc) that may indeed be worthwhile, but are sometimes performed out of fear rather than faith because there is little opportunity for forgiveness if you screw up. And on the flip side, among some conservative Christians, you can now see a reveling in grotesque language, actions, and ideas that are decidedly unlike Jesus but that are justified through self-oriented discourse. Gone is the concept of timeless, objective evils that must be condemned regardless of who does them; now it’s wrong if “they” do it but justified if “we” do it. It’s relativism all over again.
In consequence, millions of young Americans are fleeing this version of Christianity as fast as they can. I don’t think most of them are necessarily trying to flee from Jesus, but if no one has told them the full truth about Him, then how would they even know what He’s like?
Ultimately, I think the kairos moment has mostly passed for the American Church. We faced a test of our integrity and failed. To be fair – there were indeed some churches and ministries who faithfully integrated Christianity and social action, and saw some good fruit. (And again, this is mostly speaking of the part of the American Church I know best–white evangelical Protestantism. I welcome insights that come from other denominations and backgrounds.)
But I think the writing is on the wall (a biblical allusion that fewer and fewer Americans will understand each year!). In all likelihood Christianity will continue to expand in leaps and bounds in the Global South and East, while it slowly shrinks in North America except among certain immigrant groups. Perhaps it is for the best that faithful Christians one day exist here in the US as a small holy remnant, rather than as an idolatrous concubine to capitalism and empire. But in the meantime we can pray, and ask God for yet another revival, even if it’s not what we might expect. Pastor Tim Keller recently wrote in The Atlantic what such a revival might look like, and I think his analysis is spot on. We may not deserve revival any more than the Church deserved it in the 1970s. We might not like who God brings to our church doors any more than they liked the Jesus Freaks. But we can pray nonetheless. And prepare.