The End of Christian America

This is the cover story from this week's issue of Newsweek. I can't say that it really surprised me but it was still disconcerting to read it. One of the statements made in the article is that the number of people in the United States who have no religious affiliation has doubled since 1990. It also says that the area of the country that has the most non-religious people is now the Northeast instead of the Pacific Northwest. Considering that the Northeast was home to The Great Awakening during the Puritan era and exploded in Christian growth during that time, this information is astounding. It is becoming more and more common for people who attend church to be in the minority. When I was a child, pretty much everyone I knew attended church. This is not the case anymore. It will probably not be long before the South and the Midwest follow suit with the Northeast. North America is resembling Europe more and more. Today in Europe, many of the great cathedrals and churches from centuries ago are empty. They are cemeteries and graveyards.

This information makes it abundantly clear that the West is no longer the center of Christianity. I think it's interesting to look back on church history and follow the spread of Christianity from the Middle East westward to Europe and then North America. Now it's coming back full circle across Latin America, Asia and Africa which is now where the majority of Christians in the world live. This is no surprise to God and is all part of His good and sovereign plan. So, I guess I should not be disconcerted by it. I guess I'm more concerned about the faith that my grandchildren and great-grandchildren will have. This gives me an even greater incentive to teach my children about Christ and pray for their salvation.

This is an excerpt I read the other day in John Piper's "Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die" :

Christianity began in the East. Over the centuries there was a major shift to the West. But increasingly now, Christianity is not a Western religion. This is no surprise to Christ. Already in the Old Testament his global impact was foretold: " All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD, and all the families of the nations shall worship before you" (Psalm 22:27). "Let the nations be glad and sing for joy" (Psalm 67:4). So when Jesus came to the end of his ministry on earth, he made his mission clear: "that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations" (Luke 24:46-47)... Jesus Christ is not a tribal deity. He does not belong to one culture or one ethnic group. He is "the Lamb of God , who takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29).