“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” (Mark 12:30)
Last week I referred to a Pew Poll that many took as the harbinger of secularism’s coming triumph over Christianity. I tried to explain why I thought reports of Christianity’s death were premature. Today I would like to explain in a little more depth (but not length) why I think that a wise bookie should not bet against Christianity, even weighing the present cultural shifts we are experiencing.
In passing in my last post I mentioned three groups of people who purport to be Christians on most surveys and polls. About a dozen years ago a large survey called ARIS (American Religious Identification Survey) used its statistics to predict the demise of Christianity. It found that self-identifying Christians had dropped from 86% in 1990 to 76% in 2009. During that same time period the “nones” (those declaring no religious affiliation) had risen from 8% to 15%. All kinds of magazine articles, blog sites, and news outlets ran headlines that expressed the need to call hospice fo
r Believing America. A Pew Poll a few years ago added fire to the flames, and the death knell has been ringing even louder.
If statistics alone were the measuring stick, Christians might be pulling out the life-support gear, but as with most statistics there are other facts beneath the numbers. What I think the numbers tell us is that people are just being more honest than they have in the past. The choices on most surveys are pretty limited, very nondescript, and fairly black and white. If the survey was set up to give more accurate definitions of terms, I don’t think we would see the “decline” of Christianity in the same way as most are seeing it now. The fact is that most people who are no longer calling themselves Christians are not doing so because they have changed their minds about Christianity; it is because they are coming out of the closet with their true feelings about Christianity.
Last week I talked about three classifications of Christians. Within those groups there are smaller classifications, and it is with these is mind that we should check the numbers. Of course, these are broad categories and the numbers are not exact, but I think classifying different “types” of Christians is the only way to really evaluate the data we are seeing. In a way, it is still disheartening, but in another sense, it is enlightening.
These categories- cultural, congregational, and convictional have always existed, but as culture loosens its reigns on what is acceptable morality, the numbers in these groups will be affected. In descriptive terms they might be categorized like this: the poorly committed, the conveniently committed and the truly committed, but
those are probably too broad of strokes to really build a strong argument on.
Cultural Christians are generally the “I live in America, so I must be a Christian group.” They have inherited their faith from others, but have never experienced it themselves. They believe what others have told them, are possibly loosely affiliated with a church and might know its general location and would have marked the box Christian because they knew they were not Muslim. These folks make up about 33% of self-professing Christians.
Congregational Christians are occasional church attenders, and might even have a church “home” of sorts. They are often called “Churchtains” because the church experience becomes a substitute for the Christ experience. They lack vibrant Christian lives and are quick to back away from a real openness about their faith. They confidently mark the Christian box because they believe of all the relationships they have, Jesus is somewhere on the list. They also make up about 33% of professing Christians.
The final group, Convictional Christians, are people who take their faith seriously and live according to that faith. They believe in the spread of the gospel and place their work for Christ on the top of their priorities. Jesus is not just a spoke on the wheel of their lives, but the hub. He is not intermixed with other life pursuits all of which (including Christ) are at the same level. Christ is demonstrably the lynchpin of their lives. Of course, they make up the final 34% of professing Christians.
Within the Convictional Christians are two main subgroups. Evangelical Christians and mainline Protestants. Here is where the numbers start to get interesting. Evangelical have a more defined set of beliefs. They accept the Bible as the Word of God, believe Jesus is the only way to salvation, and believe personal conversion through the acceptance of Christ as the only way to bridge the gap between God and man. Mainline Protestants are more liberal in their thinking and believe that there is flexibility in the Word of God, there may be leeway in the “Jesus is the only way” argument, and they tend to be less concerned with personal conversion. Evangelism is less of a concern to mainline Protestants who tend to rely on activities of good will which are often void of the gospel message.
The good news in all of this, maybe surprisingly, is that the only group that is actually growing is the Evangelical Christians. They have made up in increase what mainline Protestants have lost in numbers. Overall, Convictional Christians have held their own through this decrease in self-professing Christians. The losses have been drawn from the first two groups. The lesson here is this- committed, convicted, spirit-filled believers are holding the line. As people purport that Christians suffer from the same declining morality as the rest of society, they are pointing not to those who have a deep, prayerful, heartfelt relationship with 
Christ, but to those in the first two categories.
Paul says in Romans, “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:1-2) Clear back in Deuteronomy we are told, “You shall follow the LORD your God and fear Him; and you shall keep His commandments, listen to His voice, serve Him, and cling to Him.” (Deuteronomy 13:4) It is my belief that if we love Christ with “all our heart and all our soul and all our mind” our chances of marking the “none” box is pretty slim- not because we are faithful, but because He is faithful.
There may come a time, even sooner than later, when we will be asked to openly reject our faith or face persecution. Nominal Christians won’t mind making that profession because they are giving up nothing. It will really only apply to those who make Christ their head who will really have a decision. I have heard many people say they would die for Christ who cannot even find time for Him in their busy day. It smacks of the man who says, “If I was a millionaire I would give half of it to the Lord,” and yet gives nothing from what he does have. If we can’t love Christ openly without duress, how can we stand for him in the face of threat?
If a one-fourth of the people in this country remain spirit-filled, loving Christians, we will maybe be able to face the immorality onslaught and win. If this group starts to decrease, there will be trouble. History teaches us that where Christianity is persecuted it grows even stronger. We read in John, “I assure you: Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains by itself. But if it dies, it produces a large crop.” (John 1:24) In times of difficulty Convictional Christians will respond because they have Someone in their lives who gives them comfort, power, and strength.
Do not be discouraged. Usually, those who are leaving the faith were never there. Hopefully, those of us who truly love Christ will not be confused with those who love Him when convenient. It is those who truly love Him who will change the world, others will change to fit the world.