4 CULTURAL TRENDS LEADING TO THE DECLINE OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

Great article from Trevin Wax on how the cultural trends are leading to less religious liberty.
Religious liberty, America’s “first freedom,” has fallen on hard times lately.

A few years ago, a survey showed that nearly 40 percent of Americans believed the First Amendment’s protections “go too far.” That number has decreased in later surveys (thankfully), but it’s still a troubling sign. Meanwhile, we are seeing more and more legal battles against religious people whose convictions are not in line with the ideology of the Sexual Revolution.

What’s going on?

What are the cultural trends leading to diminished religious liberty?

Trend #1: Religion is personal and private, not public. 

More and more Americans see religion as something personal and private, a belief that you hold for therapeutic purposes. It’s about feelings that are true for you, not facts that concern the whole world.

The American people have not always had this view of religion. When he was running for president in 1960, John F. Kennedy had to make a speech to assure people that his Catholicism would not negatively affect his governance. Interestingly, he had to make that speech because (1) Americans believed religion mattered for public life and (2) he needed to convince them that, in his case, his private beliefs would be innocuous. In other words, he had to make the case that religion is personal and private, precisely because so many Americans saw religion as something public.

The idea that religion is a private affair has existed for a long time, but it has become “the default position” on religion in recent years—to the point that religious people have to make a case for why religion should matter in the public square or in the realm of politics.

Over time, this trend leads to less patience with people who believe that religion affects all of their decisions. The more devout you are in public, the more strange you seem in a society where religion is pushed to periphery of private prayer or self-fulfillment.

Trend #2: Freedom of religion is narrowed to freedom of worship.

In recent years, it’s been interesting to see how “freedom and worship” and “freedom of religion” are used simultaneously, as if they are the same thing. The First Amendment guarantees the “free exercise of religion” not the “freedom to worship as you please.” Or, to make the point clearer, we should say freedom of worship comes under the broader umbrella of freedom of religion.

Many Americans believe that as long as churches are free to teach and preach what they want, we have freedom of religion in this country. But this diminishment of freedom to a “worship service” is very different from the freedom to live out one’s religious convictions in everyday life. It walls off religion and consigns it to rituals and values that are personal and private (see Trend #1).

But Christianity is not just about one’s private beliefs; it’s about a way of life. It’s one thing to say “Jesus is Lord of my heart” and another thing to say, “Jesus is Lord of all.” Christians affirm both of those truths.

In ancient Rome, the Caesar wouldn’t have cared about a messianic Jewish sect if the early Christians had merely been saying, “Jesus is my personal Savior.” No, Caesar was threatened because people were “turning the world upside down” by proclaiming another king, Jesus (Acts 17). Likewise, Nebuchadnezzar wouldn’t have cared if the three Jewish exiles had worshiped their own God in private. He was furious because they would not bow down to his statue.

Trend #3: Fewer people claim to be religious today.

The Pew Research data shows the rise of the Nones—the percentage of people who check “none” when asked about their religious affiliation. Many nominal Christians in the past are now unaffiliated with any religion.

Generally speaking, it’s harder for nonreligious people to understand the depths of religious conviction and motivation. For example, it’s usually easier for a Christian, rather than a secularist, to understand the plight of a Jewish person who will not work on the Sabbath, or a Muslim prisoner who will not shave his beard. Religious people understand these conundrums, even if they don’t share the same convictions. Why? Because in the case of Islam and Judaism, we’re dealing with a comprehensive worldview that affects all of life—private and public. We may not share the same worldview, but we understand that worldviews matter.

Non-religious people may have a more difficult time understanding the depth of these convictions and the sensibility of religious conscience. It’s interesting to see secular journalists write about religious people as if they can “prod them along” to change deeply held beliefs about marriage, or the exclusivity of their religious truth claims, and so on.

Trend #4: The Sexual Revolution has its own vision of sin and salvation. 

Finally, the Sexual Revolution is the place where so many religious liberty disputes have risen. The debates go beyond sex. They cover the basic worldview questions: “What is a human being?” “What is the purpose of sex?” “What is the end goal of humanity?” “What is the meaning of our bodies as male and female?”

The Sexual Revolutionaries offer different answers to those questions than do most religious people. For many today, traditional notions of sexual sin are not problematic, but the very notion of sin in sexuality is the sin from which we need deliverance. Repression is bad; liberation is good.

But Christianity has a different set of views and norms when it comes to channeling sexual expression in ways that maximize human flourishing. The Sexual Revolution’s ideology must resist Christianity in order for all (or at least most) sexual behavior to be treated as “normal,” and equally true and good.

Conclusion

Christians in North America will face many challenges in the future. Religious liberty debates are likely to increase as these trends accelerate. Let’s not be shocked when people don’t understand where we’re coming from.

Instead, let’s take time to back up and put these debates in context, always giving faithful witness to the gospel that never changes.

HOW MARGINALIZATION CAN EMPOWER CHRISTIANS ON MISSION

Here is an excellent article by Trevin Wax at Gospel Coalition about the the marginalization of InterVarsity through discrimination and even persecution and their biblical response.  They did not play the victim, not complain, but responded in biblical love, compassion, and mission.  The result is that they are growing in their influence!

The most difficult place to be a convictional Christian in North America is probably the campus of a university. Christian students frequently speak of the hostility they face on campus when they are open about their Christian faith and practice.

If the university is a microcosm of the rest of society and a sign of where our culture is headed, then Christians can expect hostility and marginalization to increase in the coming years. The good news is: if Christian organizations on campus are any indication, this marginalization could become the catalyst for more effective mission.

The Challenge to InterVarsity

Take, for example, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship – a campus group that has faced opposition over the past 15 years.

In 2000, InterVarsity was expelled from Tufts University. The reason? The doctrinal and behavioral standards for InterVarsity leaders were distinctively Christian, thus excluding non-Christians. Other schools followed suit: Harvard, Williams College, and Rutgers.

It seems silly to many Americans to require an organization open its leadership to anyone, no matter what they believe. How can a group centered on a particular set of beliefs not require its leaders to hold those beliefs? How could a Christian organization appoint an atheist to lead it? Why should the College Democrats allow a Republican president? (Interestingly, the policies aimed at InterVarsity were applied inconsistently. Muslim groups that not only require certain beliefs of leaders but alsomembers were left alone.)

The problem for InterVarsity wasn’t just a matter of doctrine, but of practice. It was the requirement that leaders abstain from any sexual relationship outside of biblical marriage that caused particular consternation. By asking leaders to live by Christian faith and practice, InterVarsity had run afoul of our culture’s commitment to sexual liberty.

For more than a decade now, InterVarsity has faced multiple controversies regarding their groups’ leadership standards. In 2010, the Supreme Court ruled that universities had the right to require groups to open their leadership to all, as long as they applied that policy fairly and required all groups to adopt that “all comers” philosophy.

Last year, after Vanderbilt University excluded InterVarsity, Tish Warren wrote about the experience as a Christian who sees herself as a moderate – not politically or theologically conservative. Her testimony made clear that it is biblical orthodoxy, not one’s political leanings, that causes the offense.

“The line between good and evil was drawn by two issues: creedal belief and sexual expression. If religious groups required set truths or limited sexual autonomy, they were bad—not just wrong but evil, narrow-minded, and too dangerous to be tolerated on campus.”

Soon after Vanderbilt barred InterVarsity, California de-recognized the campus organization from all 23 state schools. (InterVarsity has since been reinstated.)

How InterVarsity Responded

How did InterVarsity respond to these challenges?

First, students didn’t pretend to be martyrs. They did not see themselves as helpless victims of liberal tyranny. Being shamed or relegated to second-class status is marginalization, not martyrdom — and they know the difference. Perhaps due to InterVarsity’s global outreach and ethnic diversity, these believers avoided words like “persecution” for their own situation when they are well aware of true persecution in other parts of the world.

Secondly, because InterVarsity students did not see exaggerate their difficulties, they were better prepared to treat their opponents with respect and dignity. They overcame the temptation to resent the people who marginalized them. Even though they were taunted and shamed, accused of being intolerant bigots no better than white supremacists, they cheerfully served the people who maligned them. They brought water and doughnuts to LGBT groups protesting them. They took stands against LGBT bullying even while facing ideological bullies in university leadership. They prayed for their university leaders and found creative ways to support and strengthen the institutions that were bent on driving them out.

David French witnessed InterVarsity’s cheerful courage and compassion firsthand:

“With my own eyes I’ve seen young college students – kids who months before never imagined they’d be at the center of a national controversy – braving physical intimidation in deliberately darkened hallways, barred from entering campus hearing rooms to respectfully defend religious freedom. I’ve seen young women endure rape threats and death threats yet double down on their faith commitments and commitment to free speech for all. Young students have been subjected to Star Chamber-like proceedings in which furious campus administrators tried to hector them into doubting and denying their faith. And students have turned out by the hundreds, crowding campus buildings, to pray for their university and protest their unjust punishments.”

InterVarsity leaders challenged policies they believed were unwise or discriminatory, but whenever they lost, they submitted to the decisions and moved forward without campus recognition.

What Happened to InterVarsity

Today, InterVarsity’s reports of conversion are up 172% from just ten years ago. In the past four years, InterVarsity has grown at a double-digit rate, increasing their presence on more than 100 new campuses and ministering to 40,000 students (up from 31,000).

If marginalization is a danger to a Christian organization’s mission, the numbers sure don’t show it. In fact, we might say the opposite is true. 

We often talk about how the test of one’s character, one’s inner fortitude (one’s “mettle,” to use the old English word) takes place in times of adversity. People say: “I didn’t know what I had in me until this happened!”

InterVarsity has faced adversity, but through that experience, its members have drawn out the beauty of Christianity in practice. A distinctive display of love for enemies is one of the most powerful marks of a Christian. But in order to display that love, you must find yourself in a place where you are maligned, misunderstood, or mistreated for your faith.

Church, Take Heart!

I hope the Church takes note. We shouldn’t see ourselves as martyrs facing bitter persecution. Neither should we given in to a poisonous resentment that reinforces the feeling of being beleaguered and oppressed.

Instead, like InterVarsity, we ought to see how the cultural challenges that lie ahead are not obstacles that hinder us, but avenues for our faith to shine brighter. That’s why Paul spoke of suffering as something to rejoice in – something that produces endurance and strengthens our hope in God.

InterVarsity is proof that cultural marginalization can actually help Christians be better. Being marginalized in wider society doesn’t mean that our Christian faith and practice has to suffer. It might just be the catalyst for even more effectiveness in our mission.

How to Survive a Cultural Crisis

Here is a helpful article from Mark Dever I found on the Gospel Coalition.

Public opinion appears to be changing about same-sex marriage, as are the nation's laws. Of course this change is just one in a larger constellation. America's views on family, love, sexuality generally, tolerance, God, and so much more seems to be pushing in directions that put Bible-believing Christians on the defensive.

It's easy to feel like we've become the new "moral outlaws," to use Al Mohler's phrase. Standing up for historic Christian principles will increasingly get you in trouble socially and maybe economically, perhaps one day also criminally. It's ironic that Christians are told not to impose their views on others, even as the threat of job loss or other penalties loom over Christians for not toeing the new party line.

In all this, Christians are tempted to become panicked or to speak as alarmists. But to the extent we do, to that same extent we show we've embraced an unbiblical and nominal Christianity.

Here, then, are seven principles for surviving the very real cultural shifts we're presently enduring.

1. Remember that churches exist to work for supernatural change.

The whole Christian faith is based on the idea that God takes people who are spiritually dead and gives them new life. Whenever we evangelize, we are evangelizing the cemetery.

There's never been a time or a culture when it was natural to repent of your sins. That culture doesn't exist, it hasn't existed, it never will exist. Christians, churches, and pastors especially must know deep in their bones that we've always been about a work that's supernatural.

From that standpoint, recent cultural changes have made our job zero percent harder.

2. Understand that persecution is normal.  

In the last few months I've been preaching through John's Gospel, and a number of people have thanked me for bringing out the theme of persecution. But I'm not convinced my preaching has changed; I think people's ears have changed. Recent events in the public square have caused people to become concerned about what's ahead for Christians. But if you were to go back and listen to my old sermons—say, a series preached in the 1990s on 1 Peter— you'd discover that ordinary biblical exposition means raising the topic of persecution again and again.

Persecution is what Christians face in this fallen world. It's what Jesus promised us (e.g., John 16).

Now, it may be that in God's providence some Christians find themselves in settings where, even if they devote their lives to obeying Jesus, they won't encounter insult and persecution. But don't be fooled by the nice buildings in which so many churches meet. This Jesus we follow was executed as a state criminal.

One of my fellow pastors recently observed that, in the history of Christian persecution, it's often secondary issues—not the gospel—that elicit persecution. Persecutors don't say, "You believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ; I'm going to persecute you now." Rather, some belief or practice we maintain as Christians contradicts what people want or threatens their way of seeing the world. And so they oppose us.

Again, to the extent we respond to changes in our culture either with panic or alarmism, to that same extent we contradict the Bible's teaching about ordinary Christian discipleship. It shows we've traded on the normalcy of nominalism.

Pastors especially should set the example in teaching their congregations not to play the victim. We should salt into our regular preaching and praying the normalcy of persecution. It's the leader's work to prepare churches for how we can follow Jesus, even if it means social criticism, or loss of privilege, or financial penalties, or criminal prosecution.

3. Eschew utopianism.

Christians should be a people of love and justice, and that means we should always strive to make our little corner of the globe a bit nicer than how we found it, whether that's a kindergarten classroom or a kingdom. But even as we work for the sake of love and justice, we must remember we're not going to transform this world into the kingdom of our Christ.

God hasn't commissioned us to make this world perfect; he's commissioned us chiefly to point to the One who will one day make it perfect, even as we spend our lives loving and doing good. If you're tempted to utopianism, please observe that Scripture doesn't allow it, and that the history of utopianism has a track record of distracting and deceiving even some of Christ's most zealous followers.

It's good to feel sadness over the growing approval given to sin in our day. But one of the reasons many Christians in America feel disillusionment over current cultural changes is that we've been somewhat utopian in our hopes. Again, to the extent you think and speak as an alarmist, to that same extent you demonstrate that utopian assumptions may have been motivating you all along.

4. Make use of our democratic stewardship.

I would be sad if anyone concluded from my comments that it doesn't matter what Christians do publicly or with the state. Paul tells us to submit to the state. But in our democratic context, part of submitting to the state means sharing in its authority. And if we have a share in its authority, we just might have, to some extent, a share in its tyranny. To neglect the democratic process, so long as it's in our hands, is to neglect a stewardship.

We cannot create Utopia, but that doesn't mean we cannot be good stewards of what we have, or that we cannot use the democratic processes to bless others. For the sake of love and justice, we should make use of our democratic stewardship.

5. Trust the Lord, not human circumstances.

There's never been a set of circumstances Christians cannot trust God through. Jesus beautifully trusted the Father through the cross "for the joy set before him" (Heb. 12:2). Nothing you and I will face will amount to what our King had to suffer.

We can trust him. He will prove trustworthy through everything we might have to endure. And as we trust him, we will bear a beautiful testimony of God's goodness and power, and we will bring him glory.

6. Remember that everything we have is God's grace.

We must remember anything we receive less than hell is dancing time for Christians. Right? Everything a Christian has is all of grace. We need to keep that perspective so that we aren't tempted to become too sour toward our employers, our friends, our family members, and our government when they oppose us.

How was Paul able to sing in prison? He knew that of which he'd been forgiven. He knew the glory that awaited him. He perceived and prized these greater realities.

7. Rest in the certainty of Christ's victory.

The gates of hell will not prevail against the church of Jesus Christ. We need not fear and tremble as if Satan has finally, after all these millennia, gained the upper hand in his opposition to God through the same-sex marriage lobby.

"Oh, we might finally lose it here!" No, not a chance.

People around the world now and throughout history have suffered far more than Christians in America presently do. And we don't assume Satan had the upper hand there, do we?

Each nation and age has a unique way to express its depravity, to attack God. But none will succeed any more than the crucifixion succeeded in defeating Jesus. Yes, he died. But three days later he got up from the dead.

Christ's kingdom is in no danger of failing. Again, Christians, churches, and especially pastors must know this deeply in our bones. D-Day has happened. Now it's cleanup time. Not one person God has elected to save will fail to be saved because the secular agenda is "winning" in our time and place. There shouldn't be anxiety or desperation in us.

We may not be able to out-argue others. They may not be persuaded by our books and articles. But we can love them with the supernatural love God has shown to us in Christ. And we can make his Word known today—with humility, with confidence, and with joy.

Mark Dever is pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., and the author of numerous books, including Nine Marks of a Healthy Church. You can learn more about him at 9Marks or follow him on Twitter.

How Shall We Respond to Suffering?

I am a bit concerned at the response of Christians to us loosing our rights in America.  I am not sure how to respond but 1 Peter would challenge any form of revolt.  I ran across this quote in a commentary I was reading as I prepared for this weeks sermon.
"When the French 'Sun King,' Louis XIV, revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685, a long period of persecution forced reformed Christians to gather for worship in the fields or mountains.  Their pastors were hunted down by the King's dragoons.  Yet they preached the message of 1 PEter, urging their flocks not to take arms against the king, but to endure persecution for Chris's sake.  So few pastors remained, however, that leadership was taken by self-proclaimed prophets and prophetesses who identified the king of France with the beast of the book of Revelation, and summoned the people to holy war.  The result was the Camisard rebellion, an armed revolt that became guilty of its own counter-terrorism.  The church took the sword and destroyed its own witness." Charles Bost, Histoire des Protestants de France as quoted in Edmund Clowney, the Message of 1 Peter. 

Turn the Other Cheek

Tim Keller on turning the other cheek:

When people come to me and say, ‘What does the Bible teach I should do when I’m persecuted?’ I say, ‘It’s simple. You want to not go get them and hate them. The Bible says reverse that. You have to go get them and love them.’ What do people say? ‘Impossible. That’s ridiculous.’ Of course, that’s what the Bible says you’re supposed to do. That’s what turn the other cheek means. Turn the other cheek does not mean you let people walk all over you. Absolutely not. Paul didn’t; he appealed to Caesar. Jesus didn’t; he protested when he was struck. ‘Hey, this is illegal,’ he said. The Bible always says you uphold justice for the sake of justice, but you let God be the judge. You give over the ultimate judgment of that person’s character to God and you go after justice without any vengefulness in your heart. You forgive.