If one is hapless enough to watch television or listen to conservative or religious (or conservative religious) radio, one hears endless rhetorical prefaces that assert the decline of Christianity in the industrialized West (or any of its sub-parts). In almost every case, this narrative of decline and fall is asserted without empirical, sociological, or historical evidence, based instead on extremely limited and highly selective anecdotal evidence. Conservative Christians, for instance, routinely assume as the presupposition of their culture conversations that the sixties were a time of rejection of Christianity and Christian “values,” after which our culture has experienced unmitigated decline.

I have often wondered how African-American Christians responded to these statements, since (if they are in their middle-ages or beyond), they can likely recall a time when they could not dine in restaurants with whites, could not always vote in local elections, or could not sit in the front portion of a bus. One might argue that the “good old days” of the Eisenhower administration were not all that good for African-Americans, or for American Christians (who were as segregated as their non-Christian fellow-citizens), for that matter. Since that time, our culture has realized more than ever before the biblical truth of the unity of Adam’s race, even by those who disbelieve in Adam. Our culture is more integrated, and racial bigotry and injustice are routinely decried (though still practiced, in some locales, though discreetly). Indeed, I can say as one reared in Richmond, Virginia in the fifties and sixties, that I believe that on this particular score, we are a far more Christian nation than we were when I was a child, and I am entirely delighted by the progress.

The problem with anecdotal evidence is not that it is anecdotal; almost all true human wisdom is anecdotal. We learn by observing human activity that some behaviors are just, and others are unjust. We learn injustice not ordinarily by reading philosophical treatises, but by being treated unjustly. The problem with anecdotal evidence is that it is ordinarily so partial; it focuses on one, two, or three events or actions (mediated to us and selected for us by commercial news media), and draws universal or general conclusions from behaviors that are not, in fact, either universal or general. Worse, such selective anecdotal evidence is often employed in the service of fear-mongering, declaring that we are on the precipice of the return to barbarity, moving an audience to action by stimulating emotion, rather than cautious, critical assessment. In such circumstances, critical assessment tends to disappear altogether, and if the selective, fear-mongering evidence becomes the presuppositional currency we all use, we refuse to debase the currency by genuine critical assessment.

What I would like to suggest in this brief essay is that there is a difference, indeed a profound difference, between the decline of Christianity itself and the decline of culture religion; and further, that it is quite possible, if not altogether likely, that the decline of culture religion will ordinarily correlate with the progress of Christianity, not its regress. Christianity, if Augustine was even remotely correct, recognizes two “kingdoms” or “cities” on earth: the city of God and the city of man. When the two become confused, there may be some small improvement in the city of man, but there will almost certainly be an enormous decline in the city of God.

Christianity, while culturally cooperative in its healthier moments, is always essentially counter-cultural; it is the religion of those whose “citizenship is in heaven,” whose ultimate loyalties transcend local or peculiar cultural experiments, whose apostolic ethic demands that it resist conformity to “the world.” Indeed, authentic Christianity tends to manifest itself most authentically when it is a minority, and especially when it is a persecuted minority. By contrast, when church-membership or public identity with the Christian religion becomes a means to this-worldly success and ambition, Christianity tends to lose both its vitality and its integrity. The problem with even a general “culture religion,” one that is not established by the state, is that we tend to fail to perceive the many antitheses between the city of man and the city of God. American Christianity, for instance, in its prevailing form (evangelicalism), is remarkably American: populist, egalitarian, pragmatic, anti-intellectual, anti-traditional, a-historical, individualistic, paedo-centric, sentimentalist, contemporaneous, etc. Each of these qualifiers reflects a value that is contrary, in my judgment, to authentic Christianity, but contrary in a way that does not appear to be “worldly” in any obvious sense, because these are the values of our culture.

What many historians would therefore describe as “the rise of Christianity” I would describe as its decline. “Constantinianism” is the term that many of us, following people such as Jacques Ellul, use to describe the promotion of Christianity through the powers of the state. While the medieval era witnessed the rise of Constantinianism and Christendom, one may fairly challenge the notion that the medieval era witnessed the rise of Christianity, and indeed may with good reason describe this as Christianity’s decline, not its rise. If this is right, then what many decry as the “decline of Christianity” is merely the decline of Constantinianism, which is perhaps the best thing that could ever happen to authentic Christianity.

Indeed, if there is any real evidence of the decline of Christianity in the West, the evidence resides precisely in the eagerness of so many professing Christians to employ the state to advance the Christian religion. That is, if Ellul’s theory is right, the evidence of the decline of Christianity resides not in the presence of other religions (including secularism) in our culture, but in the Judge Moores, the hand-wringing over “under God” in the pledge of allegiance, and the whining about the “war on Christmas.” If professing Christians believe our religion is advanced by the power of the state rather than by the power of the Spirit, by coercion rather than by example and moral suasion, then perhaps Christianity is indeed in decline. If we can no longer say, with the apostle Paul, “the weapons of our warfare are not fleshly,” then perhaps Christianity is indeed in significant decline. If we believe we need Christian presidents, legislators, and judges in order for our faith to advance, then we ourselves no longer believe in Christianity, and it has declined. Christianity does not rise or fall on the basis of governmental activity; it rises or falls on the basis of true ecclesiastical activity. What Christianity needs is competent ministers, not Christian judges, legislators, or executive officers. Read more»

T. David Gordon | “The Decline of Christianity in the West? A Contrarian View” | Ordained Servant (May, 2007)

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Post authored by:

• T. David Gordon

  

  Dr. T. David Gordon is a teaching elder in The Presbytery of the Ascension. Before retirement, he taught at Gordon-Conwell Seminary (1984–98) and Grove City College (1999–2021).

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