A tent peg in stubborn soil

Rod Dreher, a writer and editor at The American Conservative, is looking into the future and doesn’t like what he sees. “The Coming Christian Collapse” names three trends that will spell doom for the church in America unless—well, Dreher sees no “unless.” We’re doomed.

His first reason is the growing number of “nones,” or those who claim no religious affiliation. According to Pew Research Center, two-thirds of millennials who were raised unchurched remain so—if there were a “church of nones,” it would have a higher retention rate than any other. Second, even those who identify themselves as Christian in this age group are illiterate about the Bible and basic doctrine. Their religion is therapeutic moralism with a Jesus polish, unlikely to withstand any serious challenge.

Third, church attendance among the lower economic class has dropped dramatically, and the middle and upper classes are drifting away, too. “If we lose [them],” Dreher writes, “we lose the church.” Since most college students come from the higher income levels, their drift away from church in college is worrisome, given that most of them won’t come back.

Even in his own moments of despair, Ezra saw the ‘gracious hand of the Lord’ on his people.

Dreher speaks from the right. There are also plenty of doom-casters from the left, such as blogger John Pavlovitz who writes blog posts like “Church, Here’s Why People Are Leaving You.” Much of what Pavlovitz says is true, or true too often: that church has become entertainment, that the words Christians use in conversation sound foreign to outsiders, that church members prefer to retreat inside a building than engage their community. But left-leaning Christians also insist that the church must give up her commitment to hot-button issues like biblical sexuality.

About 2,500 years ago similar voices rang from Babylon and Jerusalem: True worship of the Lord is over; our Temple is in ruins; our children are at risk, and our people know nothing about the God of heaven. Then something miraculous happened: Cyrus of Persia defeated the great-grandson of Nebuchadnezzar and took over his empire. The Lord moved the heart of Cyrus to allow the Jews to return to their homeland—even to finance the journey and send along the Temple treasures Nebuchadnezzar had confiscated over 70 years before. It seemed their troubles were over.

But after the first wave of exiles laid the foundations of a new Temple and celebrated with a curious mix of joy and grief, the project stalled. The Jews were mocked, sabotaged, and lied about. Their enemies, like tattletales on a playground, sent complaining and accusing letters back to the king. Being a misunderstood and maligned group in their own country sapped their morale. The work on the Temple stopped and hung in limbo for at least 10 years, with stones askew and weeds growing up between the cracks. You know what despair looks like—an abandoned lot where great plans run to seed.

Then Ezra, “a scribe skilled in the law of Moses” and armed with another royal commission, arrived in Jerusalem with a second group of exiles. Ezra, and Nehemiah shortly after him, found a people dispirited and compromised. The way back began with the Word of God and some stern disciplinary action, but soon, row by row, the Temple walls rose again. Even in his own moments of despair, Ezra saw the “gracious hand of the LORD” on his people, “to leave us a remnant and to give us a secure hold within his holy place.” “Secure hold” is from the Hebrew for tent peg, a firm anchor for a billowing structure.

It was enough. By 450 B.C. the Temple was complete.

Ezra might see some similarities in today’s church with Jerusalem of his time—the people mocked, dispirited, directionless, and often ignorant of their own tradition. But “collapse” is an overstatement. First of all, the church is not ours. Second, the tent peg that anchors it is the Word of God that endures forever. That’s where our attention needs to be, and not so much on trends and surveys and losses. God’s people have been here before, and He knows how to hold them secure.

Email jcheaney@wng.org