The rechurching of the West

“Things are happening,” apologist Wesley Huff said as he revealed that Joe Rogan is now regularly attending a church. Rogan, once known as an atheist, is the latest public figure moving toward Christianity. On the more intellectual side, figures like historian Tom Holland and cultural commentator Jordan Peterson have for years been arguing for the positive and necessary influence of Christianity upon the West. The cultural rot that dominates life in late-stage secularism leaves much to be desired. Even Richard Dawkins (sometimes) recognizes the necessity of Christianity for the West to endure.

This renewed interest is not reserved for only the ivory towers of the university and the cramped studios of podcasting as more and more young people, especially young men, are searching for answers. Is the church ready to provide the answers when such people arrive at our doors?

Times of societal upheaval can become the fertile soil for revival if the church is prepared to apply the gospel to its cultural moment. In the last few decades, the West has experienced turmoil over questions of truth, sexuality, gender, government, and meaning. The dominance of secularism, and its dismissal of the transcendent God, makes finding answers to these questions nearly hopeless. Life without God, as it is reduced to the pursuit of the autonomous self, becomes myopic, meaningless, and disenchanted. The hollowness of such living, coupled with the obvious lies coming from our cultural elites, has awakened a spiritual hunger and a desire to recover the West’s foundations. These two longings go together.

Christianity uniquely shaped the West. From our laws to our customs, no society has been more influenced by Christianity than ours. The West was called Christendom because of this pervasive influence. As Holland explores throughout his work, the bedrock beliefs that many assume today—human equality and rights, the primacy of justice and the rejection of power, the progress of culture and history—came about because of Christianity's impact on culture and government. Contrary to the lies of our day, Christianity is not an oppressive force, but the most liberating one the world has ever seen. The West went to church, and it came back transformed.

Yet, through the rise of secularism, the West has been backsliding for generations. Secularism promised more freedom, more prosperity, and more rational thought by exiling “superstitious” Christianity from public life. Instead, all the West got was more confusion, lies, bigger government, and blatant irrationality like the idea that men can become women. Our foundations have been torn down, but by God’s providence, people are seeking to recover them by returning to the church.

The West needs to be rechurched, and the church needs to be ready to do so. The irony is that much of this renewed interest in Christianity arose outside of the church. While decades ago theologians like Francis Schaeffer spoke prophetically about the need for the church to proclaim the total truth of Christianity, his message did not take deep root within evangelicalism. Instead of embracing a comprehensive Christian worldview, many evangelicals look down upon cultural engagement, especially in the realm of government, with great suspicion. Today, God is opening a door for a gospel witness in the very areas that evangelicals are prone to neglect—cultural and political engagement. This reticence demonstrates an evangelical theology that is held captive by the dogmas of secularism. Perhaps the problem is not if the church is ready to answer the questions of our day, but if we even want to.

If Christians are to seize the opportunity before us, we must rid ourselves of the secularist lie that the sacred and the secular can be wholly divided. As people search for an adequate and unified foundation for life, the church must be eager to provide a distinctively Christian answer. We can do so by recovering the work of generations of Christians who built society and changed it for the better. They were able to do so precisely because they saw Christ and Scripture provided answers for all of life. The church must again proclaim that the only hope for society, and individuals, is the crucified and risen Christ Jesus who is the head of all things (Ephesians 1:20-23).

Christianity is good for the world, and that resounds so much throughout history that even some atheists are starting to admit it. Christians must remind our confused age that Christianity is good for the world precisely because it is true. As God shakes our age, things are certainly happening, and we must be prepared to rebuild what secularism has torn down.