Daniel Darling: A time of opportunity

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, March 12th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast. Up next, WORLD commentator Daniel Darling believes now is the time for bolder evangelism. A recent survey of American belief suggests the fields may be ripe.

DANIEL DARLING: Has the rise in secularism waned? That’s one conclusion to draw from the findings of the annual Pew survey. It gathered the religious views of over 35,000 people from across the country. Sixty-two percent of Americans identify as Christians. This number is consistent with surveys going back to 2019, when the precipitous decline in Christianity began to stabilize.

These findings seem consistent with anecdotal evidence. High-profile conversions and new conversations about religion in popular media formats suggest a new interest in the transcendent and a rejection of secularism by many. Nobody should mistake these numbers for revival, but followers of Christ can find slivers of hope in a society questioning “The Secular Age.” Perhaps a world riven by war, natural disaster, and political upheaval has caused people to confront their own mortality and seek the divine.

There is opportunity here for the church, especially among younger people where Christianity is still lagging significantly behind older generations. While disavowing religion, many describe themselves as spiritual. Eight in ten Americans believe humans have souls, while more than three quarters believe in a universal God or spirit. Like Paul on Mars Hill in Acts chapter 17, Christians can boldly and beautifully speak of the “Lord of Heaven and Earth” to those who “seek him and reach out for him.”

The church should not hesitate to embrace our mission field. In the book of Romans, Paul reminds us: “And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news." The world around us is put off by the false promises of secularism. It is dissatisfied with the pleasures of modernity. It is awakening to the lies of the sexual revolution. Now is the time for Christians to joyfully proclaim that there is a better way to orient our lives. We must show that a relationship with God through his Son is the gateway to fulfillment and true spirituality, not the cheap substitutes on offer.

This survey might also help dispel persistent myths that often rise in opposition to faithful Christian life and practice. While contextualization is important for our witness, a Christianity stripped of its symbols and distinctives is off-putting to those who seek alternatives to the world’s false ideologies.

Another shattered myth is that conservative political ideologies drive away those seeking God. In reality, it is progressivism that has both emptied out the mainline churches and correlates heavily with a decline in Christianity and religiosity overall. This doesn’t mean conservative believers should avoid prudence in politics, but it cuts against the perennial accusation that conservative voting patterns are responsible for religious indifference. It is left-wing Christianity that ends up keeping the political ideology but losing the gospel.

For the people of God, our response to the findings of this survey should be to double down on both faithfulness to our local churches and faithfulness in our families. Given that the next generation seems less Christian than our own, we should not hesitate in our commitment to evangelizing our children. We ought to take them to church weekly. We must teach them the key doctrines of the Christian faith. This and other surveys demonstrate a link between family structure and Christian faith. The decline of marriage results in a decline of faith, generationally.

And we should not rest from the task of evangelism. The bloody cross and triumphant resurrection of our Lord is still, as it has always been, both foolishness to and the hope for a lost and dying world. In a world increasingly rejecting secularism, we must not hesitate to proclaim this good news.

I’m Daniel Darling.

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