What really never ceases to amaze me, especially after reading Schaeffer’s works, is that Christians still fail to realize that we are no longer living in a Christian nation (if we ever did), and that we no longer have a Christian culture. It is a sub-culture, at best.

Our country, and our culture, are in the grip of subjectivism, humanism, and a rebellion against all convention. We are NOT in the grip of the Holiness and Majesty of the Lord God, Omnipotent. We are in the grip of a worldview which says “live all you can, cause you just live once… you have the right to do whatever you want” – to quote a DC Talk song from a ways back.

What have we become?

Self-indulgent people.

What have we become?

Tell me, where are the righteous ones?

What have we become?

In a world, degenerating…

What have we become?

On to Schaeffer.

Having turned away from the knowledge given by God, the Christian influence on the whole of culture has been lost. In Europe, including England, it took many years – in the United States, only a few decades. In the United States, in the short span from the twenties to the sixties, we have seen a complete shift. Ours is a post-Christian world in which Christianity, not in the number of Christians, but in our cultural emphasis and cultural result, is no longer the consensus or ethos of our society.

Do not take this lightly!

It is a horrible thing that sixty years ago you could move across the country and almost everyone, even non-Christians, would have known what the Gospel was. A horrible thing that fifty to sixty years ago our culture was built on the Christian consensus, and now this is no longer the case.

He’s right, you know. Despite all of our attempts to prove the contrary, we see the effects of this problem daily. In the news, in our lives, with others, and even in ourselves. We are no longer a Christian society. We are not even close to being one. We are the minority, and we should be painfully aware of this fact, if we are not already.

He’s only going as far as the sixties. Take that progression along to the present day, and we are even more deeply in trouble.

Noone even knows what the Gospel is, anymore. It has been excruciatingly distorted, appallingly disfigured, and completely changed from what the Bible says it is, in the minds of most in this country. And, my friends, it is our fault. We let things come to this point, by our apathy.

The present:

“For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools.” – Romans 1:21-22

The future:

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness” – Romans 1:18

Schaeffer:

Man is justly under the wrath of God who really exists and Who deals with men on the basis of His character; and if the justice of that wrath is obvious concerning any generation it is our own. Wrath may come either in the cause and effect of the turning wheels of history, or in the direct action of God.

There is only one perspective we can have of the postChristian world of our generation; and understanding that our culture, and our country, deserves to be under the wrath of God. It will not do to say the United States is God’s country in some special way… The last few generations have trampled upon the truth of the Bible and all those truths have brought forth.

Tough words, aren’t they? However, I think many of us would do well to take note, and take them to heart. Our goal is not to “change the culture”.

Romans tells exactly what our goal is.
“And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”

We are:

  • 1 – to reject conformance to the world’s culture.
  • 2 – to be transformed, personally
  • 3 – to be transformed by a change in how we think
  • 4 – to prove the will of God in the world around us

    • This is our goal. Changing the culture, however laudable a goal, will never occur without the preceding. All of the “activism” in the world will mean absolutely nothing if we ourselves are not being transformed into the children of God, daily, and showing that change to the world.

    So, drop all the preconceptions about being the special children of God – simply because you are a citizen of the United States. You are a child of God because you act, look, and think as He does. If you aren’t – you’re doing something wrong. And you CAN’T blame that on “the culture”. It has it’s own problems – but so do you.