Faithfully Engaging a Post-Christian World

The post-communist period, which might reasonably have been a time when religious freedom was secure and unchallenged, has, at least in the twenty-first century, turned into a time of unprecedented challenge in America and the West generally. It is no longer an aggressive atheism threatening from abroad, but direct threats domestically to religious speech and action in Western societies from various liberationist ideologies, which if consistently imposed would destroy historic Christianity (and could similarly be used against other traditional religions).

Faithful Christians in America now understand that our beliefs and practices may be penalized, yet we cannot accommodate sinful requirements. Writer and podcaster Aaron Renn, speaking from his background in management and technology consulting, very helpfully endeavored to give Evangelicals perspective on living faithfully in his First Things article The Three Worlds of Evangelicalism, in February 2022. Recently, he expanded on this article in a new book Life in the Negative World: Confronting Challenges in an Anti-Christian Culture.  

Three Worlds, Three Strategies

Renn charts the decline of social and legal acceptance of historic Christianity from the 1960s to the present. He identifies three eras of this decline: a “positive world” in which Christianity was still widely favored (1964-1994), a “neutral world” in which Christianity was one acceptable choice among many (1994-2014), and a “negative world” in which Christian faith and morality is seen as a threat to the common good and from which Christians tend to be excluded (2014-present).

“Culture war,” “seeker-sensitivity,” and “cultural engagement” are strategies Evangelicals developed for reaching out to the positive and neutral worlds but will not work well in the negative world, Renn maintains. The culture war strategy (which was really a response to hedonistic attacks on Christian culture and morality) was rooted in a heartland, fundamentalist base, and assumed widespread public agreement with Christian morality (as the name “Moral Majority” indicated, which Renn notes was somewhat like its secular counterpart, the Silent Majority). Seeker-sensitivity was pioneered by Bill Hybels of Willow Creek Church near Chicago, focused on suburban America, and sought to remove barriers to active Christian and church life, based on research of the preferences of “unchurched” people. Traditional hymns, church buildings, stain-glass windows, etc., were jettisoned in favor of praise choruses, bands, and perhaps a perambulating preacher in blue jeans. This still assumed a positive view of Christian faith and morals by many non-observant Americans.

Cultural engagement was basically a seeker-sensitive strategy for the urban elite culture that began to advance in the late twentieth century. Cultural engagement was keyed to the neutral world, The point was to gain a hearing for the gospel with people who were likely to be highly educated, professional, and open to many different world views, but willing to consider Christianity. Tim Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City was the most representative figure of this strategy.

For the negative world, Renn proposes a response similar to Rod Dreher’s Benedict Option, emphasizing especially Christian institutional integrity and strength. He maintains that both individuals and institutions must be careful to be faithful to Christian doctrines and precepts to survive in the negative world.

For individuals, Renn stresses obedience to Christian precepts, excellence in vocational endeavor (especially intellectual excellence in meeting the challenges to Christian faith of the negative world), and resilience in the face of adversity.

The Importance of Obedience

In all of his recommendations, however, obedience stands as the most important. Renn points to the demands Jesus makes of us (and other hard demands of Scripture). He observes that “for many American Evangelicals, life in a positive or neutral world meant they could breeze over these passages because the immediate cost of obedience or following what Jesus said was low or nonexistent.” But in the negative world, one may lose one’s job, business, promotion, friends, or even freedom for obeying God in contradiction to state, corporate, or social requirements. If one is committed to losing “all things” for the sake of Christ, as the apostle Paul was, one’s commitment may be put to the test.  

For Christian institutions, Renn emphasizes community strength and ownership of the physical and cultural spaces that Christians use. Failure to own the spaces Christians use may mean the space is taken away by the unfriendly owner. In mission, Christians should live consistently with their faith and precepts, speak the truth, and engage the wider hostile or indifferent culture with prudence. This writer would add to his prescriptions the observation that in both the seeker sensitivity and cultural engagement strategies Evangelicals seemed to be accepting a measure of assimilation to the wider American culture. This may involve accommodation (i.e., cooperation) in sinful practices, which is itself sinful, according to the words of Jesus (Matt. 18:7-9). Additionally, accommodation is not a strategy for survival in a culture fundamentally opposed to God’s commands, which in our world are those of the sanctity of life, sexual morality, parental authority, and perhaps eventually, particular (as opposed to universal) salvation of individuals.

Facing the Realities of Life in the Negative World

Renn’s analysis and prescriptions presume some degree of tolerance toward Christianity. The anti-Christian measures currently advanced by the Left in the Western world include hate speech laws, speech codes, anti-discrimination laws, conversion therapy laws, and the use of these or other legal means to suppress vital parts of the Christian faith, whether in public or church or home. They could be used to prohibit any Christian life fully lived in obedience to God, as of course Christian life must be lived. Conversion therapy laws, as noted in earlier articles, prohibit any expression against homosexuality and transgenderism, whether in public or private.

Renn correctly notes in this regard (p. 195) that even private Christian life will not be allowed where it conflicts with the Left’s liberationist ideologies. As mentioned in earlier articles, the U.N. special rapporteur charged with defining freedom of religion and belief has said that all religious groups should be legally required to be inclusive of people without discrimination against homosexual behavior or claimed transgender status, participation in or advocacy of abortion, and on an equal basis for both men and women at all levels (meaning the ordination of women would be legally required).

Truly Christian institutions will thus not be allowed. Private life in families will be attacked where it conflicts with gender ideology, with children removed from their home and parents perhaps imprisoned. Actually effecting this may take some time, but it already exists in places like Canada, or Victoria State, Australia, where penalties for speaking against homosexuality or transgenderism (including against the “gender transitioning” of one’s children) are five and ten years in prison respectively (with Victoria State presuming to tell pastors that what Scripture says is sinful is not in fact sinful). Similar laws may be enacted elsewhere sooner than might be thought.

It seems to this writer that both Dreher’s Benedict Option and Renn’s version of it amount to proposing a Christian subculture. A faithful Christian of course cannot be complicit in sin, as noted above. But there was a Christian subculture for the larger part of the twentieth century, since liberals assumed control of the mainline Protestant denominations after World War I. It could be seen in a variety of parachurch organizations – Bible colleges, religious broadcasting, mission agencies, publishing houses, and later in Christian schools and homeschooling. The cultural left proposes to destroy this subculture with antidiscrimination law and regulation and other legal measures noted above.

Dreher and Renn are thus basically proposing a more scrupulous subculture than often existed by the end of the twentieth century, and more aware that the security of Christian life and participation in the wider culture will be more difficult than in the past. Commendably they are counseling greater faithfulness to God’s commands on the part of Christian men and women and institutions. But the full implementation of the Left’s measures would make orthodox Christianity as illegal as it is in North Korea or Saudi Arabia, although with less severe penalties. Nevertheless, it remains true that Christians (and really everyone, in the eyes of God) are obligated to obey God at all times and places. For that, we must rely on God’s grace and providence.