A new book by American evangelical writer Aaron Renn looks at similar themes: Life in the Negative World (Zondervan, 2024). He uses differing terminology as he also looks at these three periods: -the positive world (1964-1994)-the neutral world (1994-2014) -the negative world (2014-present) (pp. 6-7). One can quibble about the dating, but the three periods correspond to what I mentioned above: a generally pro-Christian world; a world somewhat indifferent to the faith; and a period which is mainly hostile to it. He says of the present period: “For the first time in the history of our country, orthodox Christianity is viewed negatively by secular society, especially by its elite domains.” (xv)
If you are an older person raised in the West – as I am – you will have lived through three different periods: Christian, post-Christian, and anti-Christian. You would have been born in a largely Christian period, in which most folks – even if they were not actually Christian themselves – shared and believed in biblical truths and values. Even the institutions such as education, the media, politics, and business more or less reflected the Christian worldview.
Then you moved to the next phase where Christianity began to have less and less influence and clout in society. Sure, most folks still paid lip service to Christianity, but it increasingly played less of an important role in the lives of more and more people.
And then we have life in the West today where Christians have become the new counterculture. Much of society and its institutions have declared war on the church and the people of God. Hostility to Christians is now found everywhere and is simply getting worse.
But here is a major problem for believers today – at least older ones. Many of us still might think that we are back in the first, or at least, second period. So we think the sorts of things we did back then will work just fine today. But not necessarily. We can no longer find a Christian consensus. We can no longer count on institutions to back us up.
If we go to a large shop or grocery store it will more than likely be filled with pro-homosexual material or celebrate Islamic holy days – but not Christian ones. Governments will increasingly be enacting legislation and laws which are hostile to Christianity, be it forcing Christian schools to hire non-Christian staff, forcing workers to affirm all sorts of immoral lifestyles, or making workers attend various DEI and woke training (propaganda) sessions – and that just for starters.
The mainstream media of course is now almost entirely at odds with biblical Christianity, never missing an opportunity to attack the faith while promoting every other worldview and lifestyle. Popular culture largely sneers at and mocks Christian concerns while promoting diabolical agendas. The list goes on…
Of course the secularisation and de-Christianisation of the West started much earlier than when you and I were born. It has been happening for a number of centuries now. But ideas take a while to filter down into everyday culture, and now we are feeling the impact of modernism, the Enlightenment, and related intellectual movements.
A new book by American evangelical writer Aaron Renn looks at similar themes: Life in the Negative World (Zondervan, 2024). He uses differing terminology as he also looks at these three periods:
-the positive world (1964-1994)
-the neutral world (1994-2014)
-the negative world (2014-present) (pp. 6-7)
One can quibble about the dating, but the three periods correspond to what I mentioned above: a generally pro-Christian world; a world somewhat indifferent to the faith; and a period which is mainly hostile to it. He says of the present period: “For the first time in the history of our country, orthodox Christianity is viewed negatively by secular society, especially by its elite domains.” (xv)
The whole point then is to ask ourselves: how do we do mission and represent God in such a changed – and changing – situation? How do we be salt and light in this new arrangement? How can we stay true to our Lord in this increasingly hostile environment?
Like any biblical believer would insist, Renn does not think we can or should change the message. But we may need to change the method and the means of presenting this unchanging message to a changing culture.
Of course many Christians have thought about such matters of late. And Renn admits to having no easy and clear answers here. But he does call us to think and pray much more carefully about how we are to proceed in the days ahead. He looks briefly at some of the causes for the changes in the West, but then – and more importantly – suggests ways to respond.
He has three sections of the book looking at three areas that we need to respond in: the personal, the institutional, and the missional.