Aaron Renn's image of a world increasingly hostile to Christians is interesting, but ultimately limited. Why taking the "negative world" hypothesis to include the whole Church is erroneous.
This is a very helpful critique of Renn’s book and as a global missions pastor I wrestled with it exactly along these lines of what most of todays growing church experience as normative. Very helpful article thanks for laying it out so well.
While the author may not intend it, this kind of a book easily plays into "culture war christianity" and fosters the idea that we American Christians are under siege when in fact (white) Christians have a huge amount of political power in our country. There's been a concerted effort by political actors to make Christians feel like they're under attack so that those political actors can swoop in and promise that if you vote for them they will save these "besieged" Christians. And now we're reaping the fruit of that political project.
I see on various Christian forums where Christians are wringing their hands about feeling like they're under attack when people outside of the Christian faith wonder why the Christians they see aren't acting like what they've heard about Christ - I like to push back and tell these Christians that these non-Christians are asking some very valid questions. The truth is, those outside see us Christians as aligned with the cruelty and brutality of the current administration. And who can blame them since we know that in the last 3 elections 80% of white evangelicals voted for that? It's not persecution to point that out, that's a reckoning: We've lost this generation, they're not going to listen to us. If the salt has lost it's savor it's not good for anything other than to be trampled under foot.
[I'll add here, that I think many in this generation want to see the real Jesus and even with their limited knowledge of who Jesus was and what he taught, they realize that something is "off" about American Christianity and it's marriage with political power. I think there is a hunger out there for the real Jesus not the White American Jesus. There are places where the real Jesus shines though and they want more of that (I've seen many non-Christians commend how Rev. Budde spoke truth to power the other day - they're attracted to that kind of Christianity). So I guess I'm not saying there's no hope to reach this generation, but it's going to take a lot of humility and living out the way of Jesus before they'll listen to us.]
“We need a reverse missions effort to get our global pastoral community to speak the truth of the gospel back to the American Church and the American World. And we need a reverse history of allowing the ancient pastors of our tradition to speak across the ages to our age now.”
This is a very helpful critique of Renn’s book and as a global missions pastor I wrestled with it exactly along these lines of what most of todays growing church experience as normative. Very helpful article thanks for laying it out so well.
While the author may not intend it, this kind of a book easily plays into "culture war christianity" and fosters the idea that we American Christians are under siege when in fact (white) Christians have a huge amount of political power in our country. There's been a concerted effort by political actors to make Christians feel like they're under attack so that those political actors can swoop in and promise that if you vote for them they will save these "besieged" Christians. And now we're reaping the fruit of that political project.
I see on various Christian forums where Christians are wringing their hands about feeling like they're under attack when people outside of the Christian faith wonder why the Christians they see aren't acting like what they've heard about Christ - I like to push back and tell these Christians that these non-Christians are asking some very valid questions. The truth is, those outside see us Christians as aligned with the cruelty and brutality of the current administration. And who can blame them since we know that in the last 3 elections 80% of white evangelicals voted for that? It's not persecution to point that out, that's a reckoning: We've lost this generation, they're not going to listen to us. If the salt has lost it's savor it's not good for anything other than to be trampled under foot.
[I'll add here, that I think many in this generation want to see the real Jesus and even with their limited knowledge of who Jesus was and what he taught, they realize that something is "off" about American Christianity and it's marriage with political power. I think there is a hunger out there for the real Jesus not the White American Jesus. There are places where the real Jesus shines though and they want more of that (I've seen many non-Christians commend how Rev. Budde spoke truth to power the other day - they're attracted to that kind of Christianity). So I guess I'm not saying there's no hope to reach this generation, but it's going to take a lot of humility and living out the way of Jesus before they'll listen to us.]
This…🙏
“We need a reverse missions effort to get our global pastoral community to speak the truth of the gospel back to the American Church and the American World. And we need a reverse history of allowing the ancient pastors of our tradition to speak across the ages to our age now.”