Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 180 ｜ The Decline of Christianity

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Monday. I hope everyone had a wonderful and restful

00:00:04.560 weekend. As you know, unless this is your first time ever listening to Relatable, in which case,

00:00:10.320 welcome. Glad you're here. But most of you probably know that it is Theology Monday.

00:00:14.740 On Theology Monday, we take a cultural trend or a trend within the church or something that

00:00:20.380 someone said, and we weigh it against the Word of God. And we say, okay, this is what this person

00:00:26.160 said, or this is how this trend is going, but this is what the Bible actually says, and this is how

00:00:31.560 Christians, according to God's Word, need to look at this or analyze this. Today, it's a little bit 1.00

00:00:37.480 different. We're not going to be talking about a particular theological topic. We are going to be

00:00:42.460 talking about a greater trend, and that trend is the rapid decline of Christianity or people who

00:00:48.340 identify as Christians in the United States. I get email updates from Pew Research every few days,

00:00:55.360 I think. I don't think it's every day. Every few days, when they conduct studies on religion,

00:01:00.480 I received an email a few days ago, or last week, with a subject line that says,

00:01:05.640 in the United States, decline of Christianity continues at rapid pace. And that is a jarring

00:01:11.260 thing to see as a Christian. We know it's been happening for a while now, but all at once, 0.99

00:01:16.460 when you read a headline like that, or when you read a subject line like that, you are hit

00:01:19.980 with the implications of what that will look like and what that already does look like.

00:01:25.660 Whether you want to believe this or not, the United States is a Christian nation. That doesn't 0.99

00:01:30.920 mean that it has a nationalized religion of Christianity or that you have to be a Christian

00:01:35.720 in order to enjoy your inherent rights in the United States, but it does mean that the laws,

00:01:41.380 the constitution upon which this country was founded, is based on biblical ideas like property

00:01:47.260 rights, equal justice, etc. Of course, as we know from our own history, these things have not always

00:01:52.640 been applied or implemented perfectly, but they do characterize the foundation upon which this

00:02:00.220 country was founded. And whether or not you believe in Christianity, you have been a beneficiary 0.95

00:02:05.440 of the biblical ideals of justice and equality and fairness and private property and freedom.

00:02:12.520 And so you are welcome, not from me, not from me, but you're welcome from the founders and the God

00:02:19.560 of the Bible. There are obviously spiritual and eternal implications of this decline. That's what

00:02:26.560 we're kind of going to end with. Those are much more important than the first part of this podcast.

00:02:31.260 We're going to talk about the political, the cultural, the social implications of a decline in

00:02:36.500 Christianity, which obviously I believe to be important and very intertwined with spirituality

00:02:42.840 and eternal things as well, but they're not the most important. So we are going to get into the

00:02:47.900 eternal implications at the end, but we're going to talk about the temporal consequences at first.

00:02:52.860 Okay, first we need to look at the results of this study. So again, this is Pew Research.

00:02:59.420 The decline of Christianity continues at rapid pace in the United States. It's probably 1.00

00:03:04.620 how you could find it if you were to look it up on Google. So let's look at some of these results.

00:03:11.320 The study looks at religious affiliation changes among Americans from 2007 until now. So 12 years.

00:03:18.520 Let me emphasize that is affiliation. These are simply people who identify as Christians. We

00:03:25.080 obviously don't know their heart. We don't know how often they go to church in these first statistics.

00:03:30.100 We will get into that. We don't know if they read their Bibles. We don't know

00:03:34.260 if they believe any of the things that Christianity stands for. All we know is that they call themselves

00:03:39.200 Christians. In 2007, 51% of Americans identified as Protestant Christians, unchanged until 2010,

00:03:49.080 and then it started to decline very rapidly. In 2014, this percentage reached 47%, and today is 43%.

00:03:57.500 So that is an 8-point, if I'm correct in my math, decline in just 12 years. In 2007, 24% of Americans

00:04:06.680 identified as Catholics, and that number is down by 4 points now to 20%. At the same time,

00:04:13.740 the percentage of religious nuns that is N-O-N-E-S, not N-U-N-S, that would be really interesting 1.00

00:04:19.420 if we were talking about the rise of nuns in U-N-S in America, but we're not. N-O-N-E-S, 1.00

00:04:26.180 that number has risen. In 2007, they made up 12% of the population. Today, they comprise

00:04:31.640 17% of the population, up 5 points. That may not seem like a lot, but in this short time frame,

00:04:38.100 it absolutely is. At the same time, regular church attendance is decreasing as irregular and no church

00:04:45.580 attendance is increasing. They actually flipped numbers exactly, these two statistics. Only 45% of

00:04:52.880 the population attend church monthly or more, down 9 points since 2007. 54% of the population go to

00:05:00.160 church fewer than once a month. That is up 9 points since 2007. So that is a direct switch.

00:05:07.440 In every generation, according to this study, in every demographic, there has been a net decrease

00:05:13.100 of people who identify as Christians. A group that has dramatically disaffiliated from Christianity,

00:05:18.900 of course, is millennials. Since 2009, the percentage of millennials who identify as Christians has gone

00:05:25.220 down 16 points. 16 points. That's a lot. While the percentage of millennials who identify as having

00:05:30.980 no religion in particular, so that's not atheist necessarily. That's just not really knowing. Having

00:05:36.840 no religion in particular is up 13 points. That is just in 10 years. In 10 years. The group that

00:05:44.120 has seen the biggest jump and dissociation from Christianity is Democrats. That probably comes as no

00:05:50.780 surprise to those of you who listen to this podcast regularly. Those who identify as Democrat and

00:05:55.080 Christian have gone down by 17 points in the last 10 years. And those who identify as Democrat and not

00:06:02.840 having a religion in particular is up 14 points. That is a huge change. And in my opinion, explains a lot of the

00:06:10.600 outright radicalism of the Democratic Party. And we will get into why I think that in just a bit.

00:06:15.720 Just to add, those who identify as Republican and Christian has declined by 7 points, while those who

00:06:21.880 identify as Republican and having no religion at all has increased by 4 points. Let's take a deeper

00:06:27.800 look into millennials who have experienced such a huge change in the past 10 years. Millennials,

00:06:33.600 just as a refresher, were born anywhere from 1981 to 1996, according to Pew Research. For some reason,

00:06:41.280 this is a point that like a lot of people like to argue with me on of when millennials were born and

00:06:46.960 who millennials are. Some people tend to think that millennials were born around the millennium,

00:06:51.200 and I totally understand why that is, but it's not true. Many millennials were coming of age during

00:06:56.160 the millennium, which is why they are called millennials. But people like me, born in 1992,

00:07:00.720 I'm a millennial. I was not yet coming of age in 2000 or in the turn of the century,

00:07:07.600 but I am still counted as a millennial. So 1981 to 1996, we've got to stop referring to this group

00:07:12.800 as college students. None of them are in college anymore. Probably the youngest is 23. So I guess

00:07:18.560 they could be, they could still be in college, but the oldest, they're almost 40. And so a lot of them

00:07:24.320 have marriages and mortgages. My brother, my brothers-in-law, my sisters-in-law,

00:07:29.120 they're all on the older end of millennials, and they don't like to identify as millennials.

00:07:33.600 They are very different from those of us who are born on the latter side of this,

00:07:37.920 on the second half of this. They probably more identify with Generation X than they do millennials.

00:07:42.640 But alas, face it, you are one of us, those of you who were born in the 1980s.

00:07:47.040 But we do have to stop thinking of millennials as these young people. They are adults, and most of them

00:07:53.440 have lead some kind of adult lives. And so we should start holding them responsible for the

00:08:00.640 ideas and the values that they hold. They're not just young kids that we can brush off anymore.

00:08:04.880 They are full-fledged adults, even if many of them don't act like it.

00:08:08.880 Religiously, millennials are evenly split. According to the study, 49% identify as Christians. Only 9%

00:08:15.600 identify as a religion other than Christian, which is interesting. And 40% are religiously

00:08:20.400 unaffiliated. So 49% identify as Christians. 49% identify as something else, with 40% of that

00:08:28.480 being religiously unaffiliated altogether. I'd be very interested to see this broken down by 1.00

00:08:33.440 specific age groups rather than just generations. My guess would be that older millennials are

00:08:39.040 probably more religious and conservative than younger millennials are. I would guess that is because

00:08:44.400 the younger millennials have gone to college in the past 10 years. And if you haven't noticed,

00:08:48.160 it is in the past 10 years that secularization has taken hold of culture at a rapid pace,

00:08:54.960 probably more rapid than ever, as has liberalism, as has progressivism. Remember Pew's polarization and

00:09:02.240 politics study from 2017 shows just how far left the left in this country has gone, not in the past

00:09:09.200 30 years, not in the past 20 years, but over the past 10 years, especially while Barack Obama was

00:09:15.040 president. So all of this has really precipitated just in the last decade. We'll get into more of

00:09:20.960 that in just a second. Compare the millennial rate of Christian affiliation to our parents,

00:09:26.320 baby boomers, 76% of whom identify as Christian, the silent generation, most of our grandparents, 0.99

00:09:33.360 84% of them identify as Christian. It is not atheism that has taken over the millennial generation.

00:09:40.560 It is nothing, which means that there is some belief in God or some belief in the spiritual,

00:09:46.880 but no identity with any particular religion, including Christianity. This is not surprising 1.00

00:09:53.800 to those of us who have seen the rise in what is called the new age, particularly on social media.

00:09:59.520 We discussed this a little bit on the podcast episode last Monday about personality tests,

00:10:04.640 the popularization of manifesting your best self while connecting to the divine,

00:10:10.720 uh, which is both in you and in everything is seen through the increased popularity of

00:10:16.560 crystals, of mediums, of psychics, of magic, of meditation, hypnosis, as ways to discover some

00:10:24.240 hidden mystery of the universe of speaking of the universe as this supernatural power, rather than what

00:10:31.040 it is an inanimate object. Uh, these are superstitious, pantheistic, pagan beliefs that are undergirded

00:10:40.960 by the idea that you are your own God. This is something that we talk about so much because it's

00:10:46.160 underneath of so many of our cultural changes. Uh, this is the God of self on display seeking ways to

00:10:52.400 release a release. It's so-called inner power through mystical means. So self-love and obsession with

00:10:58.880 self-care self-empowerment, uh, the fixation on the self, the straight up glorification of selfishness

00:11:06.320 from every motivational speaker, every mommy blogger, every Instagram influencer you follow virtually ever,

00:11:12.800 every, uh, are part of this new age esoteric belief system. Uh, whether those who propagate them know it

00:11:20.960 or not, this is part of the postmodernism that we also see taught, uh, on college campuses that young

00:11:27.040 people are being indoctrinated with constantly. The religion of self has been around for a long time,

00:11:33.840 but it is quickly becoming the most popular faith in the United States, especially among millennials. And

00:11:40.960 it is a faith for you to put your stock, any stock whatsoever in your inner magic and the manifestation

00:11:47.440 of your inner magic with crystals. You've got to have a lot of faith for that. Of course, someone can worship the

00:11:54.560 god of self without also being into crystals and things like that. Essentially, anyone who claims to be an

00:12:00.400 agnostic, uh, or claims to have an agnostic worldview or an atheistic worldview is worshiping themselves because

00:12:07.880 they are deeming themselves the arbiter of truth and of morality. Uh, the reason why this worldview is attractive

00:12:15.300 is because the god of self doesn't demand anything of you that you don't want to do. Righteousness within the

00:12:21.260 religion of self is counted as what, uh, makes you feel good. What is good for you? The most selfish or

00:12:27.040 the more selfish you are, the more quote, holy you are considered in this religion of self. Even being 0.77

00:12:32.720 kind to other people is done merely for good karma. Here is a, a really good example of this religion

00:12:39.800 of self courtesy of former Christian mommy blogger who left her husband for a woman, Abby Wambach,

00:12:45.220 and who now totally and completely rejects Orthodox Christianity, what she used to claim, uh, to be a part of.

00:12:51.260 Her name is Glennon Doyle. The advertisement for her new book, which is titled Untamed, says this,

00:12:56.980 we do not need any more selfless women. We need, what we need right now is, uh, more women who are 1.00

00:13:03.640 full of themselves. A woman who is full of herself knows and trusts herself enough to say and do what

00:13:09.060 must be done and lets the rest burn. This is how you find yourself. Gosh, this is just quintessential.

00:13:15.520 These are the problems. These are the problems with modern society all wrapped up in this crazy

00:13:22.940 little advertisement for a book. What does that even mean? I'm not sure anyone knows what that

00:13:28.000 means. I don't think that anyone actually does. Here's another example from a book by Jen Sincero

00:13:33.040 titled, You Are a Bad A. I won't say the word because we've got kids in the car. Um, it says,

00:13:38.160 you are perfect. You're on a journey with no defined beginning, middle, or end. There are no

00:13:43.680 wrong twists and turns. There is just being, and your job is to be as you as you can be. This is why

00:13:51.260 you're here to shy away from who you truly are would leave the world you list. You are the only you

00:13:57.260 there is and ever will be. I repeat, you are the only you there is and ever will be. Do not deny the

00:14:03.420 world. It's one and only chance to bask in your brilliance. What? I couldn't even read that. It

00:14:08.400 didn't even make grammatical sense to me. These are the doctrines of the religion of self. Everyone

00:14:13.740 and everything in existence is here to serve you. You are here to serve you. Your significant

00:14:18.700 others are here to serve you. The universe is here to serve you. The government is here to serve you.

00:14:25.060 Anything that inconveniences you in this worldview is injustice. Anyone who hurts your feelings or tells

00:14:30.180 you something you don't want to hear despite it perhaps being true is toxic. You got to cut them

00:14:35.380 out of your life. All that matters is you, your happiness, your truth, your wants, your dreams.

00:14:41.600 You are entitled, this view says, to all of it. Here's another recent example from a popular Instagram

00:14:48.080 account called Emily on Life. Choosing to honor your deepest self will require you to make painful

00:14:53.900 changes. People you love will feel hurt. Friendships and relationships will shift and end. Of course,

00:15:00.180 this is the fastest growing religion in the United States. Of course it is. We finally 0.98

00:15:05.240 have a belief system that indulges our most wicked inclinations for selfishness.

00:15:11.860 And instead of being accused of immorality, we are being called brave.

00:15:16.580 What person wouldn't naturally want that? There are no rules in this belief system. There is no right and

00:15:23.460 wrong. There's no objective truth. Do you claim your truth? Seek good vibes, any discipline,

00:15:30.180 you employ a hard thing you do must be done for you, not for the sake of other people. Find yourself,

00:15:36.120 discover your true identity. The God of self, of course, according to its doctrines, is easy to worship.

00:15:45.200 But what is happening? What is happening as this religion of self is growing in popularity?

00:15:51.400 This belief system that emphasizes doing what feels good and only that which makes you happy and serves your

00:15:58.400 purposes. Are we happier? Are we more content? Do we love ourselves more? Are we more satisfied?

00:16:06.240 According to Psychology Today, nearly a fifth of all millennials cite being depressed.

00:16:11.660 Millennials seek psychotherapy more than any other generation. We are addicted to psychotherapy.

00:16:16.160 That's not to say all counseling is bad. I have seen a counselor before and it greatly steered my

00:16:22.720 life in the right direction. I am not saying that biblical counseling is wrong, but this addiction

00:16:28.020 to psychotherapy as a means to release some kind of inner power has gone off rails because millennials 1.00

00:16:35.420 are so directionless and purposeless. A YouGov poll from July found that millennials are the loneliest 1.00

00:16:41.820 generation in existence. A Blue Cross Blue Shield report found that depression has risen by 47%. This

00:16:47.900 is this year, risen by 47% among millennials since 2013. A report from Trust for America's Health and

00:16:54.900 Wellbeing Trust found that deaths by despair, which include deaths by suicide, over drinking or drug use,

00:17:00.960 have increased more among young Americans than any other generation. Now, when you read mainstream media

00:17:07.900 articles on this, the conjecture is that it only has to do with money problems. It has to do with a

00:17:15.140 lack of economic opportunity. I don't think that is true. I don't think that we can apply that across

00:17:22.280 the board. We are 10 years into one of the longest economic expansions in our country's history.

00:17:29.180 Unemployment is the lowest that it's been in 50 years. We've got more job choices than ever.

00:17:33.660 Wages are starting to rise. We've got more entertainment options than ever before. Everything

00:17:39.000 is personalized to be tailored to our wants and our needs. This isn't to say that millennials don't

00:17:46.420 have struggles, that we don't have obstacles, or that there aren't millennials who have a reason

00:17:50.900 to feel like or feel like they have a reason to despair. I'm not saying that, but it is to say it

00:17:56.580 doesn't seem feasible at all that the economy is the major or even a foremost cause of millennials

00:18:03.860 depression. The only reason these articles want to say that is because they're trying to make an

00:18:07.740 implicit case for socialism. I just don't see how we can possibly ignore that the most likely reason

00:18:14.460 for millennials' feelings of purposelessness and loneliness and despair is because of a major

00:18:19.960 shift of values. That the factors are primarily, and in many cases, internal, not simply external.

00:18:27.780 I remember that NBC Wall Street Journal poll from a few weeks ago that showed that American young

00:18:33.120 people care about three major things far less than any other generation, and those three things were

00:18:38.760 having a family and having kids one day. They don't care about that anymore. They don't care about

00:18:43.300 having a faith in God anymore, and they don't care about patriotism anymore. Those are the three

00:18:47.500 values that young people, as compared to older generations, do not have. That shouldn't surprise 1.00

00:18:54.600 us. All three of these things attach us to that which is bigger than ourselves. They require

00:19:00.000 sacrifice. They require adhering to a set of rules or values that are outside of us, and the God of

00:19:06.000 self loathes anything that takes away its glory and its attention. These are also the three ideals that

00:19:13.000 just happened to have set America apart and has held America together since its founding. The bipartisan

00:19:18.960 belief in God as the transcendent moral lawgiver, a bipartisan love for the family, a bipartisan gratitude

00:19:27.060 for this country and the freedom that it represents. These are now, for the most part, partisan issues.

00:19:35.120 Now, patriotism largely is seen as conservative value. Caring about the family is seen as mostly a

00:19:41.600 conservative value. Belief in God is seen and is a conservative value. That's not to say that there

00:19:48.280 are no liberals who love God or America or their families, but it is to say that if they do, they no

00:19:54.560 longer represent the mainstream of the Democratic Party. They no longer represent the platform of the

00:19:59.220 left. They are outliers now. In what side of the aisle do millennials most align with? The left.

00:20:06.180 Now we see how this is all kind of intertwined. It is not a coincidence. It's not a coincidence that

00:20:14.460 millennials are the most religiously unaffiliated and the most liberal and the most miserable. I just 1.00

00:20:21.020 don't believe that's a coincidence. And as a result, they have of their religious unaffiliation and of

00:20:28.300 their both theological and political liberalism, I believe they have no moral center. They have no

00:20:34.760 greater purpose. They believe in no higher truth, except that the government is supposed to take

00:20:39.020 care of them and they're supposed to be able to do what they want to do. What they have been left

00:20:43.440 with is themselves. And when they realize that they are not enough to provide for themselves

00:20:48.620 satisfaction and fulfillment, they despair because that is not the fuel that the human soul is supposed

00:20:54.620 to run on. Trust me, if you live your life believing that you are all that matters, if you reject

00:21:02.740 your creator, the God of the universe, the God of the Bible, if you reject family and you foster a 0.91

00:21:08.720 resentment and a cynicism toward the country that has afforded more people from more backgrounds,

00:21:15.620 races, religions, and nationalities than any other country in the world, you will be miserable.

00:21:21.180 Your heart and your mind will eventually atrophy, which will be, of course, why you believe

00:21:26.320 socialism to be a good idea, because only minds that have atrophied actually believe socialism

00:21:30.520 to be a thing that is worth implementing. And I'm not sorry for saying that. Consistently,

00:21:35.680 leftists message me and they email me and they leave reviews on my podcast saying you're demonizing

00:21:41.860 the Christian left. You've got it all wrong about leftism and godlessness going hand in hand, 1.00

00:21:48.660 that yes, they tell me it is totally possible to be a Bible believing Christian and a so-called

00:21:53.500 progressive. Look, if you identify as someone who is on the left and a Christian, I am not

00:22:00.160 doubting your salvation. I'm doubting that you understand what you say that you believe. You

00:22:06.720 cannot be a leftist that is worth your salt and also believe in the Bible. You just can't. One of

00:22:12.500 them is going to give. I do not, unfortunately, have it wrong on this. Now, I don't demonize you. I don't

00:22:19.780 think that you are some terrible person. I think that we are all dead in sin apart from our Christ

00:22:27.000 and in Christ we are made alive in him no matter what our beliefs are about things that don't have

00:22:33.000 to do with salvation. So these tertiary issues like politics, I just believe that you are confused.

00:22:39.340 You are either confused theologically or you are confused politically. And yes, these do have

00:22:45.600 serious implications for not just our political views, but also for our spirituality. If you can

00:22:53.040 show me a nation that is run by leftist ideals and Christian biblical values, I would love to see it.

00:22:59.440 Show me a country that has become more free and more conservative while Christianity has died out. 0.99

00:23:05.440 Show me a country where communism and Christianity have flourished alongside each other, 1.00

00:23:10.680 where religious liberty has survived alongside big government. Show me a place where Christians are 1.00

00:23:15.580 not being punished or being even thrown in jail in some countries where communism and leftist ideals

00:23:22.120 are being implemented. Show me a country where that's not happening. You can't because it doesn't

00:23:27.080 exist. And even on an individual level, show me one person who is a true leftist, who supports the

00:23:32.340 current values of the American left, who actually believes in the Bible. It's not possible. It's not

00:23:38.000 possible. To be a leftist Christian, you either have to not be a leftist or not a Christian. 0.71

00:23:42.400 Why? Because you can't believe in the Bible's definition of gender, sexuality, and marriage,

00:23:48.940 and be a leftist. You can't believe that Jesus is the only form of salvation and be a leftist. You

00:23:55.180 can't believe in the sanctity of life inside the womb and be a leftist because the left will not

00:23:59.780 accept you. The left will not accept you if you believe these things. You will be a bigot. You will

00:24:04.100 be excommunicated because progressivism is also a religion. And you cannot deny, you cannot deny

00:24:11.100 the biblical definitions of gender, the solution for salvation being found in Jesus or salvation

00:24:16.840 being found in Jesus and the sanctity of life and call yourself. You can't deny these things and call

00:24:22.260 yourself a Bible-believing Christian. One of them is going to give way. So as I say, to identify as a 0.99

00:24:28.520 leftist and a Christian, you either have to be politically confused or theologically confused.

00:24:33.360 No, that doesn't mean that God is a Republican. That doesn't mean that he fits inside our box of

00:24:37.440 conservatism. No, our political affiliation is not a prerequisite for entrance into heaven. I'm not

00:24:43.240 saying that at all. And I am saying that Christians can, in good faith, disagree on certain political

00:24:49.740 issues. Of course that's possible. But to maintain a biblical worldview, you cannot also maintain a

00:24:57.600 leftist worldview. Not today. Not according to leftist standards. You just can't. Why do countries

00:25:02.960 get less free when they become less Christian? Because private property is a biblical value. 0.94

00:25:08.160 The inherent morality and necessity of work and providing for yourself is a biblical value.

00:25:12.580 Because covetousness and theft that is necessary for the establishment of socialism and communism are

00:25:18.500 anti-biblical values as specified by the Ten Commandments. Christianity has been on the 0.96

00:25:23.500 front lines of freedom fighting and justice seeking for all of its history. That's not to say that

00:25:29.120 everyone who identifies as a Christian has been correct on all issues for all of time. Of course,

00:25:33.540 we know that. There were people who identified as Christians who erroneously claimed that the Bible

00:25:37.600 condones slavery. But if you examine the front lines of the fight against slavery, against the evils of

00:25:44.940 the Holocaust, or civil rights, or the protection of pre-born children, or the fight against sex

00:25:50.280 slavery, you will find Christians. Christians. The Protestant Reformation, specifically as we know, 0.99

00:25:56.300 had a profound impact on shaping the Western world and America in particular. The idea that human beings

00:26:01.780 had the ability through the authority of the Holy Spirit to read and apply the Bible on their own

00:26:06.620 independently from some elitist clergy or bureaucracy is a Protestant idea that greatly affected the West.

00:26:14.940 It greatly affected the founders and greatly affected then how America was shaped.

00:26:20.420 So that is the political side of this. This is how this all goes hand in hand. The godlessness of

00:26:26.580 millennials, the secularization of society, the worship of the God of self, feeling like the only

00:26:33.340 values that you have are, or believing that the only values that you have is that you get to be yourself

00:26:38.680 and do the things that you want to do. And the government comes alongside and makes your life cushy so you

00:26:43.120 don't have to do anything that's inconvenient, that you view as an injustice. That all goes hand in

00:26:48.940 hand. That is why I say over and over again, the time has come and gone for Christians not to care 1.00

00:26:52.960 about politics. Because all the craziness that we're seeing, whether it is abortion, so the dehumanizing

00:26:59.020 of life inside the wound that is biologically, logically, theologically, a human life that is deserving of

00:27:06.100 inherent rights, the denial of that humanity resulting in the normalization and the glorification

00:27:12.720 of abortion, whether you're looking at that, or whether you're looking at this crazy idea that

00:27:18.220 you can separate sex from gender and that people are actually what they feel they are rather than what

00:27:22.900 science says they are. That all has to do with the erasing of the biblical view as human beings

00:27:29.060 is made by God in his image with a biological purpose and with a spiritual purpose. It also

00:27:37.360 is indicative of the belief that the government and society as a whole is more important and is

00:27:44.920 bigger than the individual. The reason why we believe that the individual and individual rights and

00:27:49.700 individual freedom as conservatives, the reason why we believe that that is more important or that that

00:27:54.940 is better than the government taking over and telling us what our rights are and saying this is for

00:27:58.960 the common good. We're going to outlaw this and we're going to make this happen because we want

00:28:02.500 everyone to reach this stupid and erroneous definition of equality. I won't get into all 0.99

00:28:08.280 that, but the reason why we believe in individual rights and individual liberty is because we believe

00:28:12.380 that the individual lives forever and government does not. And because individuals have a soul,

00:28:17.360 because they were again made in the image of God, they are more important than the government

00:28:20.840 and they are deserving of, they're not deserving of, they have inherent rights that were endowed to them

00:28:27.060 as the Declaration of Independence says, by their creator. Therefore, because they were given to us

00:28:32.100 by a transcendent creator that is higher than the government, they can't be taken away by the

00:28:35.100 government. That is what conservatives believe in. That is why when you become more secular,

00:28:42.120 when you become more theologically liberal, aka when you stop taking the Bible seriously,

00:28:47.280 you also become more politically to the left. You start buying into socialism. You start believing

00:28:53.760 that the government is here to take care of you rather than human beings, Christians taking care 1.00

00:28:57.700 of themselves. It all goes hand in hand. And as we see from the misery that so many millennials seem

00:29:03.560 to be wallowing in, I just don't think that it's a workable worldview. It's just not workable. Even

00:29:08.600 just from a practical standpoint, it doesn't seem to be working at all. Of course, it's not why we

00:29:12.840 believe in Christianity. We believe in Christianity because it's true. We believe in Christianity for

00:29:17.360 salvation. We believe in Christianity because we are sinners in need of mercy. We are dead in our sin

00:29:22.840 to be made alive in Christ, which leads me into the eternal, much more important part of this.

00:29:28.120 And that is why millennials are leaving the church. Well, one, I think it's because the God of self is 0.88

00:29:33.320 attractive, but the God of self is not as attractive as the cross of Jesus Christ. So what's happening?

00:29:38.900 What's happening there? Why are there so many people walking away from the church and saying,

00:29:43.560 you know what, I'm going to just going to do my own thing. I'm not an atheist, but I don't really know

00:29:47.000 what I believe. Don't want to go to church. Don't want to be a part of any kind of religious

00:29:50.160 institution. I believe, and this is just my guess, I believe it is because too few churches are

00:29:55.540 preaching the gospel. So many churches are so concerned with attracting young people with

00:30:00.560 interesting, with interesting, catchy, catchy sermons or sermons that are relatable or sermons

00:30:09.200 that are trendy or songs that are actually secular with Jesus's name sprinkled into it.

00:30:14.780 They're preaching a message of self-love and self-esteem and slapping Jesus's name on it

00:30:19.440 and calling it the gospel. They're saying the gospel is God loves you and wants you to be happy.

00:30:24.040 That's not the gospel. The gospel is, is that you were dead in your sin and you're bound for hell

00:30:27.660 apart from Christ. And in him, you not only get eternal life and you get the opportunity to advance

00:30:33.300 his kingdom here on earth, but you also get joy through every trial, no matter what. If you are thirsty,

00:30:40.300 here is the well of life. If you are hungry, here is the bread of life. You will never spiritually

00:30:44.240 thirst again. You will never spiritually hunger again. That is what you get. That is different

00:30:49.260 than what the world offers you. You don't have it in yourself to love yourself forever. You don't

00:30:53.720 have it in yourself, uh, to make yourself feel good. You don't have it in yourself to make yourself

00:30:58.080 happy forever. That is a dead end because eventually you're going to realize, wow, I wake up today and I

00:31:04.360 don't love myself. I look in the mirror and I don't see someone that I'm happy with. I don't feel like I

00:31:08.840 have the strength to go on. I can't muster it on my own. And you're right because you were never meant to.

00:31:13.240 You're not self-sufficient. You're not enough. Your soul does not run on self-love and that is

00:31:19.000 going to continually wear you out and exhaust you until you find your satisfaction. You quench your

00:31:25.560 thirst in the well that never runs dry. We need to be preaching the gospel in churches. We need to

00:31:31.400 be preaching theology in churches. What does the Bible say about the things that are going on in this

00:31:36.420 world? What does the Bible actually say about these issues that we are confronting? If our pastors,

00:31:41.520 who are supposed to be shepherding us, don't tell us how we're supposed to view the world

00:31:46.000 and they just let us get by living in our sin and worshiping ourselves, if they're not the ones

00:31:52.100 telling us what is true, who's going to? Who's going to? Churches need to be preaching something

00:31:57.040 different than what the world is. It looks, we look too much as Christians and I'm obviously guilty of 1.00

00:32:02.840 this too at times. We look too much like the rest of the world. We look too much like secular society

00:32:09.500 who is saying that really the most important thing is that you feel good about yourself.

00:32:13.980 A pastor who is telling you that Jesus exists to make you feel good about yourself is not a pastor,

00:32:19.280 a pastor who cares about your eternal destination. He doesn't. He cares not to offend you. The gospel

00:32:25.380 is offensive. If you look at the book of Acts, the gospel that people were preaching put them in jail

00:32:30.540 and I pray, I pray to God that we don't get to a place in America in our lifetimes where freedom of

00:32:36.560 speech has somehow become so stifled that we're not even allowed to say what is true. But while we

00:32:41.860 still have time, Christians, while we still have time to preach the gospel without fear of punishment,

00:32:48.000 persecution, or death, let us do it. Let's do it. And I'm speaking to myself. I understand the fear

00:32:53.900 of feeling awkward, the fear of not wanting people to hate you, but we've got to talk about sin.

00:32:58.500 We've got to talk about salvation. We've got to talk about sanctification. If we want to look

00:33:02.580 different than the world, churches have to be different than the world. We can't be scared

00:33:08.040 while we have this probably short window of time to be free. But although we also need to be, I think,

00:33:14.820 a little bit encouraged by this, that yes, there are fewer people now who identify as Christians,

00:33:22.180 but that also, that also could be that people are no longer, are no longer desiring just to be

00:33:30.020 nominal Christians. And that should be fine. We're okay with people not identifying as Christians 0.98

00:33:35.780 who are not actually Christians anymore, or not actually Christians at all. That's okay. What we 0.92

00:33:41.740 care about is real regenerative heart change. That's what we care about. And the church is going to be

00:33:49.760 okay. The church is going to continue to thrive. The gospel is still going to be continued to be,

00:33:55.980 is going to continue to be shared no matter what, no matter what our laws are, no matter how much

00:34:01.900 of a Christian nation we live in, no matter how free we are, God is not limited by legislation.

00:34:08.080 He is not limited by leftism. And it's okay for us to have concerns about these things. Obviously,

00:34:14.340 I raise concerns about what's going on in our political process all the time, and we should want

00:34:19.640 freedom. We should be worried about the persecution that could inevitably ensue when our country becomes

00:34:28.040 less and less free for Christians. We should care about future generations. We should care about what 1.00

00:34:32.480 we're able to teach and talk to our kids about. These are all things that matter. So we should care

00:34:37.640 about what's going on in Washington and what's going on even at our state capitals. But we also have the

00:34:45.420 confidence and the assurance and the absolute steadfastness when we recognize that God is

00:34:55.120 sovereign, that he's in control, that his word does not return void, that we don't have to worry about

00:35:01.440 how this is going to end up, that we know that Jesus wins at the end of the day, that we understand

00:35:06.940 how this is all going to go eventually. And yes, we can talk about, fight for the things that matter.

00:35:13.880 We can seek justice. We can love mercy. We can walk humbly with God, knowing that at the end of the

00:35:19.540 day, that he's got it, that he's in control, that he is not off of his throne, and that his plan will

00:35:25.460 come through. It will come through. And we can trust that. All we have to do is to be obedient,

00:35:30.900 and we have to be bold. That is what we are required to do as Christians. And that's our responsibility,

00:35:40.960 knowing all the while that we have joy, that we have assurance, that we have confidence,

00:35:46.700 understanding that God is sovereign, and that he will not let his plans and his purposes fail.

00:35:55.880 And it is much more important, guys. It's much more important to me, guys. So much more important

00:36:00.860 that you, whoever young lady is listening to this, that you understand the truth of the gospel,

00:36:08.020 than you do, than I care about your agreement on political issues. Of course, I believe that

00:36:15.660 what I talk about is correct on political issues, or else I wouldn't talk about it. But I'm so much

00:36:20.020 more concerned. I'm so much more concerned with your heart, with people's hearts, with my heart,

00:36:24.660 with all of our hearts, and our eternal destination than I am how you vote next November. Do I think that

00:36:29.960 spirituality and politics, that all of these are intertwined in some way? Absolutely, I do. Of course,

00:36:34.900 I do, because God is in everything. He's the ruler of everything. And we are supposed to be salt and

00:36:40.700 light in every area of our lives. However, of course, I am more concerned with the spreading of

00:36:46.920 the gospel than I am making you a Republican or a conservative. So I just want to make that clear.

00:36:52.360 Okay, I have so much more to say, but we're having some technological difficulties on our end. And so I

00:36:57.920 think I need to wrap this up. But maybe if I think of other things that I didn't say that I still want

00:37:01.540 to say, maybe I'll add that to Wednesday's podcast. But I hope you guys enjoyed this. I hope it's at

00:37:05.480 least thought provoking. If you have any thoughts, as always, please reach out to me. Thank you so

00:37:09.720 much for listening. I will see you back here in a couple days.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - October 28, 2019

Ep 180 ｜ The Decline of Christianity

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