Committing to Jesus During the Decline of American Christianity
In a recent podcast episode, minister and popular conference speaker John Bevere discusses a discovery he made in March 2022. He found a Barna report on the statistics of Christians in America. John says that 95,000 people were examined through a series of questions, and it was concluded that 1 in 10 of Americans (30 million) have walked away from the Christian faith since the 2000s.
John believes that these former Christ-followers had to be sincere in their faith at one time, since they never entered into the faith with the plan of leaving, later. They would not have regularly attended church nor regularly prayed if they had not an ounce of sincerity, at least.
When his son, Arden, asked if John feels unbelief has increased in recent years and that things are different from John’s younger years, John said “I do.” Church attendance has greatly declined due to COVID, and as a result, people’s faith has collectively suffered.
John warns, “If you don’t consciously pursue God, you are eventually going to start flowing with the current of this world.” He continues, “I believe what has happened is that people have stopped feeding themselves the Word of God.” These astonishing numbers are making John wonder how he and other church leaders have failed to keep believers in the fold.
John cites Acts 20:25-27, where the apostle Paul states he has informed his audience of everything they need to know about obtaining eternal life in Christ, and therefore Paul cannot be held responsible for anyone who does not get it. John believes that the church today has not informed people of everything they need to know concerning salvation and eternal life in Christ.
It is helpful to gather with other believers. It is necessary to be regularly influenced by them. But the truth from God’s Word is most necessary for nourishing your soul, which is guaranteed to experience periods of struggle. Without God’s Word as your anchor, it is easy to drift away. John and Arden agree that drifting away does not happen “knowingly.” It happens gradually and unintentionally. It is like basking in the sun on a raft, where you recognize the seashore not far from you. Then, too much time quickly goes by before you finally realize you are lost at sea.
John and Arden are wise to be concerned about believers drifting away. They are wise about how we can remain close to Jesus. However, I cannot find this Barna report discussed by John and Arden. John does not specify the title or year of the report; he only states that he found it in March 2022.
I welcome anyone to find this Barna report and correct me on potential mistakes. This is not intended to make John and Arden appear unskilled nor dishonest in their research. But I am hoping to help everyone gain more clarity, here.
In the meantime, the Pew Research Center's October 2019 report may be an adequate substitute. It is titled “In U.S., Decline of Christianity Continues at Rapid Pace.”
There, we read:
“In U.S., number of religious ‘nones’ has grown by nearly 30 million over past decade.”
That is the same number mentioned by John but is coming from a different report. In 2009, we had 233 million adults in America. 77% of them identified as Christian. That is roughly 178 million Americans. 23 million more adults were added to America's population, but the population of Christians decreased from 77% to 65%, leaving us with 167 million American adults identifying as Christians in 2019.
Following Ancient Truth in the Modern World
Maybe only a few people will disagree that modern life is full of distractions making it very hard to follow Jesus. I can relate to the unintentional drifting away, in light of the fact that I have now consecutively missed 6 Sundays of church attendance. Every Sunday, I tell myself the same thing, “I promise to go back to church next week and let this be the last Sunday I miss.” I feel the weight of the world's negativity growing stronger as the days pass with less Bible-reading and less time spent with other believers.
In his book called Practicing the Way, John Mark Comer writes:
“This is the first and most important goal of apprenticeship to Jesus: to be with him, to spend every waking moment aware of his presence and attentive to his voice. To cultivate a with-ness to Jesus as the baseline of your entire life” (pages 34&35).
Now, I want to discuss more from Comer's book.
Jesus told his followers that the Father would send an “another advocate.” Parakletos (παράκλητος) is the Greek word for advocate, meaning “helper” or “intercessor.” Jesus identified this helper as the Holy Spirit, which is not a nameless, abstract force similar to Eastern mysticism or Star Wars, but a person acting as the communication line between Jesus and His followers (Page 36).
“Apprenticeship to Jesus is to live in that moment-by-moment flow of love within the Trinity” writes Comer. Metaphorically, Jesus is a vine and we are the branches that must “abide” in Him to “bear much fruit.” John Mark Comer's understanding of “abide” based on the original Greek means that we should make our home in Jesus. This message is for anyone, whether city-dwellers or rural residents, and not just nuns and monks (Page 37).
“All of us are abiding” somewhere…physically…already.
That is easy to discern. But what happens to our minds when the lights fade, when the day is done, when we remove the mask, and lie down in seclusion? What is our emotional bedrock and home or “default setting”? The answer as to what subconsciously drives us will determine the “fruit” of our lives, whether good or evil (Page 38).
We need to practice staying in God's presence, as a monk named Brother Lawrence would have said it. Such a practice is not accomplished by obsessively shaping our journey with God. We must sharpen our skill for letting God control our destiny (Page 40).
Part of that is accomplished by habitually turning our attention toward God's love that is enveloping us, instead of our noisy distractions and obsessive worries. This can parallel with the apostle Paul's advice to “pray without ceasing.”
You may not be able to have Jesus on the forefront of your mind at all times, consciously and literally. But every attempt to think of Him, even for a nanosecond, gets you closer to the goal and the peace He has for you. A quick prayer can be made, and his love can be felt while taking out the trash, sending an email, brewing coffee, running errands, caring for the kids, or having a difficult discussion with your spouse. How you shift your focus away from your negative ruminations and onto the love of Christ can alter the way you respond to your environment. I believe that altering your responses to your environment is the goal of bearing good fruit as Jesus said.
Canadian psychologist, Donald Hebb, conceptualized the rule that “neurons that fire together, wire together.” Neuroplasticity allows us to disrupt/untrain our negative thought spirals and rewire ourselves in a better direction.
John Mark Comer quotes from Marjorie J. Thompson, saying, “I look at Him, He looks at me, and we are happy” (page 46). Such a thing encourages me to imagine God's loving smile directed at me while He scoops me up in His arms and loves me until I get my strength to face what is in front of me. This is a good mental exercise for experiencing an unconditional love no human can give.
The author of this blog post is Matthew Sabatine, who was born in the United States and raised as a Christian but left the faith in his early twenties. He returned to the faith midway through 2022. Matthew has some experience in the mental health field as a direct support professional, caring for people with intellectual and development disabilities and people who were in long-term residency/rehabilitation programs. Though Matthew has no formal undergraduate or graduate degree, he has experience co-facilitating therapy groups under the supervision of licensed counselors. Matthew currently works in sales/marketing by day and blogs on his free time at night.
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