For decades Christians with whom I share many sympathies have warned about the emergence of a Christless Christianity among American evangelicals. In the last decade the reality of an advocacy of Christianity without Christ has seemed to increase as Christians have seemed willing to desire the restoration of Christendom even if it involves the abandonment of the Son of God. Consider the following:
- In the last year or so Christians have invested significant time and treasure in a campaign to sell to the American public a version of Jesus that resembles the heresy of Socianism more than it looks like Jesus Christ as described in the New Testament. Stripped of any message of his divinity or his saving mission, Americans are supposed to be impressed that "he gets us," though it remains unclear why it should matter.to anyone.
- A nationally known Christian talking head was recently heard by this correspondent to say that the Bible actually has "little to say" about salvation, though it provides a lot of information relevant to the development of a "Christian worldview." Evidently, the core affirmation of the Christian religion that God saves sinners, a notion that suffuses the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, is in fact remarkably absent after all and not important to whatever worldview that requires developing.
- In a lecture on Christian nationalism before an academic evangelical audience, listeners were assured that Abraham Lincoln was certainly a "Christian nationalist" even though it was admitted that it is unclear whether the 16th president would affirm a single phrase from the Apostle's Creed. Seemingly, Christian nationalism doesn't require any clear doctrinal confession -- not even the opening phrase of belief in "God the Father almighty."
- Recently, a woman who had been victimized as a girl by radical versions of Islam before embracing atheism has now announced her conversion to Christianity. I need to state that I hope she truly has come to faith in Christ, as her story is a striking one of great courage. What is unclear from her written statements, however, is whether her conversion involves faith in the saving work of Christ. She seems more concerned about the capacity of Christian ethics and perhaps theism to provide a foundation for a humanitarian societal ethic. Many evangelicals seem enthused.
These types of examples seem to point toward the embrace of Christendom and Christianity without Christ, of evangelicalism without the evangel. Advocates seem to want to point to legal structures embracing moralistic commitments as a foundation for "taking America back," though it is unclear what they are taking it back for. Somehow, no one talking about a Christian nation is advocating replacing the Star Spangled Banner with the Nicene Creed or the vague "In God We Trust" with a pronouncement that justification is by faith alone.
None of this is to deny that there are negative trends taking place in culture, but the culture cannot be reclaimed by a church that has lost track of the Gospel. The real need of the day is not the reclamation of the culture as much as the reformation of the church. The former is unlikely apart from the realization of the latter.
