“Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD; and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance.”
Psalms 33:12
What do I love about America? I love the land. America is beautiful. “O beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain, for purple mountain majesties, above the fruited plains.” I love our many diverse cultures; I love their music, their food, their art, and their particular stories and histories.
I especially love our best national values: freedom, opportunity, community, justice, human rights, and equality under the law for all our citizens of every race, creed, culture, and gender, not just for the rich and powerful. In particular, I love our tradition and history of being a constitutional republic. I take legitimate pride in seeing how our founding documents, when followed, have protected our freedom over the years. And despite all the negative influences America has been to the world, I also love the exceptional contributions my country has made for the benefit of mankind.
What I don’t love is when my country violates its values and ideals and behaves badly, as when we support many dictatorships around the world. I don’t love it when my country acts out of greed and only for power, or with blatant hypocrisy, or like an empire. The gospel has never lived easily with empire. Christians have a prophetic vocation, in whatever nation they live, to lift up the values of the kingdom of God and call nations to honor their best values in light of those principles.
The eroding American culture is having a negative effect upon our faith. Someone once said, “As go the churches…so goes the nation.” However, with the compromising position many churches are in, a better assessment today might be “as goes the nation, so go the churches.” There are a few things that concern me about Christianity in America.
We Practice Christianity Through Groups and Institutions
Most believers only worship or practice their Christianity at church, at their schools, associations, organizations, and institutions. In fact, we hardly worship, fellowship, learn, or minister outside of an officially sponsored function. Without structured, regulated, and organized religious affiliations, our faith would be radically different. Many people didn’t know how to worship during Covid because we only do religious stuff at church. Without a program to guide us, or a worship leader to direct us, our worship seems to fall apart.
Our Theology Is Usually Borrowed
Instead of studying out our own theology, we usually espouse someone else’s. Often it will be a Christian celebrity such as Charles Stanley, David Jeremiah, Chuck Swindoll, and others. Now, these are good men, but you also need to study the Word of God for yourself. That’s why I always encourage folks to bring their Bibles to church. Like the noble Bereans, make sure your preacher is teaching you the truth. Borrowed theology is also proven by the number of modern versions of the Bible that are in use. Few people still use translations, like the original King James, that allow you, through the Holy Spirit to interpret the Scriptures; we prefer to allow others to interpret them for us.
Sometimes we even borrow our faith from politicians. Although it may violate their faith, many Christians have embraced things like abortion, homosexuality, and other forms of immorality because some politician gave a convincing speech that was appealing to them.
Our Online Faith Seldom Reflects Reality
We post Bible verses on Twitter, claim “Christianity” as our religion on Facebook, and we proudly put inspiring quotes about God and faith on our social media accounts. But in reality, we seldom pray, read the Bible, or practically live out our beliefs. If everyone’s faith was as strong as it appears on social media, we could shake the world for Christ. Apparently, it is easier to boast about your faith online, than it is to live it out in person.
We Love Labels
When we meet a fellow Christian, we immediately classify them. Are they a Liberal, Conservative, Methodist, Baptist, Pentecostal, Premillennial, Postmillennial, Lutheran, Charismatic, Catholic, Dispensationalist, Literalist, Universalist, or Annihilationist? What version of the Bible do they read? What style of worship do they prefer? Certainly, no one can pastor our church if he doesn’t have a doctorate or didn’t attend our preferred seminary. Do they support our form of morality in government? I am not saying that some of these things are not important. I am just saying that instead of seeing Christians as part of a worldwide corporate community, we compartmentalize people based on their beliefs, practices, and preferences. All Christians make up the body of Christ and are a part of the true church.
We Crave Efficiency Over Spirituality
Ministries, missions, and outreach programs are only successful if they are quick, streamlined, financially strong, and usually big. Success is gauged by size, growth, and numbers. If someone isn’t converted or reformed within the first few weeks, it’s time to abandon them and focus on someone else. We believe solutions should be fast and easy. Our faith is analyzed by business standards instead of spiritual fruits. We think big ministries and big churches are the most spiritual because their size proves it. Charismatic preachers are more godly because they appeal to the masses.
We Need Entertainment
“Christianity” to many means summer camps, pizza parties, conferences, exciting guest speakers, mission trips to exotic destinations, concerts, music festivals, and high-energy church services. Entertainment, tranquility, and consumerism reign supreme. And if we experience any sort of dissatisfaction or discomfort we’ll leave and go somewhere else. Christian education, worship, ministry, missions, and fellowship centers around the quest for entertainment. What can we get from it? The greatest benefactor of Christianity is ourselves, not others. The worst enemy of American Christianity is flesh pleasing and world pleasing worship.
We Lack Integrity
“There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was perfect (blameless) and upright, one who feared God and eschewed evil.”
The first significant thing the writer tells us is about Job’s character. He was a man of complete integrity. This does not mean he was perfectly sinless; it simply means he was not hypocritical. In many ways, Job 1:1 would be an excellent epitaph for a Christian leader’s headstone.
When I first got saved, I decided to hire Christians whenever I could in my secular work. I was sure that any follower of Christ would be dependable, loyal, honest, and hard-working. Unfortunately, that decision didn’t work out very well. In many cases, Christians were worse employees than non-Christians. This simply ought not be.
Integrity is a major component of faith. Our word needs to be our bond. When people sense a lack of integrity in a child of God, the work of God suffers. When you lack integrity, you inwardly lose a sense of moral authority. Relationships always suffer when integrity wanes. Trust erodes and the unity is not what it could and should be. It is difficult to be close to someone who is prone to let you down. Regarding a lack of integrity, Charles Spurgeon said, “If a man’s life at home is unworthy, he should go several miles away before he stands up to preach, and then, when he stands up, he should say nothing.”
When you live a life of integrity, you will gain trust, respect, honor and influence. If you want great children, be a parent of integrity. If you want to be a great leader of your family, be a husband and a man of integrity. If you want influence in the business community, be a person of your word. When you have integrity, people will often follow you, they will honor you, they will listen to you, they will seek your wisdom and advice because you are a person of integrity.
We are Selfish
We have become self-centered. Maybe you wouldn’t call yourself self-centered, but would others? A person who is self-centered is lacking in compassion toward others and often falls into a victim mentality; seeing problems as everyone else’s fault.
Selfishness deserves to die, but it is hard to spot and even harder to kill. It is a slippery sin because it is a shape-shifter. Jonathan Edwards said pride is “the most hidden, secret, and deceitful of all sins.” C.S. Lewis said that the important thing is “not thinking less of ourselves, but thinking of ourselves less.” We can spend a lot of time thinking less of ourselves but we only end up thinking a lot about ourselves. The problem of selfishness does not boil down to whether we think high thoughts or low thoughts about ourselves but that we think lots of thoughts about ourselves.
Obviously, many Christians are more complex and inspiring than the attributes listed above, but we need to start realizing the influence American culture is having on our faith. So many of the world’s values have seeped into the church and it has weakened us from within. So many American Christians have strayed away from Christ’s example of sacrificial love and are using religion to serve their own misguided agendas.
Nobody is perfect, but we need to start emulating Christ instead of subtly allowing the social surroundings of an immoral and backslidden nation to dictate our spiritual priorities. God’s blessings are upon the nation that honors and worships Him. God’s blessings are also on the individual that follows this same principle, so I encourage you in your personal walk with God. It is important for you and for our nation.
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Dr. Worthington has been in the ministry for over forty-five years and serves as President of Pathway Ministries and Christian Bible College.