By Mark Mellinger, The Gospel Coalition
In the midst of American culture’s rapid-fire moral changes, whose seeds were actually sown decades ago in the sexual revolution, many Christians are asking, “What happened to the church’s influence?” It’s a good question, and it’s not surprising that concerned believers would start to ask it in larger numbers as cohabitation, gay marriage, and out-of-wedlock births all become increasingly common.
Greg Forster digs into the question of where the church’s influence has gone and how it can be graciously reclaimed in his latest book, Joy for the World: How Christianity Lost Its Cultural Influence and Can Begin Rebuilding It (Crossway, 2014)
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It lost its influence by backing politicians. If Jesus says Saddam’s WMDs are an imminent threat, and we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud, or if he says if you like you insurance you can keep your insurance, and to “hide the decline”, then people tune out Jesus as yet another lying politician.
Millions and millions of American Christians from both parties attached Jesus to their pet political projects, and those same Christians give their Jesus-favored politicians a pass on lying.
Jesus said infinitely more against corrupt religious leadership than he ever said about gays (given he said nothing about gays), but for some reason religious leadership doesn’t want to talk about what Jesus talked about, which was frequently corrupt religious leadership. I wonder why?