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| Volume 25 Number 7 July 2023 |
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| Volume 25 Number 7 July 2023 |
Page 2 |
Louis Rushmore, Editor
“I’ve heard the word ‘Gospel,’ but I don’t know much about it,” the young female cashier remarked as she tabulated my charges for three dress shirts I was buying. She had heard the word and could pronounce it, but she didn’t know what it meant.
It seems that everything these days involves one’s email address. Examples include digital receipts for restaurant or hardware store purchases, online shopping, accessing medical portals and paying utility bills. Usually, store personnel and customer support representatives cannot pronounce, spell or even are aware of what the two words in my email address mean – Rushmore@GospelGazette.com. I understand that many people today are unfamiliar with the word “gazette” or how to spell it, though even a local newspaper where I live still uses “Gazette” in its masthead. However, it is nearly unfathomable that the populace around us is entirely oblivious to what the Gospel is all about. Even the thesaurus associated with the Microsoft Word program with which I’m writing this article does not even have one synonym for the word “gospel.”
All of this is symptomatic of a world that is lost! Although not merely a generational circumstance, especially younger generations have little to no knowledge about God, His Word or His church. The world does not have a moral compass and does not subscribe to divine standards, which ought to result in godly living. Christianity simply does not resonate with most of the people we encounter – even in our nation that was once inaccurately referred to as a Christian nation.
Religion is everywhere, but it is fading fast. The Pew Research Center demonstrated this noticeably in a 2019 article entitled, “In US, Decline of Christianity Continues at a Rapid Pace.” The subtitle reads, “An update on America’s changing religious landscape.” America certainly is not a Christian nation, and evidence abounds everywhere to which we turn and observe. Few drivers show any regard for traffic laws (e.g., speeding, reckless and aggressive driving, running red lights), which unnecessarily also result in tragic accidents and needless loss of life. Even disregard for traffic laws is symptomatic of a general indifference for authority – man’s or God’s. In addition, immodesty to the nth degree, immoralities proudly and publicly displayed, rampant crime and violence, as well as political scandals make up the unfortunate overview of America in our time.
Congregants are graying and dwindling in number, and fewer younger people attend worship services or even espouse Christianity at all. That explains the clueless reaction of the youthful clerk mentioned above to the word “gospel.”
Furthermore, the data shows a wide gap between older Americans (Baby Boomers and members of the Silent Generation) and Millennials in their levels of religious affiliation and attendance. More than eight-in-ten members of the Silent Generation (those born between 1928 and 1945) describe themselves as Christians (84%), as do three-quarters of Baby Boomers (76%). In stark contrast, only half of Millennials (49%) describe themselves as Christians; four-in-ten are religious “nones,” and one-in-ten Millennials identify with non-Christian faiths. (“In US, Decline…”)
The American Enterprise Institute:
…shows a steady erosion of religious affiliation and the corresponding rise of atheism and agnosticism. Generation Z (born 1997 to 2012) is the least religious in our history, with 34% reporting that they aren’t affiliated with a church, synagogue or another religious body. That’s nine points higher than for Generation X and five points higher than millennials. (Feder)
The Gallop Poll puts things into perspective and reveals an alarming reality – one that is apparent throughout our society.
For more than six decades, church membership in America was quite high: It was 73 percent in 1937, and remained in the low 70s for the rest of the century. But beginning around 2000, the number of Americans belonging to a house of worship went into a nosedive. Gallup reported last month that church membership had sunk to just 47 percent. For the first time ever, only a minority of American adults are affiliated with a church. (Jacoby emphasis added)
US citizenry continues to decrease affiliation with Christianity while non-Christian religions experience a modest increase in adherents. At the same time, “…the religiously unaffiliated share of the population [2019], consisting of people who describe their religious identity as atheist, agnostic or ‘nothing in particular,’ now stands at 26%, up from 17% in 2009” (“In US, Decline…”). “The data shows that the trend toward religious disaffiliation documented in” (“In US, Decline…” emphasis added) studies by multiple agencies is clearly discernible.
Not only do fewer Americans affirm affiliation with Christianity, but of those who do claim membership in some church, fewer of them attend worship assemblies more than once or twice a year. “The data shows that just like rates of religious affiliation, rates of religious attendance are declining” (“In US, Decline…”). “Many who profess belief don’t walk the walk” (Feder), which contributes to the hypocritical influence on subsequent generations to walk away from their religious moorings, and this doubtlessly has been a large contributor as well to the diminishing number of young Christians in the churches of Christ.
The changes underway in the American religious landscape are broad-based. The Christian share of the population is down and religious “nones” have grown across multiple demographic groups: white people, black people and Hispanics; men and women; in all regions of the country; and among college graduates and those with lower levels of educational attainment. (“In US, Decline…”)
“…The number of religiously unaffiliated adults in the U.S. grew by almost 30 million over this period” of 2009 to 2019 (“In US, Decline…”). In place of organized religion with God as its object, today, religion is often no religious affiliation, homosexual belligerency, reverse racial militancy and radical green earth. God-themed religion has been replaced with secularism; anyone and anything is the center around which everything revolves rather than God.
Political surveys also query respondents about their religious affiliations, if any, and frequency of attending religious services. Interestingly, liberal politics and more conservative politics reflect differently the trends to abandon the Christian religion.
Religious “nones” are growing faster among Democrats than Republicans, though their ranks are swelling in both partisan coalitions. And although the religiously unaffiliated are on the rise among younger people and most groups of older adults, their growth is most pronounced among young adults. (“In US, Decline…”)
Today, fewer than half of white Democrats describe themselves as Christians, and just three-in-ten say they regularly attend religious services. More than four-in-ten white Democrats are religious “nones,” and fully seven-in-ten white Democrats say they attend religious services no more than a few times a year. Black and Hispanic Democrats are far more likely than white Democrats to describe themselves as Christians and to say they attend religious services regularly, though all three groups are becoming less Christian. (“In US, Decline…”)
“…The trends are clear – the U.S. is steadily becoming less Christian and less religiously observant as the share of adults who are not religious grows…” (“In US, Decline…”). That scenario presents the scope of the challenge that lies before the churches of Christ in America. Not only are we not doing a very good job of retaining our own young people in the Lord’s church, neither are we effectively reaching those outside the Lord’s church with the saving Gospel. Yes, we need to send the Gospel light abroad to various nations around the globe. However, America is in just as much a need to be converted by the Gospel as, for instance, Hindus in India and Buddhists in Myanmar (Burma).
The 2009 edition of Churches of Christ in the United States identifies 12,629 a cappella congregations with 1,578,281 adherents nationwide. Those figures represent 526 fewer churches and 78,436 fewer people in the pews than just six years ago. … Some experts blame the overall Church of Christ decline on the “graying of the pew” – churches marked by increasingly older memberships as young people leave. (Ross)
The rate at which the Churches of Christ is shrinking, already quite high, accelerated to over 2400 people each month (net), on average, during the last 3 years, based on an analysis of data released by 21st Century Christian… This is more than triple the already high rate of decline for the Churches of Christ from 2000 to 2015. … The number of Church of Christ members shrank by over 5.6% from 2016 to 2019. Effectively, 1 in every 18 members disappeared from its congregations nationwide in just 3 years. That is more than 66,000 baptized, names-on-the-rolls members. And those who had young kids took those kids with them. This is a major acceleration in the decline of the Churches of Christ. At this rate, the Churches of Christ will lose a quarter of its membership over the next 15 years, plus their kids. (Gardner)
Compiling statistics from various sources, it seems that “attendance in Churches of Christ peaked in about 1985 and has been in decline since about 1990,” and the “Churches of Christ have lost more than 2,000 people and nine congregations a month since 2015” (Fillinger). At that rate of decline, “Churches of Christ would have about 4,000 congregations and 400,000 members by 2050” (Fillinger).
What are we going to do about biblical illiteracy inside and outside of the Lord’s church? First, we need to be aware of the crisis. Secondly, we need to care about the predicament. Thirdly, we need to act – individually and personally as well as collectively as congregations and the brotherhood.
In the first place, to be aware of the crisis of biblically illiteracy, we must acknowledge that spiritual matters are more important and more durable than with what we are most familiar in this physical, material and temporary world (2 Peter 3:7-12). We must get our priorities properly ordered (Matthew 6:33), which means that we must understand that “…the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows” (1 Timothy 6:10 NKJV). True Christianity is not an addendum to one’s life, but it is rather the main attraction, and vocations as well as material things are the supplements to life on earth. Until we embrace the spiritual over the physical, we cannot save ourselves or anyone else, despite the accessibility of the Gospel of Christ, which saves souls (Romans 1:16).
In the second place, contemplation of lost souls must be a most painful realization to those who have already been blessed with the saving power of the Gospel. Until we visualize some of our family members, a few of our fellow Christians with whom we worship, friends, neighbors, coworkers, store clerks, medical personnel, grocers and most people with whom we interact as being lost in sin without any real hope and headed for an eternity in a devil’s hell, we will not care enough to consider acquainting them with the Gospel. We can familiarize others with the Gospel directly through biblical teaching, but we also teach something by our behavior, by our speech (by what we say and by what doesn’t come forth from our mouths), by where we go (and by where we do not go) and by whether we act out our Christianity consistently all day every day.
In the third place, after we recognize the severity of biblical illiteracy within and without of the Lord’s church, we must determine to do whatever we can to favorably and meaningfully impact precious souls with the opportunity to know God’s Word – the Gospel in the New Testament – and the salvation that Jesus Christ offers (Colossians 1:14; 1 Peter 1:18-19) through it in return for obedience (Hebrews 5:8-9). Remember, though, we are not responsible for whether a person obeys the Gospel or disobeys it (2 Thessalonians 1:7-9; 1 Peter 4:17) after we have provided an opportunity to know God’s Word – the Gospel; of a truth, our success before God lies not in how many people we convert but in how many people we teach the Gospel. Baptisms, on which occasions souls are saved (Mark 16:16; Acts 2:38, 41; 22:16), are “icing on the cake” – “something extra that makes a good thing even better” (“Icing”).
Elders, deacons, preachers and other involved members of a local congregation ought to lead the balance of the church in active evangelism – sharing the Gospel with others far and near as we have opportunity or can make for ourselves more opportunities. Church leadership ought to demonstrate how it’s done in their own lives as well as working in conjunction with less experienced church members. Church leaders, likewise, need to provide training and Christian literature to as many of the congregants who can be persuaded to participate in local and personal evangelism. Church leaders ought to strongly encourage the congregation to take evangelism seriously.
As self-starters and on an individual basis, Christians can and should be proactively willing to spread the Gospel amongst family, friends, acquaintances, coworkers and others with whom they interact. Every place and everyone is a potential opportunity to spread the Word of God – certainly by the way we act and by what we say (and by how we say it) but also by inviting someone to worship or Bible class, by offering to study the Bible together or by giving away a tract. Every meal out in a restaurant, every visit to a restroom, passing through any public place and virtually anywhere we can leave a tract. The tract that people seldom refuse and that everyone will pick up even if found lying on the floor is a one-million-dollar bill on one side and the plan of salvation on the reverse side; my cell phone number is one of the two numbers on it by which I can be contacted. None of your or my creditors or utilities will refuse payments accompanied by tracts. Remember, it’s not our job to make anyone do anything, but it is our job to turn the world upside down with opportunity to know God’s will for it (Acts 17:6). It’s your job and my job in service of our Lord Jesus Christ to saturate our communities and the world with opportunity to obey the Gospel, and some precious souls will obey the Gospel.
Do your part so that as many souls as possible in your sphere of influence can make the Christian pilgrim’s journey to God’s house (Hebrews 11:13-16). Make sure that you personally obey and continue to obey the Gospel. Take as many of your family members, friends, neighbors, coworkers and acquaintances as possible to Heaven with you. Don’t wait until tomorrow; start today to make a difference in the pathway traveled by priceless souls around you. Be a soul winner and train other children of God to be soul winners. Imitate our Savior. “The former account I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, until the day in which He was taken up…” (Acts 1:1-2). Until our Lord returns or until we pass from the scenes of life, let us be active in doing and teaching the Gospel.
Works Cited
Feder, Don. “The Fatal Fall of Religion in American Will Affect Everything.” The Washington Times. 29 Mar 2022. 14 June 2023. <https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/mar/29/the-fatal-fall-of-religion-in-america-will-affect-/>.
Fillinger, Kent E. “Noninstrumental Churches of Christ Facing Uncertain Future.” Christian Standard. 13 Oct 1921. 14 Jun 2023. <https://christianstandard.com/2021/10/noninstrumental-churches-of-christ-facing-uncertain-future/>.
Gardner, Steve. “Church of Christ Decline Worsens, 2400 a Month Depart, Treatment of Women & Girls Factor.” Authentic Theology. 13 Nov 2019. 14 Jun 2023. <https://authentictheology.com/2019/11/13/church-of-christ-decline-worsens-2400-a-month-depart-treatment-of-women-girls-factor/>.
“Icing on the cake.” Merriam-Webster.com. Dictionary: Merriam-Webster. 14 Jun 2023. <https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/icing%20on%20the%20cake>.
“In US, Decline of Christianity Continues at a Rapid Pace.” Pew Research Center. 17 Oct 2019. 14 Jun 2023. < https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2019/10/17/in-u-s-decline-of-christianity-continues-at-rapid-pace/>.
Jacoby, Jeff. “Religion in America Is Fading.” Aish.com. 14 Jun 2023. <https://aish.com/religion-in-america-is-fading/>.
Ross, Bobby, Jr. “Study to Examine Why Some Leave Churches of Christ.” Christian Chronicle. 1 Mar 2009. 14 Jun 2023. < https://christianchronicle.org/study-to-examine-why-some-leave-churches-of-christ/>.
