The post-Christian culture that Francis Schaeffer and Chuck Colson foretold is now reality. So what do we do? We\u2019ll discuss one leader\u2019s ideas.<\/p>\n
For many Christians, it\u2019s as if American culture has changed in the blink of an eye. And for most, it\u2019s for the worse. Each month, it seems, America becomes more secular, less morally literate, and noticeably more hostile to Christianity.<\/p>\n
In the space of just two years, we\u2019ve seen marriage laws that passed with overwhelming bipartisan support during the Clinton Administration wither beneath activist outrage. What President Obama professed to believe just three years ago \u2014 that marriage is the union of one man and one woman \u2014 has today become the definition of bigotry \u2014 so despicable it\u2019s compared with Jim Crow-era racism.<\/p>\n
What happened? According to columnist and author Rod Dreher, this overnight revolution in Americans\u2019 opinions on marriage and religious freedom is no mere moral slide. It\u2019s actually nothing short of a \u201ccosmological shift.\u201d In other words, the assumptions that have made gay marriage culturally inevitable \u2014 the idea that people are the sum of their desires and that marriage has no intrinsic purpose or definition \u2014 amount to a total shift in the way our culture looks at human persons.<\/p>\n
Some of his critics accuse Dreher of being a defeatist. But his view of the situation is sober and realistic. If nothing else, the firestorm we saw this year when Indiana passed its Religious Freedom Restoration Act reveals our situation. Not only have we seen a new view on \u201cmarriage,\u201d but even something as historically American as religious freedom now sounds to many in our culture like bigotry and a \u201clicense to discriminate.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are fighting for the right simply to practice our religion without being punished by the state and by the culture,\u201d says Dreher. \u201cAnd it\u2019s a fight we\u2019re losing, quite frankly.\u201d<\/p>\n
So what does he propose we do? Well, Rod joined me on \u201cBreakPoint This Week\u201d to answer that question, and to begin a conversation about something you\u2019ve heard Eric and me mention before on BreakPoint: It\u2019s called \u201cthe Benedict Option,\u201d and it\u2019s Rod\u2019s developing proposal for how the church can survive and thrive in the coming years.<\/p>\n
Borrowed from moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre\u2019s book, \u201cAfter Virtue,\u201d the Benedict Option takes its name from the father of Western monasticism. St. Benedict, troubled by the moral decadence of his time and the decline of Christian Rome, founded communities that carried civilization, learning, and faith through the Dark Ages by separating themselves from the dominant popular culture.<\/p>\n
Rod describes the Benedict Option as a way to prepare Christians for a new \u201cdark age,\u201d \u2014 a \u201cstrategic withdrawal,\u201d to \u201cprepare a culture of resistance for the church,\u201d and \u201ca way of reminding ourselves who we are and [remaining] a light to the world…\u201d<\/p>\n
Now to many, that will sound like retreat or surrender. After all, Chuck Colson emphasized that Christ claims sovereignty and victory over \u201cevery square inch\u201d of human existence, and so we should stay fully engaged in the public square. How does the Benedict Option jibe with that?<\/p>\n
For starters, no one is proposing retreat, says Rod. And he isn\u2019t calling us to don habits and head for the hills. He\u2019s not even suggesting that we stop participating in politics or shaping culture. What the Benedict option is, and which Rod admits is still very much a work in progress, is about maintaining our allegiance to, our fundamental identity in, and our witness for the Gospel. The Church is bigger, older, and more important than any nation or culture. And as Rod points out, recognizing that and living it out is the heart of the Benedict Option.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t agree with everything that Rod proposes, but it is a conversation that I sincerely believe that we the Church must have.<\/p>\n
________<\/p>\n
Copyright (c) 2015 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. “BreakPoint” is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The post-Christian culture that Francis Schaeffer and Chuck Colson foretold is now reality. So what do we do? We\u2019ll discuss one leader\u2019s ideas. For many Christians, it\u2019s as if American culture has changed in the blink of an eye. And for most, it\u2019s for the worse. Each month, it seems, America becomes more secular, less […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1087],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6112"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6112\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}