Following the observance of Good Friday services on April 19, 2019, in America, Fox News reported an overall decline in church attendance, especially among Millennials. There are several reasons for this decline in Christianity in America, beginning with a privileged generation that is not grateful to anyone, especially God.
The Millennial Generation consists of those whose birth years took place in the early 1980s. They are easily characterized as “Generation Me.” Born in a prosperous nation, having no famine to face, or world war to resolve, Millennials can focus total attention on themselves. Many have discovered that material possessions are not enough for a person is both body and soul.
This poses an intellectual challenge to Millennials for evolutionary indoctrination denies that a person has a soul that transcends the body. Humans are simply the product of time plus space plus chance. Every individual is to eat, drink, be merry, and die for there is nothing beyond the grave. Whatever transcendental meaning a person has must come from their own creative imagination, not from divine revelation, and the innate need to love and worship the Creator.
Some Millennials have found a reason to justify their existence by trying to save the planet. The Green Plan is very popular at the moment because individuals feel like they can do something they believe is worthwhile. Interest used to be in trying to save the highways from pollution. Then, attention was turned to saving the whales, saving the polar bears, and saving the oceans. Today, the scare mongers want to save the planet from humans. This must be done in the next twelve years or we will all die! The hysteria in the voices of these emotional radicals is palpable.
Talk about hysteria! Talk about irrational thought, and speech! Talk about the ultimate form of self-centeredness! The Millennials always return to themselves. “WE MUST DO SOMETHING!”
What should people do? That is easy, we are told to kill all the cows, stop using airplanes, and tear down all the homes and buildings which are not energy efficient.
It is madness, and it is also very predictable. “The way of fools seems right to them, but the wise listen to advice” (Prov. 12:15, NIV).
Two thousand years ago the Apostle Paul wrote about what happens when people suppress the truth about creation, and God. When people change the truth of God in a lie, they worship and serve the creature more than the Creator (Rom. 1:25).
Apart from generational affluence leading to a sense of entitlement without appreciation, and evolutionary indoctrination, there is the observation that a large part of Christian theology does not change many lives, on a practical daily basis.
Many professing Christian men divorce their wives, and many professing Christian women refuse to even try to learn to love, according to God’s Royal Command. They are content to resent and hate their husbands. All feel justified, and want other Christians to endorse their unbiblical and unChristlike decisions and behavior.
Countless professing Christian pastors and Church leaders are in bondage to sexual lust, manifested in the problem of pedophilia, and secret visitations to inappropriate sites on the internet.
When given a chance to forgive someone who has offended them, multitude of professing Christians refuse to be reconciled to one another. They leave the local assembly, with hatred in their hearts, while proclaiming pious platitudes. Many are angry enough to rally individuals around them to undermine, or destroy pastoral leadership, while feeling virtuous.
The world watches this and rejects a theology that does not fundamentally change anyone.
Some religiously inclined, but unconverted souls are drawn to the trappings of religion, provided it is hip and modern with rap music, stage productions, and guided by carelessly dressed preachers who are non-controversial, politically correct, and say nothing about sin, repentance, or the judgment to come.
So why should anyone change when the Church embraces those who ignore the laws of the land in the name of social justice, and embraces the homosexual community, and presidential candidates who openly defy Christian theology and the God of the Bible?
Why is Christianity on the decline? From a human perspective, a large portion of the Church has nothing to say to society.
From a Biblical perspective, the Lord is doing what He promised to do, He is removing those from the visible Church who have a dead faith. “Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. 20 Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them” (Matt. 7:19-20).
Jesus said that the way to heaven is a narrow way, and few there be that find it. “Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in there at: 14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it” (Matt. 7:13, 14).
Christianity is on the decline, in part, because the Lord has a “Little Flock” to whom He will give the kingdom. “Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32).
This decline should not discourage the faithful. As there are wonderful additions based on a true and heartfelt conversion to Christ and Christianity, so there are blessed subtractions as well. “If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned” (John 15:6).
While grace is free, it is not cheap. Much of the visible Church, and professing Christians have cheapened the grace of God by depending on the faithfulness of the Lord to forgive sin. And He does. But the Lord also longs for people to love Him, and be like Him, not just in theory, but in practice. To that end, He will continue to purge his people. Let the great cathedrals burn if they must, if they are only religious relics of a godless secular society, let the false evangelists pass from the scene, as they will, let the unconverted and uncommitted leave the Church, as they should, but let the name of Jesus live. Soli Deo Gloria!