First, the bad news. In America, 34% of people under 30 now claim “no religion,” a three-fold increase from just a few decades ago.
“If there is a silver lining, I think that we will see a smaller, more committed core of Christians emerging. We are seeing the death of nominalism, name-only-Christianity in North America. Being a Christian is just no longer what you do to be a good American. There’s no social pressure to go to church. It is perfectly acceptable to mow the lawn and drink martinis instead. And so I think we are going to see a smaller, purer core.”
He ends with the most encouraging trend. “In the global Church we are seeing a fluorescence of faith that we haven’t seen since the book of Acts. In China, some have predicted that within 20 years 1-in-3 people could be Christians. In Africa, where 100 years ago 10% of Africans identified as Christians, today it’s 54%. In South America, whole cities are being swept with revival. God is on the move. Jesus promised he would build his Church and the gates of hell wouldn’t stand. The 1990s marked the greatest gathering of people into the Church in the history of the Church.”
When it comes to proclaiming God as he has revealed himself in Scripture, the American church may be getting left in the dust.
5. Boredom with God will cost us our relevance.
Finally, as Dyck sees the fruit of gospel ministry internationally, and sees new opportunities around the globe and here at home, he is less interested in trying to correct the ceaseless stream of manufactured caricatures in domesticated gods being fashioned in America and Britain.
“I’m done apologizing for God,” he says. “Every few months an Atheist writes a book accusing God of being mean, and somehow simultaneously non-existent. Then we spill gallons of ink in response trying to defend God’s actions. I’m not trying to bash on apologists, because I think what they do is crucial. My beef is that after we get through explaining away every passage in the Bible where God seems mean, he comes off as hapless or misunderstood.”
“I would rather just say: Hey, listen. God is dangerous. That is the way the Bible portrays him. You don’t have to like it. You can deny his existence. You can pet him if you like — just don’t expect your arm back. I’m done trying to explain God’s dangerous qualities away, because some of it isn’t explainable, and because at some level we must simply accept the way he has chosen to reveal himself.”
The Relevance of Transcendence
Putting God behind the cage of politically correctness isn’t going to happen. The attempt itself will prove to be the death of our worship, our gospel, our mission, and our holiness. In the end we make ourselves trivial.
“I think in every heart there remains a deep-seated desire to stand in the presence of a holy and transcendent God,” Dyck says. “People are thirsty for transcendence. They need to hear about a holy God. And even if they deny that they are sinful, I think deep down they know that they are — they know they need the grace and mercy of a holy God.”
God is not a kitten. He’s a tiger. He’s good, but he’s not tame. He is the God we find in Ezekiel. If we chose to live in denial, our worship will weaken, our standards of purity will diminish, our mission will skid to a halt, our message will be hollowed out, and our part in God’s global work will become more and more trivial.
Cultural irrelevance may not be the worst consequence of yawning at God, but it’s certainly one of them.
“In every heart remains a deep-seated desire to stand in the presence of a holy and transcendent God.”
