Letter from America

American Pie was the title of a risque comedy. I might receive a letter or two for saying it, but I sometimes wonder whether popular American piety might be sardonically dubbed 'American Pie'. Except, of course, it's not funny.

Statistical as well as anecdotal evidence combine to paint a far from pretty picture. Long ago Francis Schaeffer called it The Great Evangelical Disaster: 'Here is the great evangelical disaster - the failure of the evangelical world to stand for truth as truth... The evangelical church has accommodated to the world spirit of the age'. More recently, Gallup addressed a national seminar of Southern Baptist leaders saying, 'We find there is very little difference in ethical behaviour between churchgoers and those who are not active religiously. The levels of lying, cheating, and stealing are remarkably similar in both groups'. Barna would go further, identifying patterns of extra-marital sex, racism, and the physical abuse of spouses as at about the same level as 'in the world.'

Bad fruit

Religion is up but morality is down. Who can square such a circle? Certainly not the book of James, nor the Lord himself who it was that cautioned 'by their fruit you will know them'. If we are not careful the church will enter a new Babylonian captivity, this time not geographical but of the spirit, where the exile is not from a physical but psychological space, where the cash value of central terms to the preaching of the gospel ('born again', 'Bible-believing', 'evangelical') will have become so devalued that nothing but a radical reversal will stand a chance of renewing the remnant.

Lest I sound too like a prophet of doom, let it be said that many evangelicals are bucking the trend. There are movements which insist on the preaching of the Law. There are churches that model a reform of the biblical practice of discipline and excommunication. There are evangelists who will not leave town without being assured of discipleship or mentoring.

Nonetheless I do not hesitate to sound the gong of alarm. As big a fan as I am, popular piety in America is all but incurably sentimental. To be 'born again' has come to mean little more than an experiential response to an emotion-laden meeting. There is little sense that it means change. When even a Christian of many years hears a preacher urging us to 'open our hearts to Jesus', there is frequently insufficient doctrinal discernment to ask 'which Jesus' (a biblical or sub-biblical kind) or what does he mean by 'open our heart'. The preacher could be a Catholic priest urging his parishioners to partake of the mass for all the unquestioning Christian would know.

What's the answer?

James would teach us to get a correct understanding of Justification by Faith. Justification by faith never meant (at the hands of Paul or anyone else) the faith that does not produce works. Matthew similarly records Jesus as teaching that a true disciple will bear the fruit of moral change. That's the answer that the Bible gives: a right understanding of the gospel.

The solution (getting us to embrace the answer) is less easy to identify. For that, we may suppose, the age old response of repentance and prayer is the only feasible recourse. 'If my people who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land' (2 Chronicles 7.14). Still, it's probably easier to go back to a nice piece of pie.

Josh Moody,
New Haven, Connecticut

© Evangelicals Now - February 2005
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