Mennonite Weekly Review

On a fast-changing religious landscape, U.S. Christianity is losing ground. How believers respond to their declining cultural dominance will determine which churches thrive in an era some call post-Christian.

Actually, post-Christendom would be a better word. What’s passing away is not Christianity itself but the culture of Christendom — that is, a time and a place in which the faith held a position of privilege and power.

Awareness of this cultural shift grew last month with the release of the American Religious Identification Survey. It showed that since 1990 the percentage of Americans who call themselves Christian dropped from 86 percent to 76 percent. And the number who claim no religious affiliation nearly doubled, from 8 percent to 15 percent.

That much change in so short a time leaves no doubt about a major trend. It led Newsweek to declare “The End of Christian America.” The article included an idea that’s catching on in certain circles: Christendom isn’t good for the church.

“The decline and fall of the modern religious right’s notion of a Christian America … may help open the way for a more theologically serious religious life,” Jon Meacham wrote in the Newsweek article. “Many Christians are rediscovering the virtues of a separation of church and state.”

Another who bids farewell to Christendom without regret is writer and activist Shane Claiborne, who’s been speaking to Mennonite audiences recently. In Jesus for President (Zondervan, 2008), Claiborne and co-writer Chris Haw observe that “Christianity is at its best when it is peculiar, marginalized, suffering, and it is at its worst when it is popular, credible, triumphal and powerful.”

The lesson of “the ruins of Christendom in Europe,” they say, is that “the best way to defeat the kingdom of God is to empower the church to rule the world.”

Mennonites — historically familiar with being peculiar, marginalized and suffering — could be well suited for the emerging era of faithfulness on the fringes. The danger, however, is that we’ve aligned ourselves with the power-seeking ways of Christendom and will fade along with it.

The words of Jesus can ease the anxiety we may feel about the church’s future in a less religious culture.

“What is the kingdom of God like? … It is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his garden. It grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air perched in its branches” (Luke 13:18-19).

The seed starts small, then grows into something big and blesses those around it. The church makes an impact in the same way. Letting go of Christendom does not mean abandoning hope of changing the world. It means choosing less flashy but ultimately more effective methods of transformation.

This change begins with ourselves. Sociologist Conrad Kanagy asked at a recent conference in Yoder, Kan., whether the Spirit of God is “dismantling the church as we know it” so it can be restored as God intended. “In our weakness we can do so much more for God than in our strength,” he said. The church’s future hangs on the truth of that paradox.