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Monday, October 05, 2009

American Spirituality

On a recent trip to Africa, a leading pastor there - who has never been to the U.S., opined that "America must be such a blessed nation because of its faith in God." I nearly choked. I couldn't believe he would seriously entertain such a notion. That is definitely not my perception of America!

Perhaps America's faith has warranted some of God's rich blessings in the past. But more and more, the America I see represents something more like the disobedient, unfaithful and rebellious Israelites whom God punished time and time again (Old Testament). In fact, as I read the Old Testament and read of the Israelites bad behavior, I see so many parallels to modern American culture that it seems almost prophetic.

I could point to quite a number of American behaviors and the statistics that chronicle them --- which clearly are the types of things that anger God and stir His wrath. For example, the U.S. has slaughtered millions of innocent babies in abortions - mostly for convenience sake.

We have taken many false gods and placed them on high pedestals. Entertainment stars and celebrities, rich people, sports stars, shopping, material goods, sexuality. It seems that God is last behind an endless assortment of false gods that we worship.

Americans have placed our sexuality into a context that could hardly be more ungodly. Expressions of our sexuality have become so perverse and destructive that the American family has been all but slaughtered. The numbers of sex partners that men and women have had is astounding. The numbers of babies born out of wedlock is even more astounding. Simply put, the notion of sexual purity and marital fidelity seems to have been tossed aside in a selfish attempt to satisfy our sexual cravings.

But you know, we don't need to point to the sin of Americans to see how far apart from God we are. The results of a recent survey, which were published in Parade magazine this week (http://www.parade.com/news/2009/10/04-how-spiritual-are-we.html), really tell the story better than our sinful ways ever could.

There are several sobering conclusions that one could reasonably reach from the results of this survey. If the survey results are truly representative of the realities in the U.S. then:
  • Most Americans don't really know who God really is.
  • Most self-identified Christians are not living a Christian life.
  • Few Americans are truly committed to any local church.
  • Less than 30% of Americans say they attend church regularly. (And researchers believe other studies point to the fact that half of those are lying!)
  • 88% of Americans don't believe there is one true religion.
  • Most Americans pray for selfish reasons (to get what they want).
  • 82% of Americans don't believe it's necessary to be "equally yoked."
  • Most Americans have more faith in family members than they do their clergy.
So what's the bottom line here? American Christianity has become so watered down as to be false and ineffective. I am not here to be critical or judgmental. And certainly I acknowledge that there are good Christians in America. (I'd like to think I could turn out to be one of them.)

But I think it becoming more and more clear that Christians are abandoning their faith in favor of whatever makes them feel good, whatever makes sense, whatever is popular or convenient. And I suspect that many of us are going to be surprised to find out one day just how wrong we are.

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