People with no religious commitment are the fastest-growing religious demographic in America. A great spiritual awakening is advancing everywhere but in the West. What is the future of faith in a culture like ours?
Harvey Cox, one of America’s best-known theologians, addressed that question with ≈. Cox, retired professor at Harvard Divinity School, drew upon five decades of teaching and engagement with religions around the globe. His insights are both thoughtful and provocative.
According to Cox, Christian history has unfolded in three eras. The first was the Age of Faith. Beginning with the ministry of Jesus, it was a movement centered in personal engagement with God through the Spirit, focused on advancing the kingdom of God around the world.
The second was the Age of Belief. It began a few decades after the birth of Christianity as church leaders formulated tenets and creeds about Christ to perpetuate the faith for the future. When Constantine legalized and embraced Christianity as the formal religion of the Roman Empire, the church quickly became institutionalized, clergy-led and doctrinaire.
{mosimage}This era, often called “Christendom,” is dying around the world. The European Union declined to include “Christian” in its 2005 constitution; the number of people attending church in Western Europe is in precipitous decline; the number of atheists and agnostics in America has doubled in the last 20 centuries. Every denomination in the United States has experienced decline in recent years, excluding the Assemblies of God.
Their growth brings us to the third era, flowering in the last 50 years—the Age of the Spirit. Here we are witnessing “a profound change in the elemental nature of religiousness,” according to Cox. He considers this shift the “most momentous transformation” in 16 centuries of Christian history, as “the pragmatic and experiential elements of faith as a way of life are displacing the previous emphasis on institutions and beliefs.”
This development brings several negative consequences from an evangelical perspective: the rise of the “spiritual but not religious” movement; the advent of “cluster churches” where people engage in programs offered by various congregations rather than investing in a single faith family; the loss for some of a centering religious authority in Scripture. The “Age of the Spirit” also brings enormous advances for evangelical faith: an emphasis on experiential, empowering worship; a movement that transcends the restrictions of cultures and denominations; a missionary impulse unhindered by the need for clergy or institutions.
As we observe the season of “Advent” (“coming”), celebrating Jesus’ birth and anticipating his return, let us remember his Spirit has never left (John 14:16). When we submit daily to him (Ephesians 5:18), we join the spiritual awakening encircling the globe. Cox concludes, “All the signs suggest we are poised to enter a new Age of the Spirit and that the future will be a future of faith.” Here’s my question: Will we embrace a post-Christian “spirituality” or the transforming Spirit of God?
Jim Denison is president of the Denison Forum on Truth and Culture (www.denisonforum.org) and theologian-in-residence with the Baptist General Convention of Texas.
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