2. Irrelevant
2
Irrelevant
Board games are not my thing. I enjoy many other activities: watching movies, making conversation, eating great food, reading compelling books, painting, and woodworking. But not playing board games. On rare occasion, in a sheer act of will and of love for my family, I will sit down and play.
Other members of the Kinnaman family feel differently. My brother, Matt, and my son, Zack, love board games. They visit websites with game rankings. They put plastic sleeves on the cards of their card-based games to protect them from the greasy hands of non-gamers. They know secrets about dice combinations I can’t even imagine. They are game fanatics.
Zack and I took a cross-country flight last year to visit Matt, Kate, and their kids in Virginia. It was February, and snow and ice had turned my brother’s place into a cozy little igloo. So out came the beloved board games. By my count, Matt taught us six new board games during that stretch of wintery nights.
The first two were great. I hung in there, learning the rules of play—even enjoying myself.
At 11 p.m. on the second night, after the toddlers were asleep, Matt pulled out another new game: Roll for the Galaxy. I am not kidding: there were hundreds of multicolored dice, all with strange and unfamiliar icons.
Matt launched into an explanation of the game’s intricate rules. Zack focused on his uncle’s instruction with a disciple’s zeal and intensity. My son had ears to hear and eyes to see the “game gospel” proclaimed by his rabbi, Uncle Matt.
Pan to my face: eyelids half-mast, ears tuning out. I was so sleepy. For all I knew, we may as well have been talking about actual space exploration to visit the planet Xenon. I had no idea what the different colored dice meant, much less the alien icons. Matt tried to explain the nuances of the game in the simplest possible terms, but to me his voice had never sounded so soothing. The only parts of my brain that were working were the synapses searching for an excuse that wouldn’t hurt the feelings (too much) of my dear brother and his young acolyte.
To a lot of people in our culture, this is what Christianity feels like.
Background Noise
Irrelevance happens when your interests and someone else’s don’t overlap—like trying to share with someone the joy of playing your favorite game when to them board games are joyless, soul-sucking instruments of torture. (That’s a joke, Matt and Zack.) The other person may admire your passion but cannot relate to it.
For increasing millions of people in the wider culture, Christianity feels like a long list of rules that matter to someone else. Some try to hang in there out of a sense of duty or obligation. They might make a sincere effort to participate in church, maybe because it’s important to people they care about. But Christianity just doesn’t stick.
They never roll for the galaxy, much less search out their salvation. They can’t understand how or why faith relates to them, so they look for an excuse to leave the table.
Through our research, we have sorted out clear ways to distinguish those who see faith as background noise from those actively engaged in the game. We call the latter group “practicing Christians,” people who say their Christian faith is very important in their lives and attend church at least once a month. These are folks for whom Christianity is a way of life, not just a cultural identifier. Three out of ten Americans are practicing Christians.
For many millions of people who might be considered “legacy Christians,” however, Christianity is background noise that can safely be ignored. They have the muscle memory of being a Christian but exercise little faith in their lives today. They used to be active or grew up as a Christian, but now the tenets and practices of the faith are just part of the landscape, not guiding lights for their priorities and lifestyle.
We could count this group of people—legacy or nominal Christians—as the largest faith group in America today. Three out of four US adults have some Christian background, but about three in five American Christians are mostly inactive in their faith.
Using our earlier analogy, you might think of legacy Christians as people who learned the rules of the game years ago, but at some point the rules, and participating in the competition itself, became almost entirely irrelevant. When we interview them about why they don’t prioritize their faith or participate in faith-related activities, legacy Christians tell us they are just too busy or they find God elsewhere—in nature or art, for instance. To them, church is boring. Christianity has faded into the background. It’s a way of life that matters to somebody else.
How Irrelevant? Let Us Count the Ways
Most legacy Christians think Jesus-followers who prioritize faith are irrelevant and maybe annoying but also largely benign. But others, usually the religiously unaffiliated, think Christianity is bad for society. We are not seen as people of good faith.
Let’s try to see ourselves from their perspective.
Perception: Christian Leaders Aren’t Credible Guides for Life
As we touched on in chapter 1, perceptions about the trustworthiness of Christian ministers have plunged over the past half century. For example, how reliable a source of information and counsel do US adults believe pastors and priests are on a variety of issues? On the obviously “spiritual” issues, these leaders do fairly well: one-third of adults say Christian leaders are very reliable when it comes to offering wisdom about God’s will for human beings and about how the church can help people live according to God’s will. Another one-third of adults say ministers are somewhat reliable as sources of counsel in these areas.
But on issues closer to the ground, pastors are less integral. Only one out of six US adults say Christian leaders are very reliable guides for how Christianity should inform our political and justice systems. And only 25 percent of adults say ministers are very reliable in helping people live out their convictions privately and in public.
On the whole, pastors and priests are well liked—two-thirds of Americans say their presence is a benefit to a community—but their insights are not considered relevant to living real life. You might say Christian leaders are viewed like a smiling greeter at Walmart: they might point you in the right direction, but after that you’re on your own.
This perception is a huge problem. For so long these leaders’ influence kept the moral and spiritual dimensions of human life on our culture’s radar. Who will replace them as trustworthy guides for living?
Perception: Faith-Driven Organizations Are Irrelevant to a Charitable Society
Millions of adults are oblivious to how charity happens. Our research shows that up to half of Americans believe a majority of the charitable work in the nation—including providing food, clothing, shelter, counseling, and disaster relief, for example—would still happen if there were no religious people or organizations to do that work.1 Among those who claim no religion, nearly three out of five believe most charitable work would continue without Christians. Shockingly, 17 percent of practicing Christians believe the same, reflecting a lack of confidence in Christian contributions to society. Although their view is far from reality, perceptions matter.
Some people are now calling for the end of tax-free benefits to religious nonprofit organizations because they believe the government shouldn’t subsidize these kinds of groups. This line of reasoning (1) fails to see the tangible, far-reaching good churches and faith-based organizations do in and for our shared society and (2) equates tax exemption with government support. Of course no organization should be released from financial accountability, legal oversight, and good governance. But the perception of religion’s irrelevance to the common good, taken to its logical conclusion, is that all religious organizations should contribute money to the government based on their revenues.
We think it’s this dire: if we don’t adequately address questions of good faith, the future of charity is at risk. If tax-free status were revoked, thousands of churches and other faith-based nonprofit organizations would cease to operate, removing their impact on the common good. This would be a calamity.
Donations to religious causes and groups make up the largest single share of national charitable giving, one-third of all money donated to nonprofit organizations.2 Financial generosity is one of the places good faith has the most traction. A massive amount of work for the common good gets done precisely because of religious people and organizations. And because of the historical patterns of Christianity in the United States, this work is largely done thanks to Christians.
I (Gabe) was part of a meeting with thirty other faith leaders in 2009 hosted by the White House’s faith-based division. After President Obama was elected, Joshua Dubois, the director of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, was quick to convene leaders to consider how the government and Christian organizations could collaborate to accomplish more good together. On the table were projects such as reforming the prison system, hunger relief, combating sex trafficking, and fighting extreme poverty around the world.
After an inspiring few hours hearing about all the great work Christian-led organizations were doing, I pulled one of the White House aides to the side and asked, “Are you pulling in other religious groups for these conversations too?”
His reply was hushed but telling: “Yes, but it doesn’t have the same leverage. It’s Protestant evangelicals and Catholics who are doing the most work in these areas.”
Many non-Christian organizations contribute to the common good, and overall giving to churches has fallen off over the past fifty years, so let’s not break our arms patting ourselves on the back.3 But if Christians’ resources and passion to do good in the world were suddenly to evaporate, great harm would come to our society and its most vulnerable people.
Yet a majority of non-Christians believe the social good Christians do in Christ’s name is negligible. Irrelevant even.
Perception: Christianity Is Irrelevant to the “Real Stuff” of Life and Culture
Most people think Jesus was a pretty good guy, but they don’t believe his teaching has made much of an impact on modern society. Large proportions of the population, even Christians, believe our faith has had little or no impact on art, culture, personal well-being, politics, community cohesion, charitable behavior, and provision of community services. Among non-Christians, the perceived line dividing the Christian faith and societal impact is even more distinct.4
Furthermore, many people dramatically underestimate the number of practicing Christians in sectors that power our economy and create a healthy society. Public education is just one example. According to Barna estimates, two out of every five public school teachers and administrators in the United States are practicing Christians. It would be folly to say that, simply because Christians are present, public schools don’t have challenges. But millions of Christ-followers bring their good faith to public education, working for lower pay than in many other industries because teaching kids, for many of them, is a vocation—part of their calling. As one Christian educator told us, “Even if there is no official prayer in schools, I am there praying every day.” And this is just one sector of society; practicing Christians do good work and meaningfully contribute across a wide spectrum of industries.
For good faith Christians, work is an expression of worship.
Perception: People Can Live a “Good Life” without Christianity
For many people, life seems pretty good without faith. They can play the “game of life” without using the Christian rule book and still experience what feels like “winning.” Christians also believe this is true—to a certain extent. Jesus offers abundant and eternal life to those who follow him, but it’s certainly possible to live a decent and productive life without being a Christian. We see this all the time. Mahatma Gandhi, to take an obvious example, was not a Christian, yet he clearly lived a life that even today, nearly seventy years after his death, impacts the world for the better.
The fact that people can live meaningful, fulfilling lives without Jesus does not invalidate the claims of Christianity. Christ is the rightful ruler of this world and is redeeming its inhabitants from sin, evil, and death. But we should acknowledge that the “good life” feels attainable to many people—75 percent of US adults agree “a person can live a pretty good and decent life without being a Christian”—and this keeps them feeling like Christianity is a board game that isn’t worth learning.
Part of the problem is that too many in the Christian community have bought into unbiblical notions about what it means to live a “good life,” so it doesn’t look, to outsiders, like we’re doing anything special. Rather than living as a countercultural community that bears witness to the coming kingdom of God, many of us go with the cultural flow, thoughtlessly consuming the products, ideas, and aspirations streamed for us in an unending deluge of retweets and Facebook likes. It’s so hard, in this screen age, to keep our attention focused on anything for very long—much less a way of life introduced to Middle Eastern peasants two thousand years ago. Talk about irrelevant! Christianity’s rootedness in past events and future hope seems, to many, out of step with the now orientation of the hyperlinked life.
Perception: Many of Christianity’s Good Ideas Feel Like Normal Life
Many people have no idea that some of the essential institutions of our society emerged from the Christian worldview. And they have forgotten the good faith Christians throughout the centuries who profoundly and positively shaped the institutions we enjoy today: schools and universities, hospitals, labor unions, public libraries, voting rights for women and ethnic minorities, endowments for the arts and sciences, and on and on. While they may have begun as Christian impulses to bless the world, most of these institutions are now divorced from the religious urges that brought them to life. For instance, the Puritan founders of Harvard, Yale, and other Ivy League schools were committed Christians, but few people today think of those venerable institutions as “faith-based.”
Even arenas that were once the faith community’s exclusive domain have been de-faithed, so to speak.
There are now companies that offer mission and service trips without any faith connections.
Nonreligious nonprofits solicit donations to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and heal the sick.
Mainstream magazines preach the benefit of digital breaks, a spinoff of the biblical idea of Sabbath.
Personal meditation retreats without religious trappings are all the rage.
Business leaders talk of community flourishing, social good, and human well-being.
Politicians shepherd their flocks toward transcendent goals.
Celebrities testify to the physical and spiritual benefits of fasting.
Life coaches help people find their purpose and calling.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with any of this. In fact, these de-faithed cultural movements point, in some way, to the enduring relevance of Christianity. Christian ideas have merit in the broader culture. Yet the next question practically asks itself: Now that the wider culture has co-opted many of Christianity’s good ideas, what more does Christianity have to contribute?
Do we really want people to sit down and learn the rules of this ancient faith when their “normal” seems just fine without it?
Yes, we do.
From Irrelevance to Good Faith
Being a Christ-follower means proclaiming him as Lord and sharing the good news of his coming kingdom with those who don’t know him. But we may as well acknowledge that, according to society’s shifting values, living faithfully under the lordship of Christ is increasingly irrelevant. Our culture’s underlying moral and ethical standard has become “do what you want as long as you don’t hurt anybody.” By that standard, “proclaim Jesus as Lord and live under his rule and reign” is . . . well, irrelevant.
However, we maintain that, by proclaiming and living under Christ’s reign, we can work for the common good in ways that are relevant to the majority culture. (To be clear, just because an increasingly secular and narcissistic society thinks the gospel is irrelevant doesn’t mean that it is irrelevant. In fact, sharing the gospel is one of the most relevant things we can do!)
Part of the vision for this book is that together we can gain a better understanding of how to live and act in good faith today, to follow Paul’s admonition in Romans 12:2: “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect” (emphasis added).
We will do this, at various points, by meeting people who are living out a Jesus-shaped way of life, sometimes in the unlikeliest of places. People like Anne.
We both met Anne Snyder more than half a dozen years ago. She was just three years out of a Christian college in the Midwest and now worked in Washington, DC. Having spent her first professional gigs toggling between academia and journalism, she’d just landed a dream job. “David Brooks hired me to be his editor and research assistant a few months ago,” Anne told David. “You know, the New York Times columnist?”
Right.
“That’s so cool. What’s that like?”
“So far it means I’m a sounding board, someone to read his early drafts of columns, or to track down stats, or to offer story ideas. It’s both meaningful and fun. And I can’t believe I am getting to do this so soon out of school.”
Anne is exceedingly intelligent and articulate, so it wasn’t a surprise to us. But it was surprising that this young, professionally green evangelical Christian was working so closely with an influential public voice—prominent journalist, thought leader, Yale and Duke lecturer, and non-Christian.
Fast-forward to mid-2015. The same David Brooks releases a critically acclaimed book, The Road to Character. Having heard great things about it, I pick up a copy in the Denver airport. I read the first few chapters and am blown away by the strength of the book’s writing and arguments. Hey, I wonder to myself, wouldn’t it be cool if Anne got a mention in the book? I skim the end of the acknowledgments, expecting her name to show up in the long list of people authors scramble to thank right before their books go to print.
Bummer. Not there.
Wait.
I turn the page to the beginning of the acknowledgments, where Brooks writes:
Anne C. Snyder was there when this book was born and walked with me through the first three years of its writing. This was first conceived as a book about cognition and decision making. Under Anne’s influence, it became a book about morality and inner life. She led dozens of discussions about the material, assigned me reading from her own bank of knowledge, challenged the superficiality of my thinking in memo after memo and transformed the project. While I was never able to match the lyricism of her prose, or the sensitivity of her observations, I have certainly stolen many of her ideas and admired the gracious and morally rigorous way she lives her life. If there are any important points in this book, they probably come from Anne.5
Wow! Anne Snyder. I know her! I thought.
And then the story beneath the story began to dawn on me: Anne’s vibrant faith—and her God-given brilliance, uncompromising work ethic, and extensive reading list—had influenced Mr. Brooks in a profound, and relevant, way.
Her faithful presence made a difference.6 In good faith, Anne made Christianity a little more relevant to one person, who happens to write bestselling books and a regular column for the New York Times.