The death of faith

If faith is not dead in America, it is almost there.

I am not talking about faith in God, however that is defined. That seems alive if not well in America. I am talking about the general lack of faith in the cultural institutions that have defined America. I think that as faith in the cornerstone institutions that we have trusted for most of our history fades, Americans become more and more unsettled and adrift. People I know seem far more disgruntled, disenchanted and all around discombobulated than I can ever remember.

Report after report shows that American faith in their institutions is lower than ever before and slipping by the day. I can’t think of an area where that is not true.

Americans have always had a healthy distrust of government but it has reached a fever pitch of late. I guess a government that has racked up a $14,000,000,000,000 debt on one hand and is clearly not going to keep obligations it has promised on the other will do that. Add to that ethical scandal after ethical scandal from Larry “Tap Tap” Craig to John Edwards and culminating with Anthony Wiener and you have a toxic mix that has all levels of government getting low marks from Americans.

Sports are another formerly trusted institution. Americans love sports. Sports stars have always been heroes looked up to by young boys and old men alike. The names of the great athletes of our history are part of our vocabulary. The Babe. Gretzky. Jordan. Elway. We know the stats of our favorite players and the fight songs of our favorite college. A major part of our identity, at least for men, is based on our sports allegiances. Those days are rapidly gone, lost in a time when opposing fans are beaten and assaulted at games. College athletics is increasingly viewed with cynicism. Little wonder. Cheating is rampant and when the marquee programs are caught, whether fairly minor stuff like Ohio State or a booster giving cash to players and paying for prostitutes at Miami, the response is most often “well everyone does it”. The NFL lockout with millionaires fighting billionaires over the revenue we give them, rampant performance enhancing drug use in baseball and other sports, an NBA lockout, misbehavior including criminal misconduct by players, all adds up to a populace that has a love-hate relationship with its sports.

Banks? Please. Banks used to be sober places with people in suits and marble floors. People came to banks hat in hand to ask for loans or to open accounts. Bankers were, if not universally loved, at least universally respected. Banks were downtown, fancy buildings that had a place of prominence in the community. Today? Retail banks are more like Wal-Mart with checking accounts and with the added unpleasant bonus of high pressure sales tactics. The big banks? They are best known for bailouts, TARP money and their CEO’s sitting in front of Congress, one group of rich white guys making a big show of badgering another group of rich white guys and neither one of them really caring because at the end of the day one group goes to a fundraiser probably funded in large part by the second group and they all laugh at the saps at home who watch this happen on TV and think something is getting done.

The “church” (defined as local church organizations that hold regular religious services on Sunday) has been dying out for years. Report after report shows that while Americans remain highly if vaguely religious, church affiliation is on the decline by almost any measure. “The church” has a long tradition in America as an overtly religious land, not a “Christian nation” because by definition there is no such thing but as a nation that proudly embraces religious freedom and has had a long and overly comfy relationship between the state and the church. The church has long served as the medium for marriages, for burial, up until recently for caring for the poor and orphans, for education, for health care. Today that relationship is unraveling in spite of attempts by some people to stop any dismantling of the religious church-state union. Scandals have rocked the church like every other American institution, from the Jim Bakker fiasco to modern charlatans in the “health, wealth and prosperity” movement, Ted Haggard, bankruptcy at the Crystal Cathedral, politicization of the faith by men like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, pop culture silliness like “Left Behind”, on and on and on. Little wonder people have given what the culture declares to be the church the stink eye.

On and on. People have lost faith in unions, in businesses, in schools, in virtually every corner of America and Western culture the bedrock has shifted and people are unsettled.

This is a unique time in America. The cultural institutions that we have known and trusted for centuries are showing their flaws and warts. I think it is also a golden opportunity for the Gospel proclamation. As people become unmoored from their cultural institutions and find themselves with nothing to turn to in hard times, our national pride and self-sufficiency shattered by the stroke of S&P’s downgrade pen, we might find people are interested in the genuine Gospel of Jesus Christ. Not the “Jesus as an American action hero” nor the “Jesus as a VW bus driving hippie” but the Jesus of the Bible who is not terribly interested in being wrapped in an American flag or heading up a prosperity Ponzi scheme. The mission field in America is wide open and has been for a long time. There are plenty of unreached people groups in America and many of those groups are among the most religious Americans. Will the church rise to the occasion and embrace the opportunity? Or will we wallow in self-pity while bemoaning the past?