God is Dead...But That's Never Stopped Him Before.

or "American Christianity is dying. Why? What can be done?"

Growing up in Texas and now living in Humboldt county, California, I’ve experienced the opposite ends of American religion. Texas is frequently referred to as “The Belt Buckle of the Bible Belt.” It is among the most religious places in the country, or at least is the most famous very religious place in the country. Humboldt on the other hand is in the bottom 5 counties in the US for church attendance. It’s one of only two places I’ve ever lived where professing Christians were not a majority of the people. Instead, Humboldt is dominated by a spiritual uncertainty that resists all attempts to define it. There’s a lot of Buddhism and new age spirituality, with a splash of nature worshiping paganism and Satanism for spice. There are churches here and there, but they exist as islands within the larger whole, cloistered off from Humboldt’s general culture.

When I first came out here, I was tempted to write off the whole situation as tree hugging hippies doing too many drugs. While that definitely exists in abundance here, a single historical fact stood in the way of my satisfaction with that simple explanation. The Jesus Movement in the late 1960’s(prominently featured in the new faith based film “JESUS REVOLUTION”) where hippies started finding God and swearing off LSD in droves started here at a place that is now called Table Bluff but was once called Lighthouse Ranch.

Today the Jesus Movement is about as much of a ruin as the place where it started. The Bureau of Land Management now operates the site as a nature preserve. Only a few bricks from the base of the lighthouse are left of what was once a large commune devoted to turning drugged out hippies into disciples of Jesus. The reality of American Christianity in this day and age reflects this. Christians have fallen from an average of 90% self-identification in 1974(the height of the Jesus movement) to an unprecedented low of 64% in 2020(PEW Research). This trend shows no signs of slowing and may even be accelerating. Humboldt, as previously discussed, is far ahead of this general trend. Why? Why has American religion run aground in such a spectacular way in the very place where the last great revival started?

This question more than any other has preoccupied my mind since I learned about the hisory of Lighthouse Ranch. The state of Christianity in Humboldt changed that day from being a problem with hippies being hippies to a stunning indictment of the churches in the area and in the country more broadly. The far-off fading of American Christianity that I was only vaguely aware of in Texas was now an ongoing catastrophic train derailment I was watching firsthand. I now look at the evangelical megachurches I went to in Texas and see a movement that has already gone off the rails but is still going pedal to the metal forward, rather than as a bastion of faith in an increasingly faithless nation.

The old joke about Texas is that “Everything is bigger in Texas.” Gas Stations, hats and of course, churches are all often very oversized compared to other places. The largest single church congregation in the country is in Houston. Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church is in many ways the archetypal megachurch. With an average of 45,000 people in weekly attendance, Lakewood church is big, loud, well produced and yet deeply controversial to both Christians and nonchristians. While the various evangelical megachurches I attended growing up were not quite as big as Lakewood, a few of them were in the same ballpark.

These churches are a particularly protestant form of Christianity that feels like the ultimate culmination of the world Martin Luther was fighting for in the 1400’s. The irony is they are the last thing he would have wanted. Luther wanted everyone to have the Bible available in commonly understood languages that people actually spoke in their daily lives, and he put his money where his mouth was by translating the Bible into German himself. In doing so he touched off the Protestant Reformation. He thought if everyone had access to the holy book, the clear meaning of the texts would emerge, the arguing would all fade away and we’d get back to TRUE CHRISTIANITY like Jesus intended and as practiced by the church in the book of Acts. Filthy Protestant that I am, I admire Luther. However it cannot be denied that if the unity of the church was his goal, the reformation was a total failure.

Ironically, most every Protestant denomination’s division from the whole was driven by this same motivation, at least on the surface. People within an existing movement would become dissatisfied with the failures of their leaders and start their own church that was gonna get back to TRUE CHRISTIANITY. Then when that movement also falls short, the process repeats. Nondenominational churches are the logical conclusion of this trend. Where denominational churches like Pentecostals, Lutherans and Baptists identify with a larger theological movement or at least a history and tradition beyond their own, nondenominational churches stand alone. Where pastors of the old denominations are bound to the decisions of their theological superiors, the lead pastor of a nondenominational church is a denomination unto themselves. I don’t have a strong opinion about which is better. I will simply say that nondenominational churches often seem to embody the best and worst of American Christianity. At their best, the additional freedom allows them to meet needs that mainline churches struggle to. At their worst, a false priest can run amok through a congregation that lack an authority capable of checking him.

Ironically though, even though nothing else unites these churches, they often share the label of Evangelical. “Evangelical” means a lot of different things to different people, so to keep everyone away from their torches and pitchforks(at least for now), I am going to explain in detail what I mean. Google defines it as “of or according to the teachings of the Christian religion” which is a definition that is so overbroad and reductive that it makes me want to vomit. By this logic, every single church is evangelical. Considering I go to a church where people are more likely to use evangelical as a slur than to proudly identify with the label, this is patently absurd.

A better definition can be found on Wikipedia. They define it as a cross-denominational movement that emphasizes the importance of a personal decision to follow Jesus, the centrality of the Bible to interpreting questions of doctrine and an emphasis on spreading the story of Jesus’ life to everyone. While this is certainly much better than Google’s definition, there are many churches who believe in all these things who would balk at being referred to as evangelicals. Why?

In my observation, the word “evangelical” refers most consistently to a merger between the growth above all mindset that underpins American business culture with the belief that everyone who doesn’t jump through some specific spiritual hoop isn’t a true Christian, or at least isn’t as good a Christian as people who do. What this specific spiritual hoop is varies by denomination. For Baptists it’s baptism and for Pentecostals it’s speaking in tongues. For all those nondenominational churches I was talking about, it is usually affirmation of their homebrew statement of doctrine.

Because evangelicalism lacks any centralizing authority or unified mission statement, any definition is going to miss something to someone. In some contexts, evangelical takes on political undertones, but that is beyond the scope of this essay. My understanding is based far more on what those tree hugging hippies I’ve met so many of out here might refer to as a “vibe” than any specific criteria. The vibe of evangelical churches can be summed up in one sentence. “Save the sinners.”

To an evangelical church, getting people saved via their spiritual hoop of choice is the only thing that matters. These churches usually track baptisms or new memberships very closely, eager to proclaim precisely how many people they have saved from the fires of Hell. While I am certainly not against the saving of sinners, the Gospel is about so much more than simply getting people into heaven when they die. This emphasis has done some good for the church, else it would not have spread so far and wide, but I blame much of the fading of American religion on the limits of the evangelical mindset. This evangelicalism in its rawest form abandons new believers after their conversion experience to look for the next nonbeliever to convert. In the process, they leave the new convert adrift.

Texas, or at least the churches I went to growing up in Texas, suffered from a problem that churches in Humboldt generally do not. Cultural Christianity. Cultural Christians come in a variety of different flavors, but a lack of seriousness about their faith unites them. These are the men who go to church looking to meet girls first and get to know God second. These are the women who come to church first to gossip with their friends and grow spiritually second. In short, these are people whose Christianity is nothing more than a part of their cultural identity. If they were born in Saudi Arabia, they’d be Sunni Muslims going to mosque a couple times a month and cheating on their fast during Ramadan. If they lived in Humboldt, they’d be agnostics who check their zodiac a few times a week, but usually say they don’t know when confronted with questions of faith.

A few of the megachurches I attended growing up exemplified this problem more clearly than anyone else. They had massive buildings and sometimes tens of thousands in weekly attendance. They knew how to put on a grand show of praising The Lord, but so many faces got lost in the crowd and never found the loving community necessary to go any deeper than simple salvation.

I don’t want it to seem like I’m dumping on megachurches. I met many people at these churches who loved Jesus to their core. Healthy megachurches recognize that a crowd of three thousand isn’t a community and regularly encourage their congregation to get involved in a small group, be that a breakfast group, prayer circle or volunteer project. However many of these churches are, to borrow a Texan turn of phrase, “all hat and no cattle.” They excel at putting butts in seats with their big show, but when it comes time to do the hard work of growing new believers struggling with their identity into followers of Jesus capable of being leaders in their own right, they fail or fail to try.

When I was in high school, cultural Christians filled me with the kind of rage that only an idealistic young person with an oversimplified view of the world can feel. To me they seemed like an albatross around the neck of my people, dragging our every effort to do good down into the muck. I came to blame all the ills of the world on cultural Christians not living up to the standard Jesus had set for his church. Everything from the excesses of Republican politics to the hypocrisy of preachers caught in sex scandals, to the endless denominational infighting that pitted God’s people against each other arose, in my mind, from cultural Christians and their lukewarm love of Jesus.

Now I realize that cultural Christians were a symptom of the true problem and not the cause. The evangelical ethos I outlined above demands absolutely nothing of it’s followers once they’re in the club. Men and women who have the raw material necessary for a deeper experience of God are given a sense that they’re already going to heaven and can be content with that. They don’t know what else to do now. Even if they want more, no one else around them has the answers either, especially in megachurches where the lead pastor is a busy man who vanishes the moment the service is over. At it’s best these churches don’t want to overcomplicate something simple, but at their worst they actively cultivate this spiritual infancy to stay in power. The first instinct is flawed but rooted in love. The second is straight from hell. Both deny people access to the best and most important thing about the Christian life.

If there is one phrase I heard everywhere I went to church growing up, it was some variation on “The life-transforming power of Jesus.” The problem was that my family was a model Christian family. My parents were faithfully committed to each other, with at least two well-behaved kids, a nice house, two cars and a dog. Far from being those pathetic cultural Christians that only attended church on Easter and Christmas Eve, we were there every almost every sunday and often two or three times a week. I am deeply thankful for the example of faith my parents set for me through that. The only problem was our home life was absolutely miserable. I was desperate for the life-transforming power of Jesus to show up in my own life, but to everyone around me I already had it. I felt like a prince who knew his crown was made of fools gold and fake gems.

If that farcical imitation of a happy home had been the life-transforming power of Jesus brought to full potency, I would have long ago concluded that there was no God and abandoned the faith of my childhood. I doubt I’d have survived the inevitable descent into nihilism that would have followed the death of my faith. Fentanyl or suicide would likely have claimed me, and I’d be just another casualty in America’s ongoing war against hopelessness. Faith is the front line of this battle, and it is a front line the church is failing to hold. In the year 2023, Friedrich Nietzsche’s sentiment that God is Dead rings terrifyingly true. This time it is his own people that have killed him, just like on calvary’s hill some 2000 years ago.

How? From where I am sitting, seeing the disaster of American religion’s ongoing derailment first hand, it is clear as day. I pray you’ll pardon my youthful arrogance.

The answer has two components. The first is that most churches, especially evangelical megachurches of the kind I’ve outlined above, are often allergic to the hard work of discipling new believers. Far from the simplistic formula of American evangelicalism with it’s clear ABC’s of salvation, turning new believers into disciples is messy and hard to evaluate. It only happens in intimate relationships based on mutual trust of the sort Jesus cultivated with the twelve who followed him everywhere he went. It cannot be done in a classroom where one teacher dispenses nuggets of wisdom from on high, or by handing someone a Bible. There’s nothing wrong with classes or Bibles, but they only work on people already eager for more of God. To someone who is on the fence about Jesus or comfortable in their cultural Christianity, they hold no power. That person needs the tender love and care found only in intimate friendships. There can be no discipleship without this first component. It is the soil that real faith grows in.

Second, the church must tolerate relapses into sins(even serious sins) without breaking relationship with the new convert. A new convert coming out of hedonism is constantly tempted back into it. They will make mistakes. They may even fail to repent of those mistakes for a season, arguing that their actions are justified or that Jesus isn’t upset at them for whatever reason. Such a person must never be barred from the congregation and should be barred from a volunteer position only if their sin is directly relevant to the work they will be doing. The obvious example would be no alcoholics leading rehabs or men who sleep around counseling struggling marriages.

However, why should anyone bar an openly gay person from being on the worship team? Gay is not contagious. Sin has never disqualified someone from following Jesus. Denying this(real) person the opportunity to serve their church family in whatever capacity they were able and willing is a shameful stain on a particular church’s history out here and the American church in general. To do so is to say to that person, you are not a member of this family. No matter what your theology around homosexuality is, that is wrong. No sin bars you from loving Jesus. No sin bars you from serving Jesus. We who foolishly believe in our own purity compared to anyone else must repent of that wickedness.

I can hear the pitchforks raising and torches igniting, with angry comments half typed about how toleration of sin is precisely what has led us into this mess and how all this poppycock I’ve posted is proof I’m probably one of those pernicious pests you’d prefer not have a position in a proper place of preaching where people practice TRUE CHRISTIANY!

You’re absolutely right. I am a hideous hypocrite far more often than I ever want to admit to the internet at large. My mind is a very dark place that would devolve into the lowest debauchery imaginable if Jesus left me. I’m so thankful he never abandons me for my sin. He always welcomes me back, and speaks to me as my loving older brother, even when I’m drowning in sin. He always reaches out a hand even when I’m drenched in the scent of failure.

In the Bible, Jesus didn’t tell Zaccheus to pay back those he had defrauded before he went to his house, but after. He didn’t tell the woman caught in adultery to go and sin no more before he stood between her and a mob of hyper-religious hypocrites trying to kill her, but after. The rich young ruler was told to sell all he owned and give it to the poor only after a long conversation where Jesus welcomed him and answered his questions. When he went away, it was of his own choice, because he preferred his wealth to the things of God. Christ’s focus was on loving the people who came to him unconditionally. Sometimes that meant calling them out of their sin, but usually it meant being a friend to them.

Follow his example. Live with your arms wide open, blessing the same people nailing you to the cross with all your heart… or at least shoot a text to that person you once counted as a friend, but haven’t spoken to since they came out as transgender and stopped going to church. Maybe even apologize for cutting them off in so profoundly unChristlike a manner if you feel it would help. The church will keep dying if you don’t. We’re running out of new people to evangelize on this continent. We have to bring the lost sheep who were scattered back instead. We must make it clear that no matter where they’ve been, no matter what they’ve done, and no matter if they’re doing it, they are not only tolerated in our churches, but welcome.

God is dead. God is dead, and we the church have killed him with our refusal to tend to his lost sheep with the same tenderness we do the rest of the flock. Instead we have rallied around a dying flame, silencing or shouting down anyone raising the alarm about the need to deconstruct the failing evangelical model to make room for something better and more faithful to the gospel. We have crucified Christ anew with our foolish belief in our own purity. We would sooner burn his church to the ground, indulgently lazing around on the notion that we are sinners saved by grace than do the hard work of loving hurting people drowning in sin. That love, Christ’s love, is the only thing that offers hope of salvation. We must never withhold it…even from the most wretched of sinners.

You might say that you cannot help an unrepentant soul. I ask why anyone would want to repent to you? You won’t love them like Jesus, with patience and kindness. You won’t show them the compassion of God even when they behave in ways you think are so sinful it threatens their salvation…as though your God didn’t break bread with Judas Iscariot knowing full well he was plotting to betray him. You are pathetic.

It’s okay. You’re in good company. If Saint Paul could admit he was the chief of sinners, there’s definitely no perfect people in church. Compared to Jesus, we’re all rather pathetic.

God is dead. We the Church have killed him. However God’s been dead before and that turned out better than fine. I have no doubt this time will be like it.

The king is dead. Long live the king.