With all of the seemingly constant winning right now, this isn’t intended to throw cold water on anything, but to hopefully steel the collective resolve of the Church against squandering the opportunity before us. The tide seems to be turning at a satisfyingly savage pace. But that also should caution us that it could quite easily go the other way. Much like the parable of the talents, it seems the American people, and the Western Church have been given capital to invest, and my hope is that we will not be found unprofitable upon the Master’s return. I thought it fitting to draw some parallels between the might of the protestant evangelical church today, with the glory of her forebears in the land of Luther that we might avoid her plaguing backslide into apostasy.
Farmboy in Frankfurt
August 2001, I found myself stepping off a plane into the Frankfurt airport where I quickly boarded a train for Nordrhein-Westphalen (NW Germany) . I was 16 years old, a recipient of the CBYX Scholarship (a joint Ambassadorship exchange program between the USA and Germany), and a fairly typical smalltown American. I had interest in the nation due to my own family heritage and my father’s tales of his time stationed there prior to my birth. I had left my rural farming community in Washington state behind and traded it for the red roofs and stone streets of NW Germany where I would spend my junior year of high school. Culture shock was strong despite all the preparation and warning that it would be. I found myself surrounded by people that externally seemed to share so much in common and yet were alien. My host family, a traditional German Catholic family with five children was quick to assimilate me into family life. It was wonderful and normal, and foreign and strange. I was teased incessantly by the younger ones and discovered nothing teaches you a foreign language quite like being cheated against in Monopoly in another tongue. I felt at home, and yet distinctly other and out of place.
I lived on my bicycle, exploring every nook and cranny of my corner of Germany. I enjoyed sitting by the Wasserschloss (water castle) downtown while eating Doener (look it up, trust me) and soaking in the history, age, and general atmosphere of this once enemy territory. I found myself putting my feet in the shoes of my German forefathers and achieving exactly what the exchange program stood for– a growing appreciation for a people not my own, and a place never mine truly. I was shocked to find a nearby town where a large number of the families bore my last name (one young man who shared my name declared me his long-lost cousin). By year’s end I spoke German, I dreamt in German, I looked German, I felt German, and yet in one glaring area I had an unease that would prevent me from losing myself in this new identity—my faith.
Whitewashed Tombs
I was struck by the cathedrals, the ancient vestiges of Christendom, the integration of religion and especially Catholicism into the national government and the local Gymnasium (high school) and the many festivals and holidays that sprinkled the calendar. I was struck that despite this profound integration, that Christianity was functionally dead. The churches were empty. Religion was tradition only. Germany was essentially an atheist country.
Everyone and no one were Christian in this once mighty nation of the Reformation and center for Christendom. The Koelner Dom had become a tourist attraction replete with a gift shop. A braided cord with which to whip the robbers was duly necessary.
A Reformation Warning
Germany after being Christianized was a city on a hill to all of Europe for centuries. From the might of Charlamagne in Aachen to the Castle Wittenburg door to the advancement of Bible translation and seminary training God used this nation in a mighty way. But sadly, it has since embraced post-Enlightenment and postmodern thought and spiraled into a nominalism devoid of even its biblical moral trappings. The nation of Reformation has seemingly apostatized. West Germany in 1960 was 97% percent Christian and now is only 53% Christian with only 2% reporting as actual Bible believing Evangelicals (Germany – Operation World).
This phenomenon is certainly not unique to Germany and is widespread across Europe, but these numbers should make Christians pause. Secularism has become the religion of Germany and true religion is on life support. Further the large numbers of Muslims immigrating into the nation are quickly changing the landscape of faith in this once faithful nation. How long can Germany stand against the tide of Nietzsche and Mohammed?
Once Germany made shockwaves around the world for the printing press and distribution of reformation thought, putting the Bible in people’s hands and emboldening them to learn and speak truth freely; now Germans can be arrested for memes, insults, and speech violations (CBS’ ’60 minutes’ highlights Germany’s crackdown on insults, hate speech | Fox News). The mighty and loose-tongued Luther would like a word.
“For you are an excellent person, as skillful, clever, and versed in Holy Scripture as a cow in a walnut tree or a sow on a harp.”
Against Hanswurst, pg. 219 of Luther’s Works, Vol. 41
American Trajectory
While the US is certainly on a similar trajectory with declining numbers of Evangelicals (United States of America – Operation World) it is not nearly so dire as Germany– for now. Though, had the left won the most recent election, meme arrests would likely be a lot closer than I would l care to admit. Additionally, there are many contributing factors to Christendom’s decline in the US, not least of them the unfettered immigration of largely non-Christians into the States during the late 20th Century.
Our land, however, is yet a place of Christian strength, resilience, and resurgence.
We would be wise to recognize that despite the current Overton window shift and seemingly never-ending wins of the moment, the truth of the matter is that America has become a hotbed for heresy, progressivism, and secularized thinking even within the “Church” broadly speaking. Europe’s present reality is quite possibly America’s future– that is unless we keep up the good fight of faith.
“Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses.“
1 timothy 6;12 kjv
The Great Commission requires of the militant Church an onward marching into the Nations to see them baptized and discipled, but that Missio Dei (mission of God) also requires an ongoing pursuit of these ends within nations already evangelized. We must fight the good fight professing the good profession of faith that by God’s grace we might remain a beacon, a training hub for evangelism, and a lasting bulwark of Christendom to preserve our gospel heritage to the nations. The Lord in his wisdom and providence can certainly use others and will, but my desire is to see America avoid the apostasy of Germany and work to see itself become a Christian nation again, able to pursue the re-Christianizing of Europe in the generations to come.
Hope Beyond the Zeitgeist
We can and must be faithful whether the spirit of the age is for or against us. We must use the opportune time we have before us to proverbially strike while the iron is hot. Should darkness enshroud the land, then too we shall fight the good fight looking to those who have come before for encouragement and inspiration. I have that Puritan hope that we will build Christendom here, and our children will continue that work so that their children might take up the work for the redemption and partnership of the German church. May we thrive today so that they might again one day.
So what can we do? We all have a part to play. Build Christian households, have lots of babies, raise them up in Christ and his word and seek the welfare of your local body of believers. Be family men first, churchmen next and do not neglect the opportunity to be statesmen as well. Shout on, pray on brothers and sisters, by God’s grace we are gaining ground.
We must seek to finish strong.
“Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
Hebrews 12:1-2 kjv
Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.”