NYTimes | Christianity
is in decline in the United States. The share of Americans who describe
themselves as Christians and attend church is dropping. Evangelical
voters make up a smaller share of the electorate. Members of the
millennial generation are detaching themselves from religious
institutions in droves.
Christianity’s
gravest setbacks are in the realm of values. American culture is
shifting away from orthodox Christian positions on homosexuality,
premarital sex, contraception, out-of-wedlock childbearing, divorce and a
range of other social issues. More and more Christians feel estranged
from mainstream culture. They fear they will soon be treated as social
pariahs, the moral equivalent of segregationists because of their
adherence to scriptural teaching on gay marriage. They fear their
colleges will be decertified, their religious institutions will lose
their tax-exempt status, their religious liberty will come under greater
assault.
The
Supreme Court’s gay marriage decision landed like some sort of
culminating body blow onto this beleaguered climate. Rod Dreher, author
of the truly outstanding book “How Dante Can Save Your Life,” wrote an essay in Time
in which he argued that it was time for Christians to strategically
retreat into their own communities, where they could keep “the light of
faith burning through the surrounding cultural darkness.”
He
continued: “We have to accept that we really are living in a culturally
post-Christian nation. The fundamental norms Christians have long been
able to depend on no longer exist.”
Most Christian commentary has opted for another strategy: fight on. Several contributors to a symposium in the journal First Things
about the court’s Obergefell decision last week called the ruling the
Roe v. Wade of marriage. It must be resisted and resisted again. Robert
P. George, probably the most brilliant social conservative theorist in
the country, argued that just as Lincoln persistently rejected the Dred
Scott decision, so “we must reject and resist an egregious act of
judicial usurpation.”
These
conservatives are enmeshed in a decades-long culture war that has been
fought over issues arising from the sexual revolution. Most of the
conservative commentators I’ve read over the past few days are resolved
to keep fighting that war.
