Four Challenges Facing the Western Church in America

This is a summary overview of a February 17, 2024 seminar I attended at Cornerstone Community Church in Ames, Iowa entitled “Four Challenges Facing the Western Church in America, given by Trevin Wax.  Trevin is Vice President of Research and Resource Development at the North American Mission Board (of the Great Commission Baptists) and a visiting professor at Cedarville University. A huge thanks to Trevin for his extremely helpful insights into modern culture!

Introduction

Today’s church is in crisis, yet stable. This has always been true. The church has always been in crisis, but has always survived. The gospel is opposed, yet advancing. The gospel always challenges the powers that be. We are on defense and offense.  The gospel is more a bulldozer than a vase. Maintenance isn’t the mission.  We mustn’t have a fortress mentality. “In the world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have overcome the world — Jesus”

The First Challenge

The first, and most fundamental challenge presented by Mr. Wax was confronting the cultural conviction that you must “be true to yourself.” Scholars refer to this conviction as “expressive individualism,” and it has become so culturally pervasive that it is simply “common sense” for most of us.

At the core of expressive individualism is the assumption that the priorities for finding our identity are as follows: of first importance is to look within to find yourself, second look out for affirmation, and third look up for encouragement. The individual is supreme. These priorities are the opposite of the Christian view of finding identity, which looks first up to God, second outward to others, and third within ourselves. God is supreme.

The idea that looking within should be the priority means of finding our identity is sometimes called “expressivism.” I must turn inward to discover what is within me; a task that only I as an individual can carry out and one which no one else can fully understand. Living in line with my true inner self is of utmost importance, making me authentic to who I truly am.

Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor defines this culture of expressive, individualized authenticity as follows:

The understanding of life which emerges with the Romantic expressivism of the late-eighteenth century, that each one of us has his/her own way of realizing our humanity, and that it is important to find and live out one’s own, as against surrendering to conformity with a model imposed on us from outside, by society, or the previous generation, or religious or political authority.

Expressive individualism is all around us.  It is the air we breathe. It’s the stream we swim in. In so many of our movies the narrative drama is “Be authentic,” “Don’t conform,” “Be true to yourself.” This message of “I’m not going to conform” can even go as far as nonconformity to the realities of our bodies.

For a society awash in expressive individualism, the greatest commandment is to be yourself and the second is like it: to affirm and applaud whatever self your neighbor chooses to be. The greatest sins, then, are to deny yourself or to question or judge someone else’s self-expression.

When we sees ideas like this that are so obviously opposed to God and His ways, a good question to ask ourselves is “Why do people want this to be true?” What is the deeper longing that they are trying to fulfill? Here are three longings that make expressive individualism appealing:

    1. God made us to be individuals. Expressing our unique gifts is one way we bring glory to God.
    2. We think that being true to ourselves is what leads to freedom, redefined as non-conformity.
    3. It keeps us in the place of ultimate authority. Looking up implies that someone is above us.  It stifles the real “me.”

Clearly expressive individualism presents some challenges for the church. To our culture, the message of the church feels so wrong.

    1. The gospel confronts any view of life that makes the human person the end-all and be-all of existence.
    2. If the first and greatest commandment is to “be yourself,” then the unforgivable sin is to be false or to wilt before some external benchmark that others (like the church) might foist upon you.  Sin is the failure to be true to yourself. Thus, the solution is not repentance, but reassertion.
    3. Expressive individualism has no effective way for us to receive forgiveness and remove our guilt and shame.

But it also presents some opportunities:

    1. The gospel puts God at the center and then tells us we are known and loved by God, which is a far better and more secure place to be. It is an illusion that we are at the center. In reality, we aren’t ultimately in charge. The fact that we must spend 6-8 hours every night flat on our back, unconscious to the world, totally vulnerable, and the fact that we cannot conquer death prove that we are not in charge.  A loving, attentive, all-powerful God at the center is much more appealing than placing ourselves at the center. Additionally, whenever we think we are the boss, we become enslaved to what we desire the most, which becomes our idol. But the idol will always let you down. God is a much better master than our idols and will not ultimately let you down.
    2. The gospel puts the kingdom at the center, and then tells us we can be known and loved by others. The gospel gives us a common story, a common identity, and a common mission. We can join together within these realities to love and be loved in genuine mutually-supportive community.
    3. We can pursue a more exciting non-conformity. With God and His kingdom at the center, we can express the individuality that God has put within us with our differing personalities, experiences, and gifting.  But even more importantly we can refuse to conform to the prevailing culture.  We can rebel against rebellion. Mark Sayers expresses it this way:

To be shaped by grace in a culture of self, the most countercultural act one can commit . . . is to break its only taboo: to commit self-disobedience. To acknowledge that authority does not lie within us, that we ultimately have no autonomy. To admit that we are broken, that we are rebellious against God and His rule. To admit that Christ is ruler. To abandon our rule and to collapse into His arms of grace. To dig deep roots into His love.

We find our truest self as we reject conformity to the world’s thinking, renew our minds, and become increasingly conformed to the image of Christ.  This is a far more challenging, exciting, and authentic (true to reality) non-conformity.

Our culture is finding that putting ourselves at the center is exhausting (as we try to be more than we are) and that it can be very lonely (giving self-expression ultimacy works against relationships). In the movie Frozen, Elsa seeks independence and sings in the song “Let it Go,”

It’s time to see what I can do
To test the limits and break through
No right, no wrong, no rules for me
I’m free

Yet this movie actually shows some of the effects of expressive individualism as she finds herself all alone and in deep trouble and is only saved by Anna’s act of selfless love and self-sacrifice.

In conclusion, we must be aware of and be on guard against the culture’s predominate goal of putting the individual at the center of everything. But we must not have a fortress mentality, but should understand the deeper longings that expressive individualism appeals. And finally, we must be ready to speak about the shortfalls of expressive individualism and the superiority of the gospel in regard to meeting those deeper longings.

In future weeks, I plan to summarize Trevin Wax’s presentation of the other three challenges facing the western church in America.

Recommended Additional Resources:

Rethink Your Self: The Power of Looking Up Before Looking In, by Trevin Wax

How to Find Yourself: Why Looking Inward is Not the Answer, By Brian S. Rosner and Carl R. Trueman

Trevin Wax Seminar Audio: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1891678/14319624-equip-weekend-2024-four-challenges-facing-the-western-church-in-america-main-session-1

 


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