A recent article on Fox News website was entitled “A look at white Evangelical angst over declining clout.”
I don’t know about you, but there were at least three words in that headline that gave me pause, and that was even before I read the article.
The first was “white.” That raises the important question of whether white Evangelicals are reacting to the implications of the cultural moment in ways different from African-American, Latino, and Asian-American Evangelicals.
This is a discussion I think all Evangelicals need to have, and frankly, apart from raising the question, I cannot adequately explore it in this single commentary.
But there are two other words from that headline that I can begin to address in our remaining time today: “angst” and “clout.”
The article, which is in the form of a Q&A, begins by recounting facts that regular BreakPoint listeners are already familiar with: the decline in the percentage of Americans who self-identify as Christians and the increasing willingness of previously nominal Christians, especially in the “Bible Belt,” to say that they have no religious affiliation. It also cites “the fallout from the spread of LGBT rights and the growth of secularism.”
While I obviously share these concerns, as should you, our response should have nothing do with either “angst” or the loss of “clout.”
“Angst” comes from the German word associated with the state of being “afraid, anxious, or alarmed.” In English it’s used to describe a “feeling of acute but vague anxiety or apprehension.”
Continue reading BreakPoint – What Should Christians Do in an Age of Declining Christianity?
