Does it Matter if the Tide is Turning?
On pronouncements of evangelistic and culture war triumphs
Over the last couple of years I have seen pastors and cultural commentators repeatedly make the claim that the “tide is turning,” particularly among young people. By this they often mean something like, “Young people are turning away from woke, progressive, secular worldviews and to Christianity.” There are Eastern Orthodox versions of this claim, Catholic versions, evangelical, and so on. There are versions that emphasis the cultural aspects of this change, focusing on anti-wokeness, for example; and there are versions that focus on the religious aspects of this change, focusing on personal piety and devotion to Christ, for example. But usually the two aspects are woven together.1 The claim that the “tide is turning,” that we are witnessing a cultural shift, a vibe shift, is what I want to question here, not the fact of whether or not there is a vibe shift or the tide is turning. Those questions I cannot answer. I know there is data out there about Gen Z and church attendance and then there are anecdotes about Gen Z, and the two data points don’t always agree. I’m not interested in sorting that out right now. Instead, what interests me is the question of why we make these triumphal claims about cultural changes in the first place, what motivates us? Obviously we should rejoice whenever people are coming to Christ, receiving the sacrament of baptism, or participating in the life of the church! But is it good to make sweeping claims that such things are signs of larger cultural trends? Does it matter? I worry that sometimes the desire to make such claims, or at least the way we hear them, can come from an anxiety of cultural influence, a desperation to find signs of victory rather than a confidence in Christ to renew all things, to bring about his Kingdom.
Let me be clear that I don’t think this is true all of the time. Sometimes we need to make general claims about trends. And I’m sure that some Christian cultural commentators and pastors are simply trying to honestly assess cultural trends as they see them. But I also know that the culture war makes us anxious about our place in society. It challenges us by questioning how much power we have and can have. It tempts us to seize more power to protect ourselves from those that would restrict our rights, whether it be the government or our neighbors. This is true for Christians and non-Christians. The culture war is a war of a dying pluralist society that has given itself over to nihilism.2 When you are in a war, one of the ways you buttress your morale is by surveying your successes. The media promotes example after example of Worldly success and triumph, increasing the feeling for Christians that we are “losing” the culture and society. It’s natural for Christians to want to respond by finding successes of our own as evidence that we aren’t losing the culture, that the war is not lost.
Well, Good News, all is not lost. But it’s not a war between Christians and culture to redeem America. It’s God’s plan of redemption for humankind. And he will bring about justice, he will bring about his Kingdom, he will save his elect. That may mean a revival of Christianity in our time. If so, praise God! I pray that it is so! Matthew 9:37 tells us that the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Let us all be workers, preaching the Good News and seeking the lost! No matter how bleak culture may seem, Christ told us that the harvest is in fact plentiful. So our duty is to share the gospel. And Lord willing that will lead to the “tide turning” and a culture devoted to Christ and his teaching. How wonderful would that be? We should all desire that and act on that.
At the same time, we must not allow ourselves to be sucked into the rivalistic anxiety of the culture wars. The reason we should rejoice when ministries are filled with young people should be that God has brought young people to him, not because we are striking a blow at wokism or the culture wars. Once we slip into the latter thinking we have abandoned trusting in God’s plan for redemption and begun to trust in our own chariots and horses for redemption. And they will fail to bring redemption 100% of the time.
I think this temptation is stronger than we’d like to admit, because the World does think in these terms, it accepts the rivialistic principle. It does think in terms of how much power it can marshall against Christianity, and so we are tempted to think in rival terms about how much numerical power we can marshall against secularism. But I would point back to the story of Gideon. God does not need numbers to accomplish his good. The tide is always turning toward Christ’s Kingdom.
So what should we do instead? As I said earlier, each of us should be active witnesses to the gospel in the lives of others. That is our calling before God and our neighbor. We should also desire to see our neighbors come to know God and serve him, and therefore culture change to be Christ-honoring. If we genuinely desire the good of our neighbor, then we would desire for them to desire God and his will for their life. We should also rejoice when pastors report revivals or growth or baptisms in their churches. After all, there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than 99 righteous who need no repentance (Luke 15:7). But we should also allow God’s will to be done. Will our culture repent and turn to Christ in the coming years, seeing the folly of secularism, or will it turn to violence, other forms of radical individualism, and licentiousness? God knows. I don’t. It’s difficult to predict. I’ve made a fool of myself making cultural predictions in the past. I try to avoid them now. But I can say this, whatever transpires, our duty remains the same: to preach the gospel, in and out of season (2 Timothy 4:2).
Christ will bring his Kingdom. The tide is always already turning! It has been since the beginning! And nothing, nothing, can stop it.
And not without cause. Our faith does affect the way we interpret and participate in culture. I don’t want to diminish that reality. I’m merely observing a reality here.
Which is not to say that some of the causes addressed in the culture war are not meaningful and important.