Has Christianity become “Socially irrelevant, even if privately engaging”?

Thomas Jefferson, serving as the ambassador to France, and John Adams, ambassador to Britain, met in London with Sidi Haji Abdrahaman, the Dey of Tripoli’s ambassador to Britain, attempting to negotiate a peace treaty with the Islamic world of their time. Jefferson and Adams argued in vain that the United States was not at war with Islam. The following is from a March 28, 1786, letter addressed to John Jay, Secretary of Foreign Affairs for the Continental Congress, and signed by Adams and Jefferson. It concerned their conversation with the Tripoli ambassador:

We took the liberty to make some inquiries concerning the ground of their pretensions to make war upon nations who had done them no injury, and observed that we considered all mankind our friends who had done us no wrong, nor had given us any provocation.

The Ambassador answered us that it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman [archaic word for Muslim] who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.[1]

Unless a nation submits to Islam—whether that nation is an aggressor or not—that nation is at war with Islam. Islam’s goal is to conquer the world, either by the submission of one’s will or by Allah’s sword.[2] Islamists are in it for the win. “Responding to France’s ban on the Islamic veil,” in 2004, “the [then] new head of the Muslim Brotherhood asserted Islam ultimately will triumph over the United States and Europe ‘I have complete faith that Islam will invade Europe and America, because Islam has logic and a mission,’ said Muhammad Mahdi Othman….”[3]

When President Jefferson refused to increase the tribute demanded by the Islamists, Tripoli declared war on the United States. A United States Navy squadron, under Commander Edward Preble, blockaded Tripoli from 1803 to 1805. After rebel soldiers from Tripoli, led by United States Marines, captured the city of Derna, the Pasha of Tripoli signed a treaty promising to exact no more tribute.[4] See chapter 11 of my book The Case for America’s Christian Heritage.

The Case for America’s Christian Heritage

It’s not enough to relive history. There’s much work before us to reset the foundation stones of a firm reliance on Divine Providence. We need to heed the words of Benjamin Franklin who quoted Psalm 127:1 during the drafting process of the Constitution: “except the Lord build the house they labor in vain that build it,” and “that without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better, than the Builders of Babel.” The principles that were true and necessary centuries ago for building nations are equally true and necessary today.

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As expected, there are many Christians today who believe that the rise of Islamic persecution of Christians is a sign that we are living in the last days. What’s happening to Christians around the world at the hands of Islamists is horrific, but it’s not new. There’s a history of Islamic persecution of Christians that goes back centuries. Philip Jenkins presents us with a brief look into the war that Islam has had with Christians:

Through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Turks dominated most of the south-eastern quadrant of Europe, and in 1683, they came very close to capturing Vienna, the capital of the HolyRoman Empire. As Hilaire Belloc noted, “Less than 100 years before the American War of Independence, a Mohammedan army was threatening to overrun and destroy Christian civilization, and would have done so if the catholic King of Poland had not destroyed the army outside of Vienna.”[5]

Thousands of Christians were enslaved. Muslims occupied “the role of aggressors and slave-masters. Balkan Christian populations remained under heavy-handed Turkish oppression until modern times, suffering a brutal occupation that can legitimately be compared to later European experiences under the Nazis and Communists.”[6]

God and Government

With a fresh new look, more images, an extensive subject and scripture index, and an updated bibliography, God and Government is ready to prepare a whole new generation to take on the political and religious battles confronting Christians today. May it be used in a new awakening of Christians in America—not just to inform minds, but to stimulate action and secure a better tomorrow for our posterity.

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This very brief history should dispel any notion that our fight with Islamic extremism is something new and a sign of the last days. It’s not. In fact, the fight with Islam goes back nearly 1500 years, and throughout that history, prophecy writers have viewed Islam in its many incarnations as a prophetic end-time villain signaling the near return of Jesus in one of the five “rapture” positions [7] or in the Second Coming itself.

There is no doubt that Islam has designs on conquering the world. What’s held it at bay for many centuries is a fully robust Christianity that has advanced civilization. When Christianity is embraced as the “light of the world,” secularism and religious cults like Islam fade in the bright light of a full-orbed Christian worldview. When Christians retreat from theworld, evil can migrate into areas where it was once dispelled (Matt. 12:22-29). Over time, Christianity ceased to be a comprehensive, world-changing religion. “[W]here religion still survives in the modern world, no matter how passionate or ‘committed’ the individual may be, it amounts to little more than a private preference, a spare-time hobby, a leisure pursuit.”[8] Theodore Roszak used an apt phrase to describe much of modern-day Christendom: “Socially irrelevant, even if privately engaging.”[9]

The advance of Islam in our day has taken place because of Christianity’s privatized religion and the advance of secularism. Religion, like nature, abhors a vacuum. G.K. Chesterton observed that when people cease to believe in God, they do not end up believing in nothing; they end up believing in anything, no matter how absurd.

The danger for Christians today is that they are being told, and many are believing, that the reemergence of aggressiveIslam is a sign of the end. Rather, Christians should see Islam and anti-Christianism as indicators that Christianity has adopted a false gospel of dualism and escapism. When the world seems to be on the brink of destruction, prophecy books fly off the presses faster than people can read them, assuring the people of God that this time the end really is near.

A few years ago, I received a letter from someone who claimed that it is impossible to transform society in any meaningful way since “the world is being run by Satan.” Like many Christians today, the letter writer is a believer in an end-time scenario that demands the return of Jesus in our generation to take us out of this world. Until that happens, don’t look for, and don’t expect, to be successful at any type of long-term societal transformation. While she agrees“that each of us can make a contribution to the quality of life on this planet, we will never ‘transform society.’ If we could, God wouldn’t have said that He would have to do it. He’s sending His Son to vanquish the wicked.”

In the meantime, like so many who are caught up in this type of “prophetic inevitability” thinking, there’s not much Christians can or should do. Too many Christians are caught between “This World Is Not My Home” and “This Is My Father’s World.” Which is it? It’s the latter. That’s why we are taught to pray that God’s will be done “on Earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 5:10). Since all authority in heaven and Earth has been given to Jesus (Matt. 28:18-20), how can Satan be running this world? Satan is a single creature with limited power.[10] The problem isn’t Satan; it’s us (James 1:13-16). Satan was described to the Corinthians as the “god of this age” (2 Cor. 4:4). Older translations translated the Greek word aion as “world.” The more accurate translation is “age.” Satan was and is no more a god than a person’s belly is a god (Phil 3:19). Satan was and is no more a god than Herod was a god (Acts 12:21-24).

Many people don’t realize that Christianity gave rise to the best in art, science, music, literature, education, economic theory, publishing, and much of the Western world’s legal system. For the most part, Christians were not dualists. They believed God is sovereign over everything, including this world. This truth helps explain, for example, why “real science arose only once: in Europe. In contrast with the dominant religious and philosophical doctrines in the non-Christian world, Christians developed science because they believed it could be done, and should be done.”[11]

The following example of “prophetic inevitability” thinking is extreme, but even more moderate examples end up having an impact on Christians and how they view this world and what can be accomplished this side of heaven:

“Do you realize if we start feeding hungry people things won’t get worse, and if things don’t get worse, Jesus won’t come?” interrupted a coed during a Futures Inter-term I recently conducted at a northwest Christian college. Her tone of voice and her serious expression revealed she was utterly sincere. And unfortunately I have discovered the coed’s question doesn’t reflect an isolated viewpoint. Rather, it betrays a wide-spread misunderstanding of biblical eschatology . . . that seems to permeate much contemporary Christian consciousness. I believe this misunderstanding of God’s intentions for the human future is seriously undermining the effectiveness of the people of God in carrying out his mission in a world of need . . . The response of the (student) . . . reflects what I call the Great Escape View of the future. So much of the popular prophetic literature has focused our attention morbidly on the dire, the dreadful, and the destruction of all that is.[12]

As radical as this example is, this type of thinking prevails more than one would think. Jan Markell is a believer in an end-time scenario that demands the return of Jesus in our generation to rescue us from inevitable doom. Until that happens, do not look for or expect to be successful at any type of long-term societal transformation. In fact, to participate in this type of work, Markell tells her audience, is “delusional” and will keep “people out of heaven.” It’s like rearranging the deck chairs as it sank. Get in the lifeboat and wait to be rescued! The secularists and Islamists are not heading for lifeboats. We are most fortunate that there were enough people centuries ago who were not hoodwinked by an eschatological claim like hers. What would Christians who follow Markell’s end-time worldview be saying and doing today if they were faced with calls to abolish the slave trade and build long-lasting, productive cultures?[13]

[1] The Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States of America from the Signing of the Definitive Treaty of Peace, 10th September 1783, to the Adoption of the Constitution, March 4, 1789, 3 vols. (City of Washington: Blair and Rives, 1837) 1:604-605

[2] Robert Spencer, The Truth about Muhammad: Founder of the World’s Most Intolerant Religion (Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 2006) and Robert Spencer, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) (Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 2005).

[3] “‘Islam will Invade Europe and America,’” WND (February 4. 2004): https://www.wnd.com/2004/02/23076/

[4] Brian Kilmeade and Don Yeager, Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates: The Forgotten War that Changed American History (New York: Sentinel/Penguin Random House, 2015).

[5] Philip Jenkins, God’s Continent: Christianity, Islam, and Europe’s Religious Crisis (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 106.

[6] Jenkins, God’s Continent, 106.

[7] The five “rapture” positions are defined in terms of when Jesus returns to take the church off Earth in relation to a future seven-year “great tribulation” period that supposedly is the final week in Daniel’s “seventy weeks” (Dan. 9:24-27): before (pre), in the middle (mid), partially, just before God pours out His wrath on unbelievers (pre-wrath), or after (post),

[8] Os Guinness, The Gravedigger File: Papers on the Subversion of the Modern Church (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1983), 72.

[9] Theodore Roszak, Where the Wasteland Ends (New York: Doubleday, 1973), 449.

[10] Jay E. Adams, The Christian Counselor’s Manual (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1973), 126-127.

[11] Rodney Stark, The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success (New York: Random House, 2005), 14.

[12] Tom Sine, The Mustard Seed Conspiracy: You Can Make a Difference in Tomorrow’s Troubled World (Waco, TX: Word, 1981), 69.

[13] Rodney Stark, For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch-Hunts, and the End of Slavery (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003) and Vishal Mangalwadi, The Book that Made Your World: How the Bible Created the Soul of Western Civilization (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2011).

American Vision’s mission is to Restore America to its Biblical Foundation—from Genesis to Revelation. American Vision (AV) has been at the heart of worldview study since 1978, providing resources to exhort Christian families and individuals to live by a Biblically based worldview. Visit www.AmericanVision.org for more information, content and resources