• In the late 1980s, the author noticed many churches in New York City being repurposed or torn down due to dwindling membership and cultural attitudes toward Christianity.
• The Pew Research Center projected that the percentage of Christians in the U.S. could plunge to less than half the population by 2070.
• Sociologists such as Émile Durkheim and Jonathan Haidt have argued that religion contributes to society in ways that cannot be readily supplied by other sources.
• Robert Bellah showed that American individualism is headed toward social fragmentation, economic inequality, and family breakdown without the counterbalance of religion.
• Churches provide community and support to people in their congregations and serve neighbors who do not attend church.
• The Church can experience a revival if it learns how to speak compellingly to non-Christian people, unites justice and righteousness, and embraces the global and multiethnic character of Christianity.
• The Church in the U.S. can grow again if it strikes a dynamic balance between innovation and conservation.
• Modern secularism holds that people are only physical entities without souls, but most people feel that life is greater than what can be accounted for by naturalistic explanations.
• Christianity offers grace and covenant, which is based on unconditional love and sacrificial service.
• The Church must escape from political captivity, engage in extraordinary prayer, and distinguish the gospel from moralism.
• Eric Liddell, the former Olympic star and missionary to China, was an example of how the gospel of sheer grace through Christ can produce love.
Published February 5, 2023
Visit The Atlantic to read Timothy Keller’s original post American Christianity Is Due for a Revival
