Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street. I have good news and bad news, I remember Chuck Coulson saying many years ago. The good news is there are more Christians than ever before. The bad news is it doesn't seem to be making any difference.
The same could be said today. Churches remain active. Christian language still fills public discourse. Millions continue to identify with the faith. And yet, the moral and spiritual influence of Christianity continues to diminish.
Why is that?
Well, perhaps the most important reason is that so many Christians are content with a version of faith that is sincere, but also thin, maybe orthodox in confession, but quite shallow in discipleship. Many Christians affirm basic biblical truths, but are shaped more by the assumptions of the surrounding culture than by the gospel. Whenever Christianity functions more as a label of private identity than a comprehensive way of life, The faith that should define us is reduced down to an addition to our lives, instead of the lens through which we understand all of life. The confusion that results helps explain why the church's public witness is often so weak. A faith reduced to private spirituality cannot sustain a public vision.
A gospel confined to personal salvation has little to say about how we should live in the world now. A church that does not intentionally form people will see them instead formed by the ambient pressures. of a secular culture. At root, the whole issue is theological. We speak often of Jesus as Savior, but rarely of Jesus as King.
But that's what the full gospel is about, the kingdom of God, the announcement that Christ reigns over all creation, that his authority extends to every sphere of life. When we are saved, our lives are situated within the grander biblical story of creation, fall, redemption, and restoration. And we're called to live from this story as citizens of that kingdom under his reign for his purposes. That's the faith that can form us. Scripture consistently assumes that God's people are not merely to know truth, but to be shaped by truth.
Worship, repentance, prayer, community, obedience, the ordinary disciplines of Christian life, through all of this, God reshapes our hearts and minds, orders our loves, disciplines our desires, and teaches us how to live faithfully in a disordered world. But whenever that kind of formation is absent, then our faith becomes fragile, irrelevant, even indistinguishable from the culture that surrounds us. In late 18th century Britain, Christianity had lost much of its moral power.
Social decay, injustice flourished aside showy religious observances. At the time, William Wilberforce observed that the problem was not an absence of Christianity, but an absence of what he called real Christianity, a faith capable of shaping character and compelling sacrificial action. What followed was not a political strategy, it was spiritual renewal. Through the evangelical revival, men and women were deeply reformed by the gospel. Wilberforce's costly fight against the slave trade emerged from that deeper formation.
His perseverance rested not on political confidence, but on obedience to Christ. The eventual transformation of British society, the abolitionist movement, social reform or new concern for human dignity, all of that was the fruit of a people reformed by the truth that they professed. Today the church faces a similar challenge, and the answer to the present crisis will not come through louder rhetoric or political power or nostalgia for a bygone era. It will only come through the recovery of a robust Christian worldview from formative discipleship that shapes the whole person under the rule and reign of Christ. That kind of formation doesn't just happen.
It requires commitment, Christian community, disciplined engagement with scripture, theology, culture, spiritual practice, and it requires patience because formation takes work, slow work often, the steady shaping of hearts and minds over time. The Colson Fellows Program cultivates that kind of formation.
so that Christians can recover the whole biblical story and learn to live faithfully within it. Through worldview training, spiritual disciplines, Christian community, practical application, Coulson Fellows are equipped to respond to this cultural moment with clarity, confidence, and courage. But the church doesn't need more informed Christians. It needs more formed Christians. Believers whose faith is not merely an accessory, but an allegiance to the reality that Christ reigns.
That kind of faith has changed the world before. It's the only kind of faith that has changed the world. And by God's grace, it could do so yet again. Applications are now open for the Colson Fellows class of 2027, which will begin August the 1st. If you long to deepen your faith, recover the coherence of the Christian worldview, and live with greater clarity, conviction, and purpose in this cultural moment, we invite you to consider applying and joining this growing community of Christians committed to faithful obedience in the world.
Learn more at colsonfellows.org. That's colsonfellows.org. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street with Breakpoint. Hi, we are Jack and Martha from Santa Cruz, California. We're Cornerstone Partners because we appreciate the ministry tackling head-on the most pressing faith issues of the day, from abortion to immigration to the role of the church in today's culture.
The information presented is always biblically based and intellectually sound. If you would like to join us and over a thousand others in becoming a Cornerstone monthly partner, visit colsoncenter.org slash monthly.
