Is the Church Really Dying?

Let's be honest, we at times are reticent to be too bold about our faith because we're concerned that if people know we're Christians, they'll marginalize us, they'll tune us out. Glenn Stanton says we ought not be concerned about that. I work with a lot of secular academics in my work and, you know, even around our office like, oh yeah, those people hate us. I don't find that to be the case. They'll like either don't know any Christians or they'll go, oh, I love what you guys do, you know, and they have no church, you know, experience whatsoever.

So that's the thing is people do not have such a negative view of Christians. This is Family Life Today. Our hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson.

I'm Bob Lapine. You'll find us online at familylifetoday.com. Glenn Stanton joins us today to talk about how we as individuals and how we as a family can develop confidence and be bolder about what we believe. Stay with us. And welcome to Family Life Today.

Thanks for joining us. We did a survey years ago asking listeners in the area of parenting, what's most important to you? Do you need help on conflict resolution, sibling rivalry? We kind of listed discipline, your kids.

You know what the number one thing was? That my kids will follow the faith. Yeah, it's spiritual formation for kids, right? And it's the reason why we sometimes get into conversations here about how is faith doing in our world?

Because as we raise our kids, we look at some of the indicators and we think, are we raising kids in a more hostile culture, a culture where it's going to be nearly impossible for them to hang on to their faith? We've got a friend who is with us today to help us understand where things are in the church. Glenn Stanton's joining us on Family Life Today. Glenn, welcome. Thank you.

It's good to be with you. Glenn, are you going to alleviate our fears today? Absolutely.

We will end up with no fears whatsoever. Yeah, everybody will be luxuriating. But no, I mean, it's interesting what you just said. I mean, just to jump in here, is the phrase, kids these days? Every parent has said that.

In fact, Adam and Eve can't enable, right? Like, you know, yeah, things went south pretty quickly. Glenn gives leadership to the Family Formation Studies at Focus on the Family and has been here before. We talked about a book you wrote called The Ring Makes All the Difference that was really a landmark book, I felt. Was that about winning the Super Bowl? No. The Ring Makes All the Difference? You should have gotten copies for it.

I've been trying to get one of those. That was three seasons. It was really a great book about the importance of marriage as opposed to cohabitation and why marriage matters in our culture. You've just finished a book called The Myth of the Dying Church, How Christianity is Actually Thriving in America and in the World, and people read that subtitle and go, no, it's not. It's not thriving. That's not what we've heard. That's not what they're telling us. We're hearing about how many are now identifying as atheists, the rise of the nones. You've heard all of this.

Are we just reading the wrong stuff or are we – is it fake news? What's the story? Well, it's interesting. I mean, I was with a group of apologetics worldview educators down in Mexico. We were doing a conference, and I was telling them about, you know, my book coming out, and they're like, so what about all this other research? I mean, all this other research that they have been citing, I mean, it says something different. And I just said, well, it's bad research.

You know, what are you going to say? But the thing is, the problem, and I try to solve it in my book, is a lot of these bad news stories just come out of the secular press, but they also come out of the Christian press, but they're based on a research report here or a research report here. And they're typically from organizations that are not academic organizations. When I say academic, I don't mean, you know, highfalutin, but sociologists of religion from major universities who study this stuff in and out and have been doing it for the last 30 years. These sociologists who just do good research, they come up with very different stories. We think, okay, secular, academic, you know, they're not going to tell a good story about Christianity. You know what?

They do. And they're quite strong about it. And so the book, Myth of the Dying Church, I think the big thing that it offers is a 30-year view of the high points, if you will, of the academic research, the highs and the lows of what that body of literature says. And so you take, if you will, kind of the mean conclusion or the medium, the general conclusion of what that data has been saying over the last 30 years. And the conclusion is quite strong that the church is bigger today, it's more influential today, it is more vibrant today than it really has been ever. And that is not what we've been hearing. I mean, what you just said, and I know you know this better than we do, but it isn't just being said in the press, secular.

Pastors like me have stood on the stage and quoted that research data, and you're saying in a wrong way. And again, it's almost like the marriage divorce myth, right? Oh, absolutely. And I've been fighting that, you know, for a long, long time. But that's exactly the thing. I mean, I say a couple of things in the book, tongue in cheek.

For the people who are the people of good news, we sure can be attracted to bad news, right? And this idea, and I end the book this way, and it really hit me, is not only is the dying church story bad sociology, it's bad theology. Because it's like, you know, you think the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, they're, not to be disrespectful, but they're having their meeting, like how's it going with the church? And the Holy Spirit's like, I just can't break through.

I mean, it's not like it's ever been. I'm just having a hard time convicting people of the truth. No, the Holy Spirit is life-giving.

He cannot be otherwise. The, you know, the gates of hell even will not prevail against my church, Jesus says. So, I've heard for years, if you want to know what America is going to look like in 50 years, go to England today with empty cathedrals and spiritual malaise. Is that not the trajectory we're on? You know what? Fascinating. And that's exactly the right question to ask in the beginning. Bob always asks the right question. Yes, he does.

That's why we're with him. There was some research, and relatively recent, that came out of jointly Harvard University and Indiana University. Two sociologists, secular, and what they did was they wanted to test what they call the secularization thesis. And that is basically as cultures develop politically, economically, technologically, that they turn more secular, like Europe. They tested that in the United States, and the way they tested it was to look at what they called vibrant faith, meaning attend church more than once a week.

Really pray, not just pray over your meals, but pray about stuff and expect that it take the Bible seriously, authoritatively. They said, we are just absolutely amazed that there is no decline in that kind of faith. And they say that America is not and doesn't look like it will be following Europe in any way. They came out with a follow-up study to that, and basically they say, you know what we're finding as we look around the world? Europe is the outlier.

Really? That, I mean, you look at different places in the world. America, faith is just coming along.

It's not so great in Canada, but they're more European, even though not geographically, but in China, in the Middle East, in Africa, in South America, faith is exploding like crazy. I mean, and that's a definitive academic term, exploding like crazy. It just is. And the sociologists are finding that to be the truth. So when you're saying that, because the pushback would be, okay, it is in the older generation, but not in the new and the next generation, but you're saying that's not true. It is not true.

It's got to be, right? And we're not living in a post-Christian culture in America then. Well, yes and no. And in a way, we can get into this. You know, is the church shrinking? The answer is yes and no.

You've got to break it up where it is. Are we living in a post-Christian culture? Well, we hear these bad things that are happening. I mean, Hollywood in many ways is getting worse. The press is getting worse. Academia is getting worse in some ways. But if you look at just Americans across the board, no, it's not.

I mean, you think about this. And in any town, how many churches are boarded up, gone out of business, the pastors are laid off, youth pastors are laid off, flying yesterday. You know, in airports, you can find Christian books in any store there. You can find them in Target.

You can find them in Walmart. You cannot go anywhere in the United States where you cannot dial the radio and find about three different Christian radio stations. Same thing with TV. I mean, these things are continuing.

No, look around you. Christianity is just not going out of business like Sears or, you know, some of these different places. I heard Tim Keller talk about the shift this way. He said, 50 years ago, even among non-Christians, there was a general sense that thinking Christianly about things existed. So secularists had an underlying Christian morality that right and wrong were defined in Christian terms. He said the shift we've had has been that among secularists, there's no longer an assumption that a Christian way of thinking about things is the case. So for people of faith who used to, in the culture, be able to go out and say to their neighbors who don't go to church, you know, that couple shouldn't be living together. They ought to get married.

And their neighbor would go, yeah, it's wrong for them to do that. Well, now it's like, well, what's wrong with that? So it can feel to us like the world is changing, but what you're saying is that among the faithful, that hasn't changed.

It hasn't changed, and in some ways it's growing. But this is an interesting indicator along those lines, too, and I'm not disagreeing with what you're saying, Bob. But you think about when Barack Obama was running for president, he was very strong to communicate, I am a Christian. And, you know, even Donald Trump, you know, I am a Christian.

I'm with you. Why would they do that if that was no longer, if you will, even fashionable or politically expedient, you know? And it's interesting, Pew tells us that only 7% of Americans have a wholly negative view of the church. The overwhelming majority of citizens in the United States, secular or not, have a generally high view of the church, that they do a good job of encouraging moral standards, that they do a good job of helping the community and things like that. And surprisingly, not a majority, but close to it, of atheists and agnostics hold that positive view of Christians. That's really true, because they don't live on Twitter, any of those people.

Right? Yeah, I mean, you go on there and you would think, just based on the pushback and the comments, that it isn't that positive. But you're saying the research says it actually is, still. It shows it differently, and it's interesting, because I work with a lot of secular academics in my work, and, you know, even around our office, like, oh, yeah, those people hate us. I don't find that to be the case. They'll, like, either don't know about focus or they don't know any Christians. They'll go, oh, I love what you guys do, you know?

I use the plugged-in things. And they have no church, you know, experience whatsoever. So that's the thing is, people do not have such a negative view of Christians. When I'm out talking to people and they say, where do you work? What do you do? I say, I work for family life.

What is family life? These are folks, you know, who've never heard of us. I say, well, we try to help build stronger marriages and families. We think that's important in the culture. And almost everybody I'm talking to goes, boy, we sure need that. Right. Well, let me ask you this. If they ask what you do and you say, I'm a pastor. Right. What do they say?

I don't get pushback on that either. I mean, people go, tell me more about your churches. If I'm on an airplane, then they put on their headphones, right? We have a son that played in the NFL a little bit, and he said, when people ask me what I did, and I said, I'm an NFL player. He said, it was amazing this conversation would go. Now he's a pastor. He said, it's a little different now. Right. When they say, what are you doing? He says, I'm a pastor.

They kind of turn away. Right. Yeah. I do feel this, though.

Tell me, Glenn, if I'm feeling the right thing. It feels like, because I'm a pastor of a bigger church, it feels like there's a negativity toward mega when it comes to church. You know what?

And I might be wrong, but I feel that like I like pastors and I like churches, but when you're the bigger churches. Yeah. We have suspicion. Yeah. Now, see, and that's another thing.

And again, I'll go back to the yes and the no. I always say, you know, being a researcher, the truth typically lies somewhere in between. And I think what you're referring to as a pastor is people typically think, OK, he's got to be a pretty slick operator. You know, they think TV evangelists, that kind of thing. But in terms of it's the non-denominational churches that are growing. In fact, this guy, Barry Kosman, he is the sociologist that coined the term the nuns.

You know, those who report no particular faith. And so he's kind of famous in that world. Hey, there's that guy that coined the term. You know, he's cool. He's like the Bono of sociologists in that way.

Right. But I called him. I called him and talked to him, interviewed him. He goes, you know what, Glenn?

One of the things that I was most frustrated about was my research. The nuns thing took off. He goes, but what they didn't report was the nuns are not the biggest growing religious or irreligious group.

It's the nones. And I said, well, explain that to me. The non-denominational churches, he said, I found that that is the biggest growing community of religious folks out there. Why do you think that is, Glenn?

I'll answer it with this. There were some Canadian scholars and they wanted to look at mainline denominations. It's the mainline denominations that are tanking. And they asked the question, are there any mainline churches that are growing?

And they found a few. And what they found out, and they titled their study Theology Matters. And what they found out was mainline churches that teach the scripture, that call people to discipleship, that have vibrant worship as if a real God forgave real people of real sin. Those churches were growing. And I think that's the answer to your question is these churches, people can relate to them. You know what? That pastor, this worship, they have small groups. I can really meet God there in a very simple way. And this guy, he's teaching the scriptures.

He's not compromising. He's not trying to make it relevant or, you know, change it to the modern age. Again, those churches that are like, well, maybe Jesus wasn't God or maybe the resurrection was just a symbol. Those churches are hemorrhaging members. They're leaving quicker than they can imagine. And it's the non-denom churches that are growing because they're preaching and teaching the word of God.

God said, my word will not return void, will not return void. And we're seeing that exact thing today. Yeah, I know that in our city, Detroit, that is what I'm seeing. The mainline churches that are dying, and again, that's the message out there. They're all dying. There's some that are hemorrhaging, and they're being bought and taken over by non-denom churches. Absolutely. In a beautiful way, because they're coming to the non-denominator churches and saying, we don't want this to turn into a business or a club. Right. Could the gospel continue here, but we are not able to sustain ourselves? Yeah.

Would you come in and partner? And it's actually been a beautiful thing. And do what you do. Right. Exactly.

It's interesting. I mean, two interesting illustrations of this, and I share one of these in the book, is multi-campus church, very hip, young pastor, lots of young people, vibrant worship. Well, that pastor decided by himself one week, you know what? I think we should start affirming homosexuality, not just being gracious and kind and loving, but affirming homosexuality. He announced that, and he has a video online.

He talks about it. Our church imploded. I mean, just people left. These are young people who said, you know what?

If you're going to compromise on that kind of thing, we're out of here. So you see that they continued to be a hip church, have hip worship, you know, things like that. But the congregation saw him compromising in a radical way, and they left.

Here's the other thing. Some scholars, two of them, one from Columbia University, one from UCLA, they're doing this work together. They wanted to find same-sex attracted people who attend church regularly. What kind of churches do they attend? They found out to their own chagrin that same-sex attracted individuals 2.5 times more likely to attend Bible-teaching churches.

Why is that? Well, first of all, maybe they find out that those churches are actually loving and caring and welcoming. The other, if you're going to wake up and go to church in the morning, you want to go to whole milk church. You don't want to go to skim milk church, right?

And that's what they're finding. And, you know, well, is your sexuality affirmed there? No, I get what they're about.

I understand what they're about, but you know what? I encounter Jesus there. And that's the big thing that I say about churches is, you know what?

Welcome everybody, love everybody, teach the Word of God faithfully and clearly, and then trust the Holy Spirit to do what the Holy Spirit does. I got invited to speak to a group of pastors out in your area out south of Denver. This was a number of years ago, and I came out and spoke. I said, there are really headwinds in the area of marriage and gender and sexuality. I said, I'm here to remind you, the Bible teaches that marriage should be between a man and a woman, and it's a lifetime commitment. The Bible teaches there are two genders, there's male and female.

There are people who are same-sex attracted. And I said, and the Bible teaches that sex outside of marriage is wrong. I said, these are three things that if I had said this 30 years ago, everybody would have said, we don't need you to come here and tell us this.

Everybody knows this. But today, I'm here to remind you, this is still what the Bible teaches. I had a pastor come up to me afterwards, and he said, you're a dinosaur. Really? Yeah. And I said, well, let's talk about—and he didn't want to engage.

Wow. He just wanted to—he said, you're a dinosaur, and this is not where things are going. Now, I've watched a progressive strain of younger evangelicals who have said, we want to keep what we like from the past, but we want to mix in where we feel like the culture is. We think that we'll be more attractive, and we think it's more in line with who Jesus is. And not just younger. No, that's true. It's younger and older. Predominantly younger, yeah. So you've seen this kind of swell among progressives.

Is there a future for that? Well, it's interesting, and that is a big, big point. And you're right. It's not just younger people, but we have to understand. I mean, in one sense—okay, first of all, that pastor, I bet his church is not growing.

But the other thing, even as you were saying that, this young group coming along and, you know, believing generally in the things of Scripture, but wanting to apply it to their own culture and doing it to their own way, I'm thinking you could be describing the Jesus movement in the 70s, right? I mean, one of the things about being young is being idealistic. And again, the sociologists are very clear who kids are today in terms of their political ideas, their, you know, can't the world be more open and embracing?

And, you know, as we say, when you get a marriage, some kids, and a mortgage, the world becomes a whole lot more simple. And that's both good and bad. But we need to know, and again, that phrase, kids these days, that has always been a phrase. It's interesting. A couple of years ago, I was doing a heavy study into the Puritans on the issue of sexuality.

Guess what? They weren't Puritanical about sexuality. But what I found out reading their stuff is even they, their pastors, said, get this, this may be the last generation of Christians that we will ever see. Because their kids were having sex outside of marriage.

I mean, it wasn't epidemic, but it's not really epidemic today either. Again, it's, you know what? Kids have a mind of their own. They experiment.

They try to be independent. And this has just been true of human nature is human nature. There never really was a golden age of the church, a golden age of morality. And again, Adam and Eve, you know what? It didn't take long. God performed their wedding. He did their premarital counseling. They did this little thing called ushering in the damnation of humanity.

One of their children killed another one. I mean, like, it's never been this great perfect picture. And so we need to know that. So is your message to parents, hey, it's going to be okay. Relax. Or is your message, no, we need to be on guard and vigilant and be concerned because there's some drift occurring. You know what? Here we go again.

It's both. Right? It's parents be vigilant. You know, as you guys say all the time, you know, parenting is 90% just showing up. Right.

Being on the ground there. And the research is very, very clear on this. And I have a whole chapter in the book that parents who live a serious Christian life, not a perfect Christian life, but you know what? We attend church more than we don't. We read the scriptures, not every morning at 730, but it's a part of our life. We pray together. We talk about the faith.

It's what the Stanton's do. The research is very clear, those kids growing up in those homes are extremely likely, some scholars say nearly guaranteed, to carry that faith into adulthood in their own way, with their own application. I do that different than my parents. You guys are the same way. I mean, that's the nature of things. But it's important for us to understand that, yes, faith, when we transmit it to the younger generation in a good, faithful, but again, not perfect way, God grades so much on the curve, you know, with parenting and that. But if you're never giving your kids a kind of serious faith, you know what?

They can't hang on to what they never really had. Boy, I tell you what, Glenn. I don't know what you guys are thinking.

I'm excited. I mean, when you hear good news, and again, you said earlier, we're the people of the good news. Why are we not preaching good news? I think of this. When you go to church, your typical couple, you go to church and you sit there and you hear the pastor say, hey, by the way, you know, the divorce rate in the church is the same as the community.

It's 50%. Yeah. You sit there and go, well, what am I doing here? This doesn't help.

We're as bad as everybody else. And then you find out later, that was never true. Right. You know, it was fake news and it was being broadcast even in the church, let alone outside of church. And now when you hear this very same thing, the church is not dying. The kingdom of God is advancing. The gates of hell will not prevail.

That's right. You sit in church or you just hear this broadcast and you go, I'm excited. That is good news.

We're not losing. I'm going to get involved. I want to go to church. I want to get involved.

I want to help my kids. I want to, I'm on a winning team. Yeah. Never been on a losing team. Dave likes to be on a winning team.

Who doesn't like to be on a winning team? And this is so significant in, in what you're saying and that, yes, it is good news. We are the people of good news and it's good news, not because we're great marketers. Right.

It's not because we're relevant. It's not because our, you know, our logos in our church and our name going to one name churches, elevate forward, things like that. It is the Holy Spirit.

Yeah. The Holy Spirit will honor churches and places where Christianity, where the scriptures, where discipleship, where worship is authentic and that's what we need to know. So yes, the good news is we are led by the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit cannot not be life-giving. God is on the move.

He's never stopped being on the move and we're on the move with him. And if you want some good news, read your Bible first because that's the source of it and then get a copy of Glenn's book, The Myth of the Dying Church, that will encourage you that there is a path forward that is a vibrant, faithful path for us to follow. We've got copies of the book in our Family Life Today resource center. Order from us online at familylifetoday.com or call 1-800-FL-TODAY. Again, the book is called The Myth of the Dying Church, How Christianity is Actually Thriving in America and in the World.

Go to familylifetoday.com to order or call 1-800-F as in Family, L as in Life, and then the word today to get your copy of Glenn's book. You know, I was thinking today about the overlap between ministries like Family Life and local churches. We really see ourselves as allies working together to help support the local church in the ongoing ministry that God has called the local church to. We want to provide resources, provide help, be a supplement to the regular spiritual development that happens when people are part of a local church congregation. Family Life Today should never be a substitute for church for you. It should always be an enhancement to your local church experience. And one of the reasons I say that is because we've always said here that when it comes to financial giving, we believe that your first priority as a Christian should be to support your local church.

That's where you should give first. When it comes to supporting ministries like Family Life Today, we are so grateful for those of you who are able to do that and who choose to do that in addition to the support you are providing for your local church. Family Life Today is listener dependent. If it weren't for listeners like you supporting this ministry, Family Life Today would not exist. So thank you for those of you who go above and beyond. You give to your local church and then you give to Family Life Today. We're so grateful for your investment in the reach of this ministry to help effectively develop godly marriages and families.

If you're a long-time listener and you've never made a donation, after you've donated to your local church, you can go online to familylifetoday.com and make a donation there or you can call 1-800-FL-TODAY to donate over the phone. We appreciate you. Thanks for coming alongside us and being a part of the ministry of Family Life Today. Now tomorrow we're going to talk more about how as parents we can be actively engaged in helping our kids develop a strong, resilient faith, the kind of faith that lasts into adulthood.

Again, no guarantees on this because our kids make their own choices, but what is it that God's calling us to do? We'll talk more about that tomorrow. Hope you can be with us for that. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, along with our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Ann Wilson, I'm Bob Lapine. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life of Little Rock, Arkansas, a crew ministry. Help for today. Hope for tomorrow.