IN the United States the prestigious PEW research organisation, in its most recent report on religions, showed that Christianity as we have known it is in decline. It showed that the ranks of the non-affiliated (atheists, agnostics, and those who show no attachment to any religion, referred to collectively as the “nones”) have risen sharply. The number of Muslims, according to the report, is also on the rise, while Christians are on the decline.

On the face of it, this kind of report should terrorise the hearts of Christians. Christians would like to be comforted by the words of the immortal hymn that “crowns and thrones may perish, kingdoms rise and wane, but the church of Jesus constant will remain” (Onward,Christian soldiers). They should also be consoled by the words of the Lord himself that the gates of hell will not be able to prevail against the church. Yet, such comfort and consolation have been under constant threat from the prevailing culture. In many countries, especially in the Middle East and Africa, Christians are under attack for their beliefs. It is a death sentence to say you are a Christian in countries with a strong Muslim orientation.

In the West, the forces of secularism have placed Christianity in deep crisis. Europe is being de-Christianised at an alarming speed. Attendance at worship in some of the big cathedrals has fallen precipitously. Indeed, a number of church or para-church buildings have been sold, in some instances to Muslims. There is a quip about the Anglican Church in England that the priests have more become keepers of aquariums than fishers of men.

In North America the situation is no less disheartening. Liberalism and secularism are on the march. It is not surprising that the ranks of atheists and agnostics have risen exponentially given the sea change that has taken place in the culture, with particular attention to same-sex marriage. As the number of Americans who believe in same-sex marriage has risen, so has there been a corresponding decline in those expressing faith in God or affiliation to any church. It is not surprising that this should be so. For the more secular the culture becomes the more people feel themselves freed from the shackles of religious “bondage”. There is now a freedom to express themselves, and this often flows through a conduit of defiance which rejects any form of religious thinking. This is why the so-called millennials (age 25-35) are rejecting any form of religion in the big numbers they are. They do not see themselves bound by the religion of their parents or grandparents.

It is not that they are rejecting spirituality or wholesale belief in God. If you talk to many in this group they will tell you that they affirm some notion of a divine being and that they are searching for spiritual comfort. But they do not posit organised religion as the only way in which they can find spiritual peace. They believe that peace in the inner self can be reached without going to a church, a synagogue, a mosque, or a temple. They find the “bureaucratisation” of God promoted by mainline religions as stultifying.

And well they might. As for Christianity, its rejection might not be a bad thing in itself. This may sound strange coming from a priest who has been active in the church for over 30 years. I do not believe that what people are rejecting is the core of the gospel, the good news of God’s redemptive power that the soul truly needs. They are not rejecting belief in a transcendent power that can give them a hope that is beyond the vicissitudes of this mortal life and which can allow them to tangibly cope with problems in the present life. The gospel, properly understood, can provide the inner peace for which people are searching. Let us be clear that this search is not new. It is this search and what people found in the fledgling, emerging early church that caused Christianity to spread so rapidly and widely in the first century.

What people are rejecting in Christianity today is the kind of hypocrisy that Jesus rejected in the Pharisees of his day. The present generation of young people is searching for an authenticity that they are not finding in the fossilised religious world of their parents and grandparents. Even a growing number of older people are leaving the church because they believe they have been hoodwinked by venal pastors interested only in enriching themselves or in self-promotion. They are rejecting a faith that makes no demand on them to live a life that is worthy of the Christ they should be serving, but which instead makes a greater demand on their pocketbooks. It is rejection of a prosperity gospel that impoverishes the soul. The early church started with a few men and women filled with the power of the Holy Spirit who went out into a harsh Roman world and transformed it for good.

Declining numbers should not frighten or terrorise the church that is truly seeking to present the transformative gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Such declining numbers may be the result of a winnowing effect as the true, authentic church emerges. The true church is never bothered by numbers. Its concern is never about quantity but quality; not about the magnificence of its buildings but the enormity of the heart to love one another as Christ taught. The church that is bothered by large numbers is the church that is more concerned about budgetary matters than it is about the core of the gospel that can transform lives.

In the end the crisis in Christianity today is a crisis of identity. Who is Jesus Christ for us today? This is a question that demands an urgent answer. As Jesus made the decisive turn at Caesarea Philippi to make his way to Jerusalem and the cross, he asked his disciples two decisive questions. Who do men (the world) say that I am? And pointedly to the disciples, who do you say that I am? Those two questions are impatient of answer today, for they are generational questions that have to be answered. It is not that Jesus was facing any anxiety concerning his own identity as the long shadow of the cross crossed his pathway. He knew the kind of men to whom he was going to commit his work when he would have departed from them. Did they really know who he was and why he came? Did they know whose they were? Do we in the church today?

Dr Raulston Nembhard is a priest and social commentator. Comments: stead6655@aol.com