As previously stated, I was prompted by reading Nancy Pearcey’s chapter When America Met Christianity, Guess Who Won? in her book Total Truth to go back and re-examine another book that explores some similar themes from an entirely different perspective. While Pearcey’s book is from the perspective of a believer examining the destructive effects of American philosophy on Christian theology, Alan Wolfe has written from the perspective of a non-believer wondering why what Christians say and do doesn’t match.

Wolfe has written a book that Christians need to read. Though not a believer, Wolfe has managed to pick up on something many professing Christians tend to miss: there is drastically little difference between what most Christians claim to believe and the way we actually live. Though we claim to be separate from the world, Wolfe claims that there is actually very little difference from us and those we claim to be separate from.

Wolfe notes that “the faithful in the United States are remarkably like everyone else. It is time for Americans to stop discussing a religion that no longer exists and to concentrate their attention on the one that flourishes all around them.”

Wolfe is essentially writing to two distinct audiences; the academic elite and the “faithful” in America, which to him includes Jews, Catholics, Mormons, Evangelical Christians, etc. To the first group, he essentially says that they really needn’t worry about all of those radical things they hear Christians saying about sin and salvation because we really don’t live any differently than anyone else; so instead, look at their lives rather than their words. To the faithful in America (for our purposes, we will limit our discussion to Evangelical Christians), Wolfe encourages us that we should be proud of how resilient our faith has proven in its ability to adjust to any culture, including the radically individualistic one of modern America.

Leaving little doubt regarding his position, Wolfe asserts that “in every aspect of the religious life, American faith has met American culture - and American culture has triumphed. Whether or not the faithful ever were a people apart, they are so no longer.”

Throughout Wolfe’s book, he give account after account of how Christians in America are really no different in lifestyle and worldview from the rest of the culture that surrounds them. At some point, we must ask the hard questions of whether or not Wolfe is right, and if so, how did it come to be this way?

I’m sad to say that on the whole, considering the church-at-large, Wolfe is probably right. But because Wolfe is not a believer, I think he misses the theological significance of what he’s essentially saying and I don’t think he understands the seriousness of his charge. At root, Wolfe is saying that most who claim to be Christian in America either are not, or do not understand salvation.

We must not be timid in arguing that true salvation will manifest itself in thoughts and deeds. Those who do not demonstrate visible change have reason to doubt their state before God. We may lament that too many Christians look just like the rest of the world because too many Christians don’t understand salvation in the first place; it is an act of God, replacing the heart of stone with a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 11:19; 36:26) , raising the spiritual dead to newness of life (Ephesians 2:1-10, Colossians 2:13-15) and a new birth from above (John 3:1-15). When a child is born, we display dire concern if it does not grow, because we know the only alternative is death. Why do we display less concern for those who claim to have been “born again” spiritually yet display no growth?

For the sake of discussion, I’d like to put forward the idea that once the church moves away from a Reformed view of soteriology (salvation), such a decline is inevitable. Once salvation is removed from the “God” column and placed in the “man” column, it is automatically cheapened into a “take it or leave it” option. The underlying implications are that if we can choose it, we can un-choose it, but also, we can choose how far we want to take it. The idea of the new birth requiring growth is subtly replaced by the idea of taking on a new hobby, which you only get as much out of as you put into.

Wolfe’s observations ought to cause serious concern among believers. Over a period of many years, we have lessened our view of God, His holiness, our sin, and thus, salvation. We have sought to make the Gospel and the Church “relevant” and meaningful, playing down its distinctives, all the while missing the point that the there is nothing more meaningful than the Gospel lived out in hurting lives. Much of the modern church differs very little from the world and we wonder why it is that people don’t take us seriously. Yet Wolfe points out that it’s because our words and our lives simply don’t match.

It’s time to raise up a generation of believers with a high view of God. It’s time for people to understand the height of His holiness and the depth of our sin and the glory that is true salvation. The idea that We must first challenge ourselves to put off the things of the world and clothe ourselves with Christ (Colossians 3:1-17), and we must challenge those around us to follow suit, but they must see that it’s real in our own lives first.

Read The Transformation of American Religion by Alan Wolfe.
Read Christianity Transformed? An Important New Look by Al Mohler.
Read Total Truth by Nancy Pearcey.
Watch the Incredible Hulk movie trailer.
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