Christianity laid the foundation of Western society, but cultural shifts have left the church looking more like an eccentric great-uncle: outdated, embarrassing, and unacceptable. In Disappearing Church, Mark Sayers chronicles the church’s many attempts to regain popularity and prominence, but also explains why they won’t work. Sayers challenges us to strive for resilience, not relevance.
Relevance, as a strategy, originated from missions. Just as missionaries must find cultural bridges when evangelizing an unreached people, the relevant approach looks for bridges into Western culture (44-45). To reach the post-Christian West, the church must, through relevance, become like it. Incorrectly, relevance assumes that there is no difference between post-Christianity and pre-Christianity. However, Western secularism contains a hidden corrosiveness: the acid of post-Christianity opposes true Christianity by reshaping it and stripping it of the gospel.
Post-Christianity, according to Sayers, is none other than Gnosticism reborn (65). Just as the Gnostics believed they were gods and sought to escape the world by looking inward, post-Christianity proclaims the gospel of self: escape reality and chart your own destiny – it’s all about you. Today the church faces real, outward attack, but the subtle distortions and pseudo-Christian ideas of Western culture are much more dangerous (64).
Under the attack of modern Gnosticism, relevance is spiritual suicide. The problem with relevance is that it “has been built upon reducing the tension many believers feel with the wider culture” (50-51). Thus, in the attempt to hold influence, relevant Christians may be changed instead of bringing change. The church faces real danger, not of being irrelevant to the culture, but of being indistinct from it.
Instead of a watered down cup of relevance, Sayers argues for serving the full strength gospel brew. The church must form, in his words, “creative minorities” who contrast themselves from the surrounding culture (70). Throughout history, God has used faithful minorities to bring change, not popular majorities. Even Jesus did not seek the masses, choosing rather to invest in a ragtag band of disciples.
Relevance offers only a pop culture knock-off, but the genuine gospel promises so much more! A cheap sales pitch may build statistics, but commitment to faithful orthodoxy builds long term depth (115-117). Relevance offers a narcissistic “seeker” mentality, but the Bible focuses on King Jesus – refreshingly selfless (85). Amidst the sea of virtual and digital, church offers real relationship within real community (117).
We Anabaptists understand life as a minority and the temptation to seek relevance. Perhaps Sayers is correct: Instead of chasing relevance, we need to live as faithful disciples. Do we truly believe in the power of the gospel? Know that Jesus – the same yesterday, today, and forever – never becomes irrelevant.