Tough Questions for Christians February 13 Devotional

PHILIPPIANS 2:8-11 | ⁸ He humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross. ⁹ Therefore God exalted him even more highly and gave him the name that is above every other name, ¹⁰ so that at the name given to Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, ¹¹ and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

I grew up hearing a great deal about the “inevitable” decline of religion. Briefly put, it was considered academic orthodoxy that as science advanced, religion would retreat. This was called the secularization hypothesis and it was presented as almost a brute fact rather than a speculative theory. But now it is abundantly clear from the evidence, even if it has not fully registered in the realms of academia, that the secularization hypothesis is a failure, completely and utterly wrong.

Now, sociologists predict an increasingly religious world. Atheism is on the decline, even in China, where 60% of the world’s religiously unaffiliated live. This is partly because Muslims (24% of the world’s population), Christians (31%), Hindus (15%), Buddhists (7%), and Jews (.2%), have more children than secularists. It is also because 40% of children raised in secular homes become religious, while only 20% of those raised religious abandon faith. Secular couples are twice as likely to raise a Christian as Christians are to raise a secular child.

Are you optimistic or pessimistic about the future of our faith?

Gracious God,

Help us to live and think as those who know Your truth will triumph! Take away the anxiety that comes from doubting that “every knee will eventually bow and every tongue confess: You are Lord.”

Amen.