The Christian church in the U.S. is still strong numerically, but it has lost its decisive influence both in American public life and in American culture as a whole, especially in the major elite institutions of society.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the waning influence of the Christian church in American society despite its numerical strength.
Os Guinness highlights a paradox in the United States where, despite the large number of adherents to Christianity, the church has diminished power and authority in shaping public discourse and cultural norms. This observation points to a shift in how religion interacts with core societal institutions and raises questions about the role of faith in modern life.
In practice
In an academic lecture on the role of religion in society, one might quote Guinness to emphasize the changing dynamics of religious influence.
By our uncritical pursuit of relevance we have actually courted irrelevance; by our breathless chase after relevance without a matching committment to faithfulness, we have become not only unfaithful, but irrelevant; by our determined efforts to redefine outselves in ways that are more compelling to the modern world than are faithful to Christ, we have lost not only our identity but our authority and our relevance. Our crying need is to be faithful as well as relevant
The story of Christian reformation, revival, and renaissance underscores that the darkest hour is often just before the dawn, so we should always be people of hope and prayer, not gloom and defeatism. God the Holy Spirit can turn the situation around in five minutes.
In other words, we are never freer than when we become most ourselves, most human, most just, most excellent, and the like.
We betray our modern arrogance and forget the place of mystery in God's dealing with us.
The question the doubter does not ask is whether faith was really useless or simply not used. What would you think of a boy who gave up learning to ride a bicycle, complaining that he hurt himself because his bicycle stopped moving so he had no choice but to fall off? If he wanted to sit comfortably while remaining stationary, he should not have chosen a bicycle but a chair. Similarly faith must be put to use, or it will become useless.
Either we conform our desires to the truth or we conform the truth to our desires.
Is it not strange that desire should so many years outlive performance?
Legal ethics is a misnomer ... lawyers conducting themselves legally are not necessarily conducting themselves morally ."...and ..."The zero sum nature of the legal system, combined with the universal adoption of zealotry as the marching orders of practioners and prosecutors, transforms the moral mission of the legal system from one of truth-seeking, storytelling, and justice, to one of fabrication, distortion, and manipulation in pursuit of victory. These victories, however, make us all losers.
Salvation lies in imitating Christ, in other words, in imitating the 'withdrawal relationship' that links him with his Father... To listen to the Father's silence is to abandon oneself to his withdrawal, to conform to it.
If you are vigilant and make a stern effort to reject every thought when it rises, you will soon find that you are going deeper and deeper into your own inner self, where there is no need for your effort to reject the thoughts.
Brethren, let us mind our own business - that is, the calling the Lord has called us to - to do everything we can to promote the good of the Cause of Truth, and never ask how big we are, or inquire who we are; but let it be, 'What can I do to build up the Kingdom of God upon the Earth?'
I find it very difficult to think of mistakes; not that I don't make any but because I was brought up to look only at the good things in life ... As for what lost the most money, probably Virgin Cola. It is still No 1 in Bangladesh though.
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