Is the world becoming more or less religious? Is the world becoming more or less Christian? How about your country, city or town? When anyone starts from the place where they live, it can be an easy assumption to assume that everywhere else is similar to where you live and everyone else is similar to you. This, can, for the Christian in the Western world lead to a depressing conclusion. We live in a post-Christian secular age. Which is true. We do not, however, live in a post-Christian secular world. Quite the contrary.

Living in Sweden can be quite helpful here. This small northerly nation has a high number of atheists and a shrinking evangelical church (other forms of the Protestant church are simply shrinking faster). This does rest on an assumption that Sweden was at one time a Christian country and that might not be true but even so the feeling is true. Sweden is a nation that for a thousand years was politically and culturally shaped by amongst other things Christianity. For Christians living in Sweden, we live in the ebbing of our faith in our land. There are lessons to be learned from the experience of Christians here that will prove valuable for nations that appear to be in a headlong dash to try and catch Sweden up. Notably the USA.

Now the US is in many ways the anti-Sweden when it comes to faith and culture. Yet the story that people are hearing and seeing and experiencing is the rapid ebbing of faith in one of the most Christian countries on earth.

The Atlantic wonders Why So Many Americans Are Turning to Buddhism and FiveThirtyEight proclaims that Millennials Are Leaving Religion And Not Coming Back. Some observers feel too much is being made of this such as Ross Douthat in his comment: The Overstated Collapse of American Christianity (and also Philip Jenkins). But it has certainly got Christians in the US thinking.

You would think that with all this hand-wringing amongst Christians that the atheists would be crowing and glowing. And, of course, some are. Very quickly, though people have realised that atheism is not triumphing in the way that a decade ago they thought it would. Consider Scott Alexander’s insightful piece New Atheism: The Godlessness That Failed and although the headline is overstating the case there are some interesting quotes in this piece: Atheists sound the alarm: Decline of Christianity is seriously hurting society.

Atheists overreached in a number of ways. They found running secular churches harder than they thought, they subscribed to conspiracy theories like Jesus Mythicism and they claimed religion had nothing going for it despite the arguments put forward by other non-believers (such as this and this).

So their accusations went too far as did their claims for their own side. Their claims for morality are bold but their foundations are weak. They have not won the argument that atheism can ground human rights. At all. They assumed it would be one-way traffic and it isn’t and they thought their answers were cleverer than they actually are.

As ever, people are more nuanced and the picture more complex than a simple ‘Atheists good, Christians bad’ narrative allows. For example, in a Pew Survey they found that Across 27 Countries, Most Don’t Mind More Religion in Society (although not in Sweden where a majority would be against it) and are even happy for some of their taxes to go to national churches (even in Sweden).

At the same time, people have not given up believing in something even if they have (in some places) given up practising a faith. Astrology apps have exploded in popularity and there is a spiritual hunger that will be filled somehow. In the midst of the decades-long death of God, we find ourselves singing along with Stormzy, Kanye or Coldplay.

Those who are secular in secular places look around and think that the tide is going their way. Those who are Christian in those places might agree but the global reality is that Atheism, Agnosticism is in Decline while Religion Grows Worldwide. But we don’t live globally, we live locally and so while these facts may be encouraging they are also not particularly helpful.

Instead, we need to cultivate faith which is both more resilient and radical as Fleming Rutledge says,

The message of Jesus Christ, in sum, is this: Salvation is not in your hands. “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32). He is doing for himself great things that we cannot even imagine. Therefore be bold, be unafraid, dear brothers and sisters in the Lord. We have a great gospel. There is nothing else like it in heaven or on earth. It is neither “spiritual” nor “religious.” Rather, it is the still, small voice that you do not expect and cannot command. It is the trumpet call of the age to come. It is “the word of God, which is indeed at work in you who believe” (1 Thess. 2:13).

https://www.christianitytoday.com/women/2018/may/fleming-rutledge-why-being-spiritual-is-never-enough.html

My observations from living in Sweden these past eight years is that the church has not thought deeply enough about either of these two things. Instead of resilience or radicality, they have gone for relevancy. They have not sought to distinguish themselves from the trends of the culture nor adequately taught their people how to withstand the cultural onslaught. I’m not saying, I know how to do better, but I think resilience offers a path of resistance and choosing faith in a secular place is more radical than we think. We need bolder believers not more blended in ones.