Many Christians today are nonplussed...
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Many Christians today are nonplussed by the society to which they should address the gospel. Tex Sample, a professor of Church and Society, wrote about that. In his book, U.S. Lifestyles and Mainline Churches, he has given an informative description of the social diversity of our time. Sample notes that changes came when we moved from being essentially a people who believed we achieved by sacrifice to a people who believe we have a right to fulfillment.
This new attitude shows up in society in several ways. Sample sees a cultural left made up of principally baby boomers who are I-am-mes, experientials, societally conscious ones, or New Age devotees. The greater majority of these people are turned off by the church and have no room for it in their search for self-fulfillment. There is also the cultural right made up of a larger number of people who are turned off by the church, because the church does not take stands on the issues they consider a threat to the folk religion they create to suit their own morality.
Many of these people find themselves in fundamentalist groups or churches. Then there is a cultural middle of usually professional or wealthy people who think themselves above what the churches do and claim they can do what must be done on their own. No one of these segments of the culture makes it easy to share the gospel.
--Huxhold
This new attitude shows up in society in several ways. Sample sees a cultural left made up of principally baby boomers who are I-am-mes, experientials, societally conscious ones, or New Age devotees. The greater majority of these people are turned off by the church and have no room for it in their search for self-fulfillment. There is also the cultural right made up of a larger number of people who are turned off by the church, because the church does not take stands on the issues they consider a threat to the folk religion they create to suit their own morality.
Many of these people find themselves in fundamentalist groups or churches. Then there is a cultural middle of usually professional or wealthy people who think themselves above what the churches do and claim they can do what must be done on their own. No one of these segments of the culture makes it easy to share the gospel.
--Huxhold
