Dear Christians, There Is One Thing Worse Than Being An Atheist

As Christians, we tend to think that atheists are in the most dangerous spiritual state. Indeed, they are in a dangerous state. But not the most dangerous. The atheist is surely closer to redemption than the “Christian” who hangs onto the name but empties it of its substance. There is nothing worse than being a casual Christian who lives, and acts, and thinks, and in most every way believes just as the atheists do. It is better to be an unbeliever and know you are an unbeliever than to be an unbeliever and think you are a Christian.

Whenever the “decline of Christianity in America” is discussed, the focus is always on the dwindling number of professed believers. But that is not really the problem, nor is it the truest evidence of Christianity’s decline. If the Church had lost 5 or 10 percent over the years, but the remaining 70 to 75 were truly on fire with the faith — if they were authentically and substantially Christian — our culture would still be in fine shape. It is not in fine shape. By their fruits you shall know them, and the fruits of our “Christian country” seem strongly to suggest that we are not a Christian country at all. And if we are not a Christian country, despite our majority Christian population, then we must consider whether America’s Christians — many of them — are really so much different from her atheists.