End of Christian Nominalism in America

In today’s Phil Vischer podcast they discussed (as usual) a number of things. One of the dynamics was the end of Christian nominalism in America. They referenced Russell Moore who along with others cheers the end of nominal Christianity. The thinking goes that nominal Christianity waters down the witness of more observant and ardent Christianity. Moore makes this point along with others like Notre Dame sociologist Christian Smith and Tim Keller. This is usually represented as a good thing.

The evaluative perspective on this is interesting, both in terms of evangelism and the culture war.

Good for Evangelism and Institutional Revitalization

One hopes that the decline of nominal Christianity would result in a more purified and vibrant church and this would result in more and better evangelism and Christian discipleship. This we imagine would result in more Christians. larger churches, more Christian institutions, more children raised in Christian homes. It would not be unreasonable to imagine all of this might result in more Christian nominalism in another generation or two.

This topic was raised on the podcast by a Gallup assertion that participation on Christian institutions was “cyclical” against which Skye expressed some skepticism. I share some of that skepticism yet the imagined outcomes of the enthusiasm for the nominalism conversation seems to set up precisely this.

Nominalism and the Culture War

There is another irony in this in that a Christian culture war is in a way all about nominalism. While Christians would surely like to evangelize the nation producing a nation of ardent, enthusiastic, self-conscious Christians what a culture war implicitly does is attempt to spread a certain type of Christian nominalism around. Christians become pragmatic and realistic understanding that using public and secular institutions to promote or express Christian values while not expressing specifically Christian religious content. Isn’t this the idea of the culture war?

This doesn’t mean that Christians want bad things. There are ideas of social justice, protection of youth from common moral corruption and the desired welfare of the weak all of course from a Christian perspective, yet it itself is a form of Christian nominalism. Again, I’m not saying this is a negative thing. Christians (from both sides of the culture war) imagine that they are trying to be salt and light by promoting “values” stripped of Christian sectarian content, values that can also be shared by people of other faiths and people of no faith. This is, in a way, a version of Christian nominalism especially in a context not too far removed from Christendom.

So the talk about the end of nominalism seems a bit more complicated than it might first imagined. On one hand receding nominalism might mean loss in a culture war, which again is something lamented. The hoped for gains receding nominalism might achieve it seems may likely re-invigorate nominalism in subsequent generations.

It seems we need might need to make our piece with nominalism at some levels, kind of like the wheat and the tares.