This is a review of the third article from a series of 4 articles written by Tim Keller (click here for a bio) about the American Church, its past prominence in America, and how to restore it to both its former place in American society and spiritual state. Because these reviews will overall be negative, it is important to pay respect to a deservedly well esteemed Christian leader and minister.
What prompted Keller's series on the fall of the American Church and how it can be restored is similar to why Amos chided the Israelites for their relaxed attitude to the spiritual fall of Israel (click here for Amos 6:1-7). The American Church has fallen and too many Christians either don't care or are keeping the Church down. Keller is hurt by the state of the American Church and that is a sentiment we should all share.
Furthermore, Keller has constantly served as a breath of fresh air among Christian leaders because of he employs a Biblical rationalism in both how he teaches people and answers critics.
My overall criticism of this series of articles by Keller is in their limited perspective. And by limited perspective, I am not referring to any lack of insight or thought on Keller's part. I am referring to Keller's approach where he only seems to be aware of the American Church's fall. He shows no recognition of the Democracy to which he wants to American Church to return.
Keller is hoping for a revival movement in America. A revival is when the Church grows both in members and in seriousness in which believers take their faith and lives in Christ. And what Christian could argue with that? We should note that the closer walk with Christ that believers should embark on must never be confused with expecting perfectionism from themselves. That is because while in one sense, we have died to sin and are alive in Christ (click here for Romans 6:1-14), we continue to sin (click here for Romans 7:7-25, there for James 3:2, and there again for I John 1:8-10). Regardless of how much we repent, we must never lose sight of the fact that we will always be able to identify with the Tax Collector from the parable of the 2 men praying (click here for that parable).
Here we should also note what Frederick Dale Bruner wrote about us believers and being unaware of having sin in his book, A Theology Of The Holy Spirit: The Pentecostal Experience And The New Testament Witness, pg 235). Bruner asks about 3 category of Christians in that context. He asks about the person who believes so much in their own righteousness that they fail to see the sins they have, or about the person whose faulty conscience has hardened them to their sins, or about the Christian who is driven into despair because they always see the sins that they have. And so the call to increase one's devotion to Christ must be answered in a way that allows the Christian to have realistic expectations of themselves.
When Keller talked about revival and Christians getting more serious with their faith, he was talking about what happens when revivals come. As to what causes revivals, again Keller notes that it is the sovereign work of the Spirit. But that is the primary cause. Keller lists 3 secondary causes for revivals and revival movements to happen. The causes are below:
- There is a recovery of the Gospel. Of course that implies that the Gospel was lost, or to be more precise people attention was no longer on the Gospel.
- There is always corporate prayer. Not that there wasn't any prayer in the first place. But prayer that brings about a revival is well beyond the normal use of prayer by Christians.
- There is always creativity. Christians find new ways to do what they were doing before.
The problem that Keller sees is that politics have replaced Christ and Church is dividing up over politics. Keller also opposes the blind allegiance that Mainline Christians pay to liberal politics and Evangelicals and Fundamentalists give to conservative political view.
But there is a problem with Keller's objection to the Church becoming divided by politics. Politics involves morality and morality is an essential subject for Christians. And so, unfortunately, there will be some natural divisiveness over politics.
Keller then lists what must be present for revival movements to occur and talks about the need for a new revival movement. The need for such a movement is because the American churches have been dragged down into our nation's conservative-liberal bickering. He states that a new revival movement must be based on historic Protestant theology. And that those in the movement must have the same theological beliefs especially about God and Christ. Keller points to the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Chalcedonies Creed, and the Athanasian Creed as standards by which we should unite our faith. Other essential beliefs include the 5 solas, the inerrancy of the Scriptures, the doctrine of sin, the doctrine of atonement, the need for being born of the Spirit, the need for the Church and its functions, the physical return of Jesus Christ. and repentance.
Some of the problems that stand in the way of developing a new revival movement are the divisions in the American Church. Those divisions involve the exclusion of previously established speakers on the speaking circuit and divisive issues like CRT, gender ideology, and social justice. But we should note that those issues are moral issues and, again, moral issues are an important part of the Christian life. And so Keller is saying that we should let past wrongs suffered over these issues go and that we should put more focus on the Gospel.
Next Keller ventures off into the making of American Christians into superstars. According to him, we need to develop a Protestant Social Teaching that will cover the social justice issues that have been divisive from a unified Protestant perspective. Here Keller is telling Protestants that they need to do what Catholics have been doing for years regarding engaging in social justice issues.
Now that might sound like Keller is telling the Church to jump back into the fire that he told it to leave. But that isn't the case. For what Keller complained about, again, was when social justice issues and politics replaced the Gospel in the Church.
So while avoiding the recent historical problem of Churches dividing over social justice issues and politics, there are bigger problems on the horizon for what Keller is proposing. First, the development of a Christian critique of different social justice ideologies seems to suggest that Keller is saying that we need a Protestant version of Dreher's Benedict Option. Dreher proposed that Christians should isolate themselves somewhat from the world into their own communities so they can develop their own approach to a changing world. His option was in response to the SCOTUS Obergefell decision which was seen as the final defeat for Christians in America's culture wars.
Such an approach can be arrogant to say the least. For with that approach, we Christians could be telling the world that they have what it takes to teach the world how to solve its social problems while we have little to nothing to learn from the world regarding those problems. Another problem with Keller's suggestion is that in addressing justice issues, religiously conservative Christians have recently struggled with distinguishing what God's Word says about justice for those in the Church from what justice should look like in society where there are both believers and unbelievers. As a result, what Keller suggests can cause us to impose our religious standards and even faith on unbelievers. We would also begin to oppress certain groups.
What Keller is telling the world with this suggestion is that we Christians are now in the position of defining what real social justice looks like as opposed in the past when we supported things like slavery and white supremacy. One only needs to ask those from the LGBT community whether they can expect a fair shake from us Christians if we are the ones who get to define what is social justice.
In addition, we have to wonder whether we Christians, including our leaders, have the competency and expertise to adequately define and address social justice issues. After all, the isolation that Keller seems to suggest in developing a Protestant Social Teaching could easily result in our inability to fully grasp the social injustices others are facing and thus we would be unable to develop an overall view. We only need to look back into Church History to see where the Church spoke out loudly and boldly over issues it had no expertise in. The debate over Heliocentrism is a prime example. A 20th century example includes the debate over evolution and a 21st century example includes the reluctance of many a religiously conservative Protestant to recognize how human activity is significantly contributing to climate change. It's not that we Christians don't have any contributions to make in any discussion on social justice issues; it is whether we should take a leading role in formulating the solutions.
There are a few other things to discuss in the article that will not be mentioned here. But there is a lingering question in terms of what is driving Keller to develop the vision he has for the restoration of the American Church in terms of its former place in American society. That question is this, if America had never embraced Christendom, would Keller's vision for the Church be the same as it is now? How much is the American Church's lost status in society driving Keller's thinking here?
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