The post-Christian world

From the southern part of this globe, the last few weeks we got several requests for financial help. Several of those people who contacted us via Messenger on our Facebook pages and one person here on this website admitted they even do not believe in God. We wonder if they believe in the devil Satan, because some of them tried to make us afraid that if we would not give them money we would burn in hell. For them we send a reply explaining what we think about satan and hellfire. For the others telling us ,we as Christians should have the duty to help them, we went looking at their Facebook pages and at their webpages where we even found pages with false accusations concerning us and a lot of blasphemous talks about Christadelphians in general and specific attacks to the CBM.

Several of them, daring to ask money from us, when they are attacking us and even admit they do not belief in God, made us browse (and to some writers react).

Naturally we as Christadelphians do not mind helping people, but to come to those who do so much damage to us, that is an other matter. In any case we are there to help them spiritually, because we are convinced that is something they really could need first.

Concerning the mater of faith this is really an important issue. In Belgium and Holland we even see the general traditional churches battling to have people in their churches. Many churches have closed down or are standing for sale, and those which are still used even do not offer a service once a week.

Nobody can ignore that there is no interest in church, God and in God and His commandments.

Proposed new "unity and diversity" c... — Proposed new “unity and diversity” chaplain insignia. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Recent statistics show that, in the West at least, religious faith is on the decline. In the UK, belief in God has been falling at a rate of about 1% per annum – until 2016, when it fell by 4%! In Australia 52% of the population were still identified as Christian, but an unprecedented 30% now registered themselves as having “no religion”. Even in the USA the figure has dropped below 90%, and with a lower percentage among the young.

The decline of faith has brought about a significant change in attitudes towards those who still hold on to their beliefs. As Christadelphians our views on creation, marriage, parenting and morality can disqualify us from becoming adoptive parents, and may even prejudice a job application. Our dogmatism about the truth of Bible teaching does not go down well in this ‘post-truth’ age, in which truth is ‘what one chooses to believe’. Witnessing to one’s faith was once seen as praiseworthy; now, it can fall foul of equality laws aimed at stopping discrimination against minorities on the basis of their racial, religious, or sexual identity.

Romans 1 describes a society very similar to our own:

“They have exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and have offered reverence and worship to created things instead of to the Creator … Thus, because they have not seen fit to acknowledge God, he has given them up to their own depraved way of thinking, and this leads them to break all rules of conduct” (verses 25-28). The Lord’s question comes to mind: “When the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8).

[For a complete version of this Signs of the Times article, please see September’s issue of The Christadelphian, where you also can find the start of a new brief series on the work of the Almighty – ‘Providence’, by Brother Stephen Hill (Aberfoyle Park, Adelaide), ] > Individual issues and even individual articles can be purchased from the website.