'We've Reached a Time of Christian Invisibility in Our Culture', George Barna Says

"Jesus didn't come to build institutions, He came to build people. And we see that model in His life. He devoted the ministry portion of His life to investing in individuals. And that's what each of us who are followers of Christ need to be doing.”

These days there is too much political disagreement on what "build people" and "investing in individuals" means. Is he talking about social justice?

Michie said:

“There is poor leadership in seminaries that mislead local churches into thinking that they're actually training individuals whom God has called to be leaders and are qualified to be leaders and certifying them to lead local churches, not knowing any better bringing them on,” he said. Despite seminaries having “good intentions,” Barna said they are setting up young leaders for failures.

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It's a good interview. Christianity in the US, maybe the entire West, is more self-centered than Christ-centered. Seminaries...well, I don't want to be anti-seminary here, but will note that some modern heretics reference a seminary professor, so this is hardly new. Remember one instance where a denomination took years to deal with doctrinal issues in a seminary rather than to address it swiftly.

On discipleship, I'm a fine one to speak as my own bible reading is lagging. But discipleship is something every believer should address., and my own lack of bible reading begs the question of why, and I suspect it gets back to the self-centered issue.

Who would have thought that by removing Christiqnity from public life, Christianity became invisible. Amazing!

Ignatius the Kiwi said:

Who would have thought that by removing Christiqnity from public life, Christianity became invisible. Amazing!

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It’s sad.

Don’t be surprised if Christians are eventually forced to worship underground. We are countercultural and some folks don’t like that.

You can't be promoting everything else and then be surprised when everything else becomes more popular. Rather than being considered a cornerstone of American life as it once was (debates about any kind of 'essential' Christian character of America as a country set aside), Christianity has become one of many options that a person or a family might explore, to be discarded as soon as football season or the kids' soccer games or the new season of the Bachelorette or whatever comes back. Now it seems that more and more people are choosing to fill that 'gap time' (which wasn't where God should've been relegated to in the first place, mind you) with more electronic amusements and explicit political goals in lieu of anything meaningful in any kind of lasting sense, like religion. American culture is largely focused on the disposable, and easily distracted by shiny things.

Barna makes some good points, but "invisibility" is an odd way to put it. My friends of other faiths have remarked how almost everyone gets Christmas and Easter as holidays from work, but having Rosh Hashanah as a day off is much rarer, and many people haven't even heard of Eid. Whether Christians are doing a good job is something to ponder, but I think we're plenty visible.

PloverWing said:

Barna makes some good points, but "invisibility" is an odd way to put it. My friends of other faiths have remarked how almost everyone gets Christmas and Easter as holidays from work, but having Rosh Hashanah as a day off is much rarer, and many people haven't even heard of Eid. Whether Christians are doing a good job is something to ponder, but I think we're plenty visible.

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The superficial markers of religion like a holiday or two which has been corrupted into a secular festival hardly speak to the public visibility of religion. If Easter and Christmas had retained their actual Christian meaning they would be just as invisible as any other religious day.

PloverWing said:

Barna makes some good points, but "invisibility" is an odd way to put it. My friends of other faiths have remarked how almost everyone gets Christmas and Easter as holidays from work,

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You mean Santa-related Sales Day and Cadbury Egg-related Sales Day? Those are two of my favorites of our many Happy Holidays.

PloverWing said:

but having Rosh Hashanah as a day off is much rarer,

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It's multiple days in a row in the middle of the week. It'd be like me trying to get Holy Week off of work. No employer is going to go for that.

PloverWing said:

and many people haven't even heard of Eid.

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I've heard of tons of Eids. Next major one in our calendar is Eid el Su'oud (Feast of the Ascension) on June 13th, which we don't get off of work either.

PloverWing said:

Whether Christians are doing a good job is something to ponder, but I think we're plenty visible.

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On a society-wide level, Christianity is visible like the US Post Office is visible: Everybody knows it's there, most people don't like having to deal with it directly, and it is assumed that it will just go on forever despite its changing fortunes even though nobody really wants to put anything into making sure that actually happens. As a consequence, they only ever hear anything about it when something goes wrong with it or when the people who actually work for it literally come to their doorstep begging for donations.

Michie said:

He also contended that churches use measures for success, such as attendance, fundraising, and infrastructure have little to do with Jesus’ mission.

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Good point.
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Focus on 'spiritual formation & renewal' are much needed..

dzheremi said:

On a society-wide level, Christianity is visible like the US Post Office is visible: Everybody knows it's there, most people don't like having to deal with it directly, and it is assumed that it will just go on forever despite its changing fortunes even though nobody really wants to put anything into making sure that actually happens. As a consequence, they only ever hear anything about it when something goes wrong with it or when the people who actually work for it literally come to their doorstep begging for donations.

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Your analysis is much more astute than Barna's. That's precisely what's happened. Most people view Christianity as a museum of antiquated cultural values, to either be accepted or rejected . Few want to seriously engage with it.

What is Christian visibility?

Is is specific values? Behaviors? Laws? Rituals?

Can even Christians agree on any of these?