What does growing secularization mean for the Advent Christian Church?

How has the process of societal secularization benefited Christianity in the West? Why?

Societal secularization benefits Christianity immensely as it spurs on the mission-oriented church to become increasingly creative and agile. Noll writes that “evangelists inside Western societies... witnessed significant advances”[1]in the 18th and 19th centuries as secularization increased and Christendom continued to lose its grip on culture and society. This secularization led to the formulation of revival and mission societies across Europe. As the landscape changed for Christians and the acceptance of Christianity decreased, the people of God discovered new ways to reach the world around them with the Gospel.

Some might consider secularization to negatively impact the Christian’s ability to practice their faith in good conscience. One might even believe that receptivity to the Gospel becomes more challenging. However, in addressing the rise of revivalists and evangelists, Noll points out that “the visibility of their continued successes, which in turn paved the way for the later work of celebrated preachers like D. L. Moody, showed that the secularization of the West was not going to blot out the faith. Similar innovation, in a similar diversity of forms, also marked Christian social outreach throughout the nineteenth century.”[2] Secularization spurred diversity in methodology and increased the effectiveness of Gospel missions.

How might the history of secularization and the church’s response inform the church today? Ed Stetzer presents one problem with secularization in America, “When secular culture moves further and further from biblical norms, perceptions develop shadows—even corruptions—of biblical reality.”[3] Stetzer goes on to say, “In other words, secular people may be familiar with some religious terminology or ideas, but their familiarity is often different from its original meaning.”[4] Today’s widespread usage is the command from Jesus to “love your neighbor as yourself,” which is often used to correct Christians seeking to share the Gospel’s exclusivity and the biblical norms of morality. Secular society misinterprets this passage to mean agreeing with others is loving. However, Jesus has in mind serving and caring for others self-sacrificially, including sharing the Gospel and its implications faithfully and kindly.

Secularization of the West today should spur the church to creativity in missions. At one time, church planting experts pursued a methodology of purchasing buildings. Some today are spreading the Gospel through House Church planting, meeting in coffee shops, public auditoriums, and more. Though some might continue bemoaning the disintegration of Christian cultural norms, the church continues to persevere as it spreads among societies that are the most hostile to the Gospel, such as Iran and China. As such, the student of church history can be confident in God’s providence, as he uses secularization to bring people into his Kingdom.

How can continued secularization impact the Advent Christian Church positively in the 21st century?

There are three categories that I want to consider that could benefit from the ingenuity spurred on by rising secularism: (1) missions, (2) doctrine, and (3) education. Each of these has influenced the Advent Christian church immensely over the years. The doctrines of conditional immortality saw the formation of our denomination. Advent Christians have most often been united in their shared efforts in foreign missions. The denomination’s institutions of higher learning continue to be a source of pride and unity.

Missions is an inclusive term that brings to mind Acts 1:8 when Jesus says, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” The rest of Luke’s account of the early church sees the principles of mission as contextualized by the Apostles. They went city to city sharing the Gospel in public and private, then brought those who came to Christ together, established and trained leaders, and finally, they left. This method of planting churches, or as I’ve shared previously, planting the Gospel, instructs us today as we seek to carry out the Great Commission in an increasingly secular society. When many churches today seek to grow their church through attractional models, the church that will see conversion growth will utilize relationships and simplicity as they share the life-changing message of Jesus Christ.

Practically speaking, our church plants, Lord willing, will be agile and creative in their methodology while maintaining a fervency for orthodox theology. Churches will be missional in that they see their community as a place to serve selflessly rather than a place for them to be served. Stetzer defined missional as “adopting the posture of a missionary, learning and adapting to the culture around you while remaining biblically sound. Think of it this way: missional means being a missionary without ever leaving your zip code. You can see how a particular congregation or denomination can be mission-minded without being missional.”[5] So the Advent Christian, moving forward, must view themselves as a missionary in the place that God has placed them. You and I are missionaries where we are and wherever we might be sent.

Doctrine is the formulation of what the Scriptures teach. I know this is a hot-button issue, which I’ve contributed. However, we need not be afraid of this term or our differences. One thing that certainly unites us is our agreement on Conditional Immortality and the soon return of Christ. We’ve spilled much ink regarding a formal Statement of Faith and its role in the life of the Advent Christian Church.  How binding our Statement of Faith is or will be, remains to be seen, yet there is a sense among many I know who desire to work together while maintaining a broad and orthodox tent. Considering the widespread secularization in the West and the struggle mentioned above with popular misinterpretations of Scripture, doctrinal precision and clarity will continue to be a need. Why? Because the world is looking for answers to spiritual questions and the Advent Christian approach of “What’s true for you?” will remain inadequate and unpersuasive.

We have the arduous task of clarifying what we believe while maintaining our historical stance of soul competency. A.J. Smith references Al Mohler, President of The Southern Baptist Seminary, who “stressed that no church was required to adopt the new confession and that the Convention had a long-standing policy of requiring denominational agencies to subscribe to the BFM in its most current form.”[6] Maybe a similar approach could be taken by our association while giving responsibility to conferences or regions to place under discipline those churches or ministers who go so far out of Advent Christian orthodoxy they could no longer be reasonably considered an Advent Christian. Our current approach aligns closer to the relativism of post-modernism than the belief that there is truth and that truth is found in Christ.

Education is fundamental, no matter the form or method. Consider the fervor in which the Southern Baptists fought over Seminary appointments in the 1980s amid the conservative resurgence. In the 1950s, liberal seminary “Professors would teach in the classroom and speak among their learned colleagues one way, but when they went out to preach in the churches, they would use traditional language.”[7] Though our fights are not over liberal or conservative theology, we find ourselves amid the methodology battle. Some pockets of our denomination have found a home in a very particular approach regarding Church-Based Theological Education. Others continue their studies at traditional Bible Colleges and Seminaries. ACGC and Berkshire Christian have partnered to form the Ministry Training Institute (MTI), which takes a church-based cohort approach to theological education.

It seems theological education continues to be important to Advent Christians, which is reasonable considering the cultural value of college and graduate degrees in America. However, the increasing student loan debt and decrease in average compensation for pastors and missionaries make traditional theological education increasingly impractical. CBTE and MTI, as found in our circles, can help raise and train leaders but will need to aid in equipping our people with the invaluable skills of research and critical thought. The questions of today and tomorrow will necessitate pastors and missionaries being familiar with how the Scriptures engage with sociology, moral philosophy, and more so that they can, in turn, teach these skills to their congregations. As seminaries migrate to online learning, so might our education entities. Accessibility to high-quality theological training will become increasingly important for churches and leaders alike.

Can I Finish?

On this blog, a lot of digital ink has been spilled over the direction and unity of our denomination. Though at times we see fractures in the foundation between those who disagree on methods of education, approaches to missions, and doctrine, there is hope in Christ. We are united to Him by faith, and the Apostle Paul calls us to have unity of mind. Let’s take the increasing secularization of culture as an opportunity to come together for the proclamation of the Gospel. We need unity but not necessarily uniformity. Let’s pour our efforts into expanding the Kingdom of God to the glory of God.

*This is an adaptation of a recent Seminary assignment.

[1] Mark A. Noll, Turning Points: Decisive Moments in the History of Christianity, Third Edition. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2012), 252.

[2] Ibid., 253.

[3] Ed Stetzer, Planting New Churches in a Postmodern Age (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman, 2003), 10.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ed Stetzer, Planting Missional Churches (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2006), 19.

[6] A.J. Smith, The Making of the 1963 Baptist Faith and Message (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2008), 7.

[7] Ibid., 23.