Insightful analysis from Owen Strachan:
1. We are, in relative terms, beneficiaries of an era of unprecedented wealth. Capitalism comes in for hard critiques, but studies show that its advent coincides with soaring life-longevity and material prosperity. When you reach this state, you don't want to leave it.
2. We have grown up in a church-friendly culture (now under major renovation). I don't decry this history as some do. But we all have to acknowledge that being a majority culture will cause us to be less prophetic, less daring, than we might otherwise be.
3. We live in the age of the mega-watt spiritual celebrity, people who promise us wealth and ease and unending upward mobility. Whether we know it or not, easy-believism affects us all.
4. We've bought into a theology of grace that softens every edge and cushions every fall. More than we know, we're therapeutic and psychologized. There's a "gospel-driven" form of this problem. I call it "gospel self-help." Just like the secular kind, it makes us the focal point of our faith. Narcissism easily suffocates a courageous spirit.
5. We want to fit in more than ever, in part because our identities—even as evangelicals—are so this-worldly. We care tremendously what other people think of us. The worst thing for an undergrad today isn't an injury—it's to be "awkward" (in sing-song). We all fear man now. God and his inter-galactic holiness seems far off; your self-aware neighbor with her judgey gaze seems all too near.
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