Prvidence - The Kingdom In Colflict

 July 4, 2015 

By any account these past couple weeks have not been positive for the Kingdom of God. In fact, the past two months have been historically negative for the Kingdom. On May 12th the Pew Research Center released its report on religion in America. It documented that the Christian share of the U.S. population has declined from 78.4% in 2007 to 70.6% in 2015. At the same time the number of Americans who describe themselves as atheist, agnostic, or "nothing in particular" has grown from 16.1% to 22.8%. Perhaps the only good news is that those who attend evangelical churches have increased by roughly 2 million since 2007.

The future of the faith looks shaky, as 35% of people 18-34 do not identify themselves with any branch of Christianity. A more recent Pew poll reports that this same generation strongly supports (73%) homosexuality and homosexual marriage. Six in ten Americans say a homosexual's orientation cannot be changed. Last week's SCOTUS ruling in favor of the national legalization of same-sex marriage was celebrated at the White House by nearly all media.

The Kingdom of God, in the traditional Christian sense, is under attack in the public square, the public schools, in universities, the news media, the entertainment media, and by government regulation. God's Gospel and people are being buffeted and expelled from the center of society, and now find themselves out of the mainstream. This also occurred nearly 3,000 years ago in ancient Israel. What occurred then is occurring today in America. When the Kingdom is under attack, we who are Following Christ Together must uphold it. Today's text describes the battle we are in, and how we are to fight.