In the March 2024 issue of Christianity Today, Kevin Brown, president of Asbury University in Wilmore, KY, wrote an article titled “What the Asbury Revival Taught Me about Gen Z.” The subtitle is, “A year ago, I saw the cure for casual Christianity.”
Two sentences in particular grabbed my attention:
“Students are less interested in ‘beliefs’ than in a faith that works. There is a trenchant meaning vacuum in our country fostering a sweeping spiritual hunger” (p. 24).
While the notion of valuing behavior over beliefs may seem appealing, it can lead to a significant misunderstanding of the essence of Christianity.
The condition of everlasting life is not behavior. We are born again by believing in Jesus for what He promises: everlasting life (John 3:16).
We also live the Christian life by faith, not dedication, determination, and social involvement.
Salvation is by faith alone, apart from works. And sanctification is by the faith walk.
What Brown is saying strikes me as a way to keep people from seeing the need to believe Jesus’ promise of irrevocable salvation. Brown seems to believe in Lordship Salvation. He isn’t concerned about believing “a set of propositions” (p. 25). His concern is about commitment and counting the cost of following Christ.
He cited the Barna Group as saying that members of Gen Z “prioritize behavior over words as a strategy for sharing faith” (p. 25).
Brown said that Asbury students “embody resilient, committed, costly faith in Jesus Christ as an antidote to the casual Christianity that has emptied church pews in recent decades” (p. 25).
I’m not sure what Brown means by “casual Christianity.” I think he means people who enjoy the church services but are not socially engaged in improving our society. He wrote, “A casual exit from church is a function of a casual faith” (p. 25). In other words, behavior, not beliefs, keeps people coming to church.
He went on,
“As theologian and author Stanley Hauerwas has suggested, pockets of contemporary Christianity have become domesticated into a set of propositions that we mentally carry but that have little bearing on our day-to-day life. Casual faith produces a belief system that demands little and utters pale statements like ‘I believe Jesus is Lord but that is just my personal opinion’” (p. 25).
There is, of course, some truth in what Brown is saying. Behavior matters. However, beliefs matter, too. Our beliefs determine our behavior, not the other way around. Paul said that we are to be transformed “by the renewing of our minds” (Rom 12:2; cf. 2 Cor 3:18). We are born again by faith in Christ for everlasting life. And we grow and mature and produce good works by having our minds renewed by the Word of God.
Keep grace in focus.
