Why I am excited for the marginalization of Christianity

So, now that I have hooked you with my title, let's start a conversation. I think Christianity is headed for the margins of Western society and I am excited. I believe(and statistics back me up) that you are going to see the "death" of Church in the West. I say "death" because I view it as an amazing opportunity for the Church. Christianity is a religion at its best when it is being persecuted. It operates better when its followers are devalued by society. 

Jesus went so far 

as to claim that we are blessed when we are persecuted. And in fact, that is a kind of litmus test for Christians, if we are not being persecuted, we are not being true to the values of God's Economy. 

Christianity has long been the sponsoring religion of 

Western culture(since about 350 AD). Every major Western society(with the exception of perhaps the USSR, if you consider that to be a Western society) has been explicitly or 

implicitly Christian. Christians have been in power, they have been the norm. If you were not a Christian in Western society, you were a heretic, pagan, or at least socially deviant.  

This is simply not the case in the West anymore. We are moving toward, and indeed may have arrived at, a pluralistic society. The Church in the last 50 years has decried this change as a declination in "moral" value. As a result of our complaining because we were not living up to our own standards, we are now seen as: hypocritical, hateful, intolerant,and judgmental. We hold tightly our status as the sponsoring religion, we remind everyone that America was once a Christian nation. We have never stopped to consider that the relationship of the Church to the state may be the most damaging relationship the Church has ever entered into. For several reasons:1) the Church has a difficult time criticizing the government(i.e. the war in Iraq) 2) The Church becomes complicit in any sin the government engages in(i.e. slavery)3) The Church is at serious risk of having its identity confused with that of a nation. 

This third danger is worth exploring further, is the Church in an identity crisis? Can we separate America from the Church? Who is more important, a Christian or an American(it's a trick question)? To someone outside of the influence of both the West and the Church do they see two institutions, or are they viewed as synonymous? Is there a difference between a Christian and an American? Who do you pledge allegiance to first? Is an American Christian justified in killing a German Christian during WW2? We can see the dangers of the mixing of Church and state. 

Furthermore, the marginalization of the Church provides the Church with two great opportunities 1) to be it own peculiar kind of economy/kingdom 2) to empathize with those in the margins rather than create the margins. Let's explore them in order.

1) The Church can now be as "weird" as Jesus. When we were the sponsoring religion, we had a certain image to keep up, now we are already viewed as weird, so why not embrace it? Why not celebrate the fact that we worship a king who was crucified by a power weaker than He? Why not marvel at how the small can topple the big? Why not be grateful that we are no longer the big? Why not create our own culture/economy/kingdom which esteems the value of every human life? Why not reject money as a motivation? Why not forgive those who hurt us? Why not feed the hungry? Why not laud the fact that the only way to become great is to become nothing? Why not run toward our savior like a child to his Father?

2) Being in the margins makes us acutely aware of the pain and suffering of the ones sharing the space with us. We can now empathize with the poor, oppressed, and down trodden. They are no longer projects, but equals. They are no longer the products of our lifestyles(hopefully) but fellow mourners. We have a wonderful opportunity to demonstrate that the margins aren't so bad, and that maybe, just maybe, that is where God wanted his ragtag group of nobodies to be all along. Maybe He knows that it is in the margins that we are most likely to encounter Him.

Tune in next time for a discussion on the similarities between the culture of the early church and the post modern church. ( I use that word to designate a time in history, not a philosophical viewpoint)