Are Christians the New Extremists ?
Yes , and That ’ s Okay .
By Natasha Crain
Christians with a biblical worldview are now a minority in America . You might wonder if this is really true . After all , about 65 percent of Americans self-identify as Christians — certainly not a minority . But when researchers ask questions about specific beliefs and behaviors , only about 10 percent of Americans have what would be considered a “ biblical worldview ” ( holding basic beliefs consistent with the historic Christian faith and exhibiting corresponding behaviors ). Furthermore , researchers have found that not only are those with a biblical worldview now a small minority in America , they ’ re a small minority within the church .
Now , there are plenty of minority groups that don ’ t concern people much . I ’ m sure there are only a handful of people , for example , who eat pickles every morning for breakfast . No one cares . But it ’ s becoming clear to Christians with a biblical worldview that secular culture does care about our existence because it hates all we represent . In a very real sense , we ’ re increasingly being seen as a small and extreme faction of society .
UNDERSTANDING CHRISTIAN “ EXTREMISM ”
Read or watch anything in mainstream media that mentions “ conservative Christians ,” and you ’ ll immediately know from the tone that the term isn ’ t being used as a neutral descriptor . It ’ s now a pejorative that comes with a knowing nod and eye-roll among the supposedly more enlightened culture . I ’ m not necessarily talking about conservative in a political sense ; in secular usage , “ conservative ” is a blanket label to reference Christians who disagree with mainstream secular views . There ’ s often a correlation with politics , but it ’ s not exclusive to that .
The implication is that we ’ re those people — the hold-outs who won ’ t get on board with where the rest of society wants to go . We ’ re seen as an impediment to culturally defined progress because of how different our views are relative to today ’ s mainstream secularism .
The result is that secularists now see us with various degrees of indignation . As strange as it sounds to many Christians , we ’ re the new extremists — a minority group whose views are seen as 1 ) fundamentally different from the “ average ” view of secular culture and 2 ) concerning to the rest of society .
30 THE RENEWANATION REVIEW