Secularization is on the rise in America. There is evidence to prove it. As a member of the American Christian community, I see a lot of consternation around this fact. We spend a lot of our time whining about where society is headed, fondly recollecting “the good ol’ days,” and wondering where we went wrong. This makes sense; even if you aren't Christian nor American, it's easy to empathize with their plight. They, and I, believe they have found a great truth, and it is only natural that the truth should win out, right? Imagine the dismay when it does not.

I don’t share in this dismay, at least not in same way. I look at the past, and Christianity has often been strongest when under scrutiny. When Christians actually achieve our goal of being distinct, or “set apart,” we experience profound growth, both as individuals and as the Church at large. That is clearly not present in America today. You can know someone for months, and, unless the topic is explicitly brought up, it is nearly impossible to detect signs of their faith or lack thereof. The only thing truly unique about us is the rather unpopular bundle of positions on social issues we subscribe to, which have the side-effect of making Christianity seem hateful, anti-science and even dumb.

There was a time when this was not the case. I recently read Robert Louis Wilken’s "The Spirit of Early Christian Thought," in which he says some very interesting things about intellectualism in Roman times:

“One of the most remarkable features of intellectual life in the Roman empire is not only that the church attracted gifted thinkers from the society but also that their writings became the object of serious criticism by the best philosophical minds of the day, among them Galen in the second century and Porphyry in the third.”

I often find myself wondering why this isn’t the case now. Why does Christianity have a stigma of being anti-intellectual? Why are its teachings so easily dismissed in the modern day?

Since its most nascent times, the American Church has been characterized by individualism and rebellion. This mentality finds its origin in our religious ancestors, many of whom came to America after running from the persecution of Europe. This is obviously a very superficial account of history, but it reveals an important point: we gained religious freedom at the cost of our intellectual tradition.

There is a myth that travels through the ranks of American Christianity that “you and your Bible” is all you need for a robust and orthodox faith. This is simply not true. The Wesleyan Quadrilateral, a simple and commonly used theological tool, places scripture as the primary source for theological reflection, but tradition comes right after it in the hierarchy. Without tradition, how can we even begin to discriminate between good and bad interpretation, doctrine and practice? Yet the typical American church service won’t even have a taste of the past. We just make up our theology and beliefs on the fly.

To give a personal example, for years I was taught that a good Christian must believe in a literal Creation account (AKA that the world was created in six 24 hour days). This is not a traditional Christian teaching. I have learned from Wilken and other sources that “[t]he church fathers knew that the account in Genesis could not be taken literally.” Nonetheless, this is a widely propagated belief in the Christian community. We have abandoned doctrine because it feels too strict, we have thinned our liturgy because it feels too old, and we have fractured our unity because we have more confidence in our own feeble rationality than the vast intellectual tradition behind us.

So while it is a tragedy that Christianity is shrinking (in America, not worldwide), perhaps we have much to gain as well. The secular criticisms slowly eat away at shallow understanding, but what is left behind is strong and intelligent and meaningful. The Christian must return to a spirit of welcoming and engaging criticism, and he or she can only do this by embracing the richness of our past. Let us show the secularists that Christianity does not have to take the lazy road that it walks in America today.