How the Church is Failing to Protect Freedom in America

Renowned author and lecturer Os Guinness is dedicated to combating the rise of modernism and educating the Church on how to maintain Kingdom values in a constantly changing world.

He believes the Church in America has far less influence than other, smaller groups, because it has melded into culture.

"The scandal of the American Church is that it's a huge majority of Americans, and yet has less cultural influence than tiny minorities" such as the LGBTQ population, which is "less than two percent of America, but punch well above their weight," he told CBN News.

"The Church has assimilated into American culture and has lost its salty character," Guinness added.

Guinness believes the Church has lost this influence because the modern world has shaped it more than the Gospel has.

"You take, say, authority. Consumerism has come in, so we're no longer a people under the authority of Jesus, or the authority of the scriptures," Guinness said. 

"Things like, pick and choose the church of your choice, the music of your choice, and so on," he continued. 

"Preferentialism" has "riddled the Church" and is causing people to lose reverence for the Holy Word of God and thus "undermined the authority of Jesus." 

Guinness says the Church has wrongly placed itself under the authority of preaching, instead of scripture, and is thus failing to properly combat such challenges.

"American preaching is soft and shallow in all sorts of ways," he added. 

Guinness believes two combating mindsets –  Judeo-Christian values vs. Marxist ideology --- are at the core of the divide in America.

"America is suffering its greatest crisis since the civil war," he said. 

In his book, A Free People's Suicide, Guinness explains how freedom, in the end, is the greatest enemy of freedom. 

"There are always three ways (freedom) undermines itself," he said. "One, freedom becomes permissiveness and then license… Two, freedom loving people love security – safety. They so surround themselves with it, they're no longer free," said Guinness. "Thirdly, freedom loving people so prize freedom, they'll do anything to fight for it, including things that contradict freedom." 

He also says every generation has to rekindle freedom, but the overwhelming pressure of political correctness on college campuses and in the media is putting out that flame.

"You can see the movements on the campuses and in the press and media – say the left wing Antifa and so on stifling free speech – that is the end of American freedom as we've known it, if they are to triumph," Guinness said.

"Civic education dropped out of the American public schools in the 1960s, and that's the problem," he also said. "So the American way of life, the American constitutional understanding, (it's) not being passed on." 

"You're always only one generation away from losing it," Guinness added. 

So what is the key to keeping freedom? Guinness says it's self-control and self-restraint. 

Guinness says the Church is, unfortunately, not instilling those traits. 

"(There's a) lack of discipleship, the lack of character growing out of that, the fruits of the Spirit and so on," he said. "The Church is not playing its role."

"We need revival, reformation within the Church," he also said. "We need to go back to scripture and say, are we living up to the calling, the charge that Jesus gave us, or not?"

"We gotta really see, are we closer to the world… or to what Christ called us to be?" he concluded.