Gideon Strauss has an essay at Comment wherein he discerns four challenges facing contemporary Christianity. The four he identifies are those posed by contemporary liberalism, Islam, China, and the emergence of Christianity in the third world.
Here are some excerpts. First are his thoughts on the challenge posed by liberalism:
The most perplexing of these root challenges is also the most immediate to most of us: the challenge of modern liberalism. I am at turns amused and frustrated by my academic colleagues who continue to insist that we live in postmodern times. The suggestion that somehow the spiritual force of modernity has been exhausted and replaced by something altogether different simply does not ring true to what I experience in my own daily work nor to the cultural forces I see at work in the world.
Lest I be misunderstood, this is not a screed against constitutional democracy or a market economy, both of which I belief are blessings to humanity with rich potential for responsible cultural action. Instead, I am concerned about the spiritual power that animates both liberal democracies and capitalist economies. It is a spiritual power that seeks to combine unfettered individual liberty with the commodification and bureaucratic subjugation of all of nature - and that recognizes no law or power beyond or independent of nature.
I am astonished by the power of liberal capitalism to persuade even those whose deepest commitments should predispose them against the libertarian erosion of communal ties and the grasping extension of market logic beyond its proper economic sphere that there is no alternative. Living in a society guided by liberal capitalism is like being submerged in an acid ocean stretching to the horizon - there seems no possible escape, and the very flesh is being eaten off our bones.
Having seen the pragmatic power of liberal capitalism in action up close, in the shaping of the decision-making of marxist politicians in Africa and of evangelical social activists in North America, I am perplexed by the difficulty of figuring out how to live faithfully to the gospel, in every sphere of life, in the smothering embrace of a society that is radically and comprehensively guided by this sweetly destructive force. Given that there is no new found land remaining to which Christians can repair to establish a new city on a hill, how should we now live, in the very midst of this often so seemingly welcoming but yet so profoundly antagonistic social order?
On the Islamic challenge:
What is not at all clear is how Christians should respond to the struggle between modernity and Salafiyyah Islam for global hegemony. I have heard Christians argue that within the context of North America we are more closely cobelligerent with Muslims, against liberal modernity, because of our supposedly shared concern for religion finding a space within a secularist political order, and because of our supposedly shared concern for what is here often term a "social conservative" stance on issues like marriage and abortion. I have also heard Christians argue that within the context of what first Bernard Lewis and then Samuel Huntington has termed the "clash of civilizations," Christianity and liberal modernity are - as the religious expressions of "Western civilization" - closely allied against the global expansion of the Islamic ummah.
Concerning China:
The relationship of China as a geopolitical entity to Christianity as a religion has fascinating and troubling world historical potential. David Aikman, the author of Jesus in Beijing: How Christianity Is Transforming China and Changing the Global Balance of Power, suggests that China might in this century become substantially Christian, and explores (in an interview with National Review's Kathryn Jean Lopez) some of the consequent options:
What would a non-Christian China be like if it became a superpower capable of rivaling the U.S.? Probably dangerous and unpredictable. A Christian China would be far more likely to view its role in the world as containing a global moral responsibility, an "Augustinian" national self-view, if you like.
China presents its own Christians with a cultural challenge very different from that presented by liberal modernity, but perhaps no less perplexing. How does one live within an established social and political order that is at once seemingly tolerant of and fundamentally antagonistic to one's most basic commitments and convictions. For Christians in North America, one additional question is how we relate to Chinese Christians as our co-religionists in a complex geopolitical situation, particularly given the high probability of serious international conflict between America and China in the twenty-first century, predicted by pundits like Robert Kaplan?
Finally, on third world Christianity:
While, from my Christian perspective, the growth of Christianity in Africa, Asia, and Latin America is an exciting historical development, this massive shift in religious adherence has as yet resulted in only limited positive social change.
The most obviously troubling problem in this regard is the devastating AIDS pandemic in Africa, which is almost entirely the result of personal sexual practices that are in every respect at odds with a Christian sexual ethic. In the long run, however - if we are to take as an example the slow emergence of Christian cultural influence in western Europe between, say, the deposition of Romulus Augustus as Roman emperor in AD 476 and the crowning of Charlemagne as Imperator Romanorum in AD 800 - it is entirely possible that Christianity will result in a rich cultural flowering in Africa, in every sphere of life.
Strauss offers much more in his article than has been excerpted here and much of what he says is very insightful. It would be good to read the whole thing.
