I dislike this line of reasoning because it suggests that as a rule of sorts, Christian faith evaporates when it confronts modernity. Thus one must conclude that education and freedom of choice lead to the falling away of Christians from their faith. To accept such a premise is to regard Christianity as a proposition mostly suited for the ignorant and backward.
Interesting point Rockingham. I can see why it comes off that way, but I think he is actually calling on Christians to engage more fully with modernity and to integrate faith with one’s profession or expertise. So that we as Christians can contribute to the cultural dialogue about all these complex subjects and have informed arguments to make.
The Chinese Christian situation is more complicated...Here is an article about why Chinese Christians who converted to faith out West (with all its modernity), find it difficult to cope at home:
In my view the two major challenges that modernity presents are distractions and peer pressure.
Prior to the modern era most of one’s time was taken up by task that contributed to continued survival what little time was left one used to procreate or pray for God’s aid in one’s continued survival. Faith was a help to keep one’s spirits which was necessary to overcome the challenges that life presented.
For us living in the industrial world life is much easier than those who lived in the age of Christendom. Modern life also offers a cornucopia of entertainment diversions with which to occupy the ample free time that living in the modern age provides.
Death is no longer the constant threat that it once was. Modern sanitary systems and practices make food borne diseases relatively rare. Broken bones are not the threat to life that they once were. Most of the common diseases that were frequent killers in the 18th century and now rarely deadly.
The causes of death in the age of Christendom were mysteries. That uncertainty drove the mind to God. The community sought the face of God and those that openly doubted God’s existence were pushed out of the community or were shunned.
Most of the hard facts of life that once drove the mind to God are no longer the hard facts of life and have been replaced by cheap entertainment.
Today in a large part the table has turned, and God’s existence is openly challenged and dismissed. To openly profess God’s existence and omnipresence is to be considered odd, eccentric or maybe dangerous.
Peer pressure in modern life is on the side of the adversary. All of the distractions of life are on the side of the adversary. Politics is on the side of the adversary. In my estimation even the Pope is on the side of the adversary.
The Church is on the ropes and needs to punch its way out.
I concur.
The truth the left hates is that Christianity inspired and informed Western Civilization: philosophy, literature, painting, music, and science.
The Hannibal-like elephant in the European living room is that over 400 years of Muslim invasions are primarily responsible for the Dark Ages, not Christianity.
The current situation philosophically is the result of the successful century-long usurpation of public education by the Frankfurt School.
I now include private education, including seminaries - starting with Fuller Theological. They are heresy factories promulgating human hubris, not humility. I have met too many heretical seminarians in my life to think otherwise.
Further, so-called Christian colleges and universities are now adopting communist propaganda on illegal aliens, environmental issues, and homoerotic lifestyles. They are veritably tripping over themselves to seem modern (read: leftist).
finally, so-called Christian charities are almost all Marxist organizations aimed at destroying America from within by flooding it with aliens who reject Western Civilization.