Wha' happened?

I just finished That Old Time Religion in Modern America: Evangelical Protestants in the Twentieth Century by D.G. Hart and it amazed me to read the events which were recorded. Dr. Hart basically showed the decline in Christian influence over American culture occured in the 20th century. He basically shows a rise and fall effect of conservative Christian influence over the culture and how Christians basically "lost" in certain decades and so on.

Anyway, I am going to list some of my thoughts on why I think the Christian dominance wained during parts of the 20th century.

1. Conservative Christians became too comfortable- it seemed that instead of continuing to influence everyday culture, American Christians became lethargic in their influence.

2. Too reactionary-again, this comes from lethargy. It's like being asleep in a hammock on a nice summer day, when you were only going to rest, and having a horsefly bite you on the nose. You get mad because you were caught off gaurd.

3. Dispensationalism- I know this is could irritate some readers, but bear with me. There appears to be too much of a widespread focus on the "end times" so that the pessimism of how "today" should be really led to some of the lack of reaction to many things that were taking place in the culture.

4. Retreat- Christians lost much of the culture. Instead of working to transform traditional and new art mediums which were gaining popularity in the 20th century (especially early 20th), they retreated. I will say that Christians were the first to really make radio a viable media option early on, but it became so focused on the subculture, that it wasn't accessible to the broader culture. Also, many Christian subgroups became known more for what they stood against, rather than what they stood for.

5. Infighting- I think this is a no-brainer to me, and Dr. Hart did not touch on this topic because his subject matter did not really lend to it, but I think it is worthy of consideration. So much infighting goes on in Chrisitanity today, but even back "in the day". A few things come to my mind. Carl McIntire separating from the Orthodox Presbyterians and Westminster Seminary over minor issues in practice; the many Baptist infightings such as Independents not liking the Southern Baptists (and vice versa), and Independents accusing John MacArthur of not "believing in the blood". There are hosts of other things which have transpired over the past 90 years or so, which really could have been avoided. I think this is a key point to consider even today with some of the infighting which goes on over matters which could be handled in a different way.

For me, the bottom line is that Christians need to be more aware of how the "outside" is percieving us, and that the way we treat each other and the way we interact with the broader culture has real implications, not only for the present, but the future as well.

Oh, and can we please stop fighting against modernism, post-modernism took care of that for us.