The Fire We Can Light: The Role of Religion in a Suddenly Different World

Where did everyone go? For two or three years, whoever was not calling for top-to-bottom revolution in the name of Jesus was irrelevant to the media, on the lecture circuit, in the planning centers of the seminaries. One could rise to the occasions with reference to non-violent change, innovation, new politics - and talk into an echo chamber. A call for political involvement was square. Once again, where did the revolutionaries go? After the flirtations of the 1960s, they would put out post-Marxian apologies on "The God That Failed." Now even the names are hard to remember... A morally uncertain society seeks self-justification and welcomes the silent assent or the encouragement of the churches. A bored and experience-starved generation in the 1970s seeks spiritual thrills and welcomes them from previously overlooked sources. A nation recovering from and reacting to upheavals solicits new stability and balance. The spirit of the age dictates and the growing and prospering half of American churchdom responds, advertising that now this half possesses what is relevant and appropriate. But if any lessons have been learned, the churches will have to find ways to resist temptations to go in pursuit of immediate success at the expense of an address to the whole counsel of God.