Faith, Family, and the Future of Christianity

The greatest challenge that we face in passing on our Christian faith to our children and our grandchildren is the growing tide of secularism in America. Secularism is the idea that stemmed from the Enlightenment that God must be restricted to the private realm. But the private spirituality of the solitary, self-styled Christian will not withstand secularism. To live as a Christian in the 21st century West will require the organized faith community of the Church with its sacred traditions. The Enlightenment that introduced the modern age taught us to think individually. But the Biblical way of thinking is corporately and generationally. Christian tradition is how Christian faith is passed on from generation to generation. It is true that tradition must be kept alive by the Spirit. But rejection tradition wholesale leads to the evaporation of faith. This is why at Word of Life Church we are recovering and rehabilitating the word "tradition." Our grandchildren will not be Christians because of an emotional experience. They will be Christian by the process of formation through the traditions of prayer, scripture, sacrament, worship, creed, and calendar.