A worthy fight?

Want to know why the church is in decline in the US? There isn’t a nice single reason. The decline has been going on for decades though. A changing culture? The fact that the church doesn’t have its privileged place in the culture anymore and it has had difficulty adjusting? Generational shifts in their relationship with institutions like the church? All that and more.

One of the symptoms of a church in decline is that it spends time and energy fighting over things that just don’t matter as opposed to investing it’s time and energy on things that impact people’s lives.

Case in point would be the “controversy” over the most recent Lil Nas X’s most recent song and video. Vox has a pretty good article on this. Here’s the essence of this — There is a segment of the church that wants to bring the culture wars back. The folks who are throwing a hissy fit over his song and video probably don’t listen to rap, and wouldn’t know Lil Nas X if they came across him on the street. It’s only because the song and video triggers a supposed controversy that they are getting on their cultural and ethical high horse. I wish they held the same standard to their favored politicians, rather than turn a blind eye or make excuses when their favored politicians do something inexcusable.

When these things come up, people watch and see what the church does and says. And they don’t want to be a part of it. Why would they? There’s a loud segment of the church that is spending time, energy and resources fighting over the lyrics of a song and the accompanying…