Student Notes 1 The Game Has Changed

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SERIES: NO TIME TO BE TIMID

SESSION ONE, FALL 2015

THE GAME HAS CHANGED Our culture has changed and it will continue to change. It is becoming and, over time, will become even more hostile towards those who believe and stand up for what Christians have always believed: This ain’t your father’s America – the game has changed. And it will not be won by men who are soft, timid and tame. 2 Timothy 1.7-9: For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline. So never be ashamed to tell others about our Lord. And don’t be ashamed of me, either, even though I’m in prison for him. With the strength God gives you, be ready to suffer with me for the sake of the Good News. For God saved us and called us to live a holy life. God did not give us a spirit of timidity – and that’s a good thing because in the future our culture will put increased pressure on us to compromise our faith, keep our beliefs to ourselves and go with the progressive flow of an ever evolving _________. Men who are soft on what they believe, soft on what they stand for, and soft on whether they live for an audience of One or for the approval of others, are not going to make it as faithful followers of Jesus Christ in what the United States of America is becoming. The world has always depended on men who have said, “No matter what the cost, here I am, send ____.” A wave is coming that calls darkness light and proclaims _____ as truth. And the Lord is saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” How has the game changed? We Christians no longer have _______________ advantage. In practically every sport teams playing at home win more games than they lose. In Major League Soccer and NCAA basketball the home team wins nearly _______ of the time. In college football and the NBA, teams playing at home win over _____ of their games. The home team is ___________ with its field. The fans are with you when you play at home and you can feed off their energy. Research shows that the ______ tend to rule in the home team’s favor. The __________________ levels of players on the home team increase at game time significantly more than they do for the visiting team. The “territorial imperative”(aka “not in our house”) provides a mental and physical edge enjoyed by those who believe they are defending their home turf.

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Play an away game and your __________ life is upended: your routine is disrupted and you spend time traveling that you normally use for preparation and rest. Your surroundings are unfamiliar and at times uncomfortable. The crowd is hostile and the noise can be deafening, making it difficult to ________ or to communicate with your teammates. For centuries Christians in the Western world in general, and in the United States in particular, have enjoyed home field advantage. We were not only playing in a cultural arena we were familiar with, the Christian faith had been _______________ in creating it. The teachings and the values of Jesus were the architecture that had formed the social turf we played on. The crowd was with us. For centuries western culture was “_____________.” We enjoyed a perennial home field advantage George Hunter: The church enjoyed a worldview “monopoly” for many centuries. People viewed reality through a Christian lens. Christianity was Western society’s official and privileged religion. Virtually everyone in Western society was a baptized and catechized Christian. Over time, though, this has changed and you have felt it. David Bentley Hart: Conditions in the world of print have never before been so propitious for sanctimonious tirades against religion …. Never before have the presses or the press been so hospitable to journalists, biologists, minor philosophers, amateur moralists … and film actors to denounce the savagery of faith … and to commend the virtues of spiritual disenchantment to all who have the wisdom to take heed. The constant mantra of the new atheists is that religion is the principal cause of violence in the world and the chief cause of division, ignorance and oppression and should, therefore, be abandoned for the sake of peace and _____________. The President: They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them …. According to the Pew Research Center the number of Americans who identify as Christian has decreased by over _____ since 2007. The fastest growing spiritual affiliations or non-affiliations within the US are “nothing in particular,” agnostic atheist, and ___________. Marcus Borg: When I ask them to write a short essay on their impression of Christianity, they consistently use five adjectives: Christians are literalistic, antiintellectual, self-righteous, judgmental, and bigoted.

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From UnChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity: The percentage of young people between the ages 16-29 who think the following words describe present day Christianity. 91% Anti-homosexual ____ Judgmental 85% Hypocritical 78% Old-fashioned 75% Too political ____ Out of touch with reality 68% Boring The stereotypes that are used to portray Christians in the media – film, television, talk shows, etc – are right in line with these findings. Either we don’t exist and our views don’t need to be considered or when we are portrayed in popular culture, we are the ones who want to enforce outdated, freedom-squashing, pleasure-denying rules that we are hypocritically breaking ourselves. “If all you knew about American culture is what you saw on television, you’d come to the conclusion that there are more gays in the U.S. than Christians and that they are much nicer people.” According to Gallup the American public estimates that 23% of Americans are gay or lesbian while only ______ of adults in the US self-identify as GLBTQ. When it comes to those who control the thinking of secular culture, Christians are marginalized or demonized. The game has changed – we don’t have home field advantage anymore, the wind is not at our back, our culture’s referees will not be fair to us, and we cannot depend upon the folks in the stands to be on our side. It’s happening not just in the culture – it’s also happening in the __________. United Methodist pastor and at the time president of one of our United Methodist seminaries, Dr. Jerry Campbell stated that if students felt a need to lead persons of other religions to faith in Christ, they possessed “an ____________ perception of what it means to follow Jesus.” But I am not going to tell you that these cultural changes are terrible for Christians in the U.S. The church is not collapsing; it is being ____________. Some will fall away. But if we refuse to get ________, hard or mean; if we refuse to give up or give in; if we refuse to be intimidated by the culture and instead walk in the footsteps of our Lord who was a person of grace and truth, we can rise to the occasion, grow stronger in our faith, and do great work for the Kingdom.

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What’s the plan? To be ___________. To stand in the crossroads and fight – not the way the world fights – but to fight nevertheless. Yes, we’re playing away games now. But you can have your best games when you know that it’s you against the world, when you know you’re not going to get the calls, when you know that you’ve got to pull together or you’re lost. Johnny Cash: I won't back down … No, I won’t back down. You can stand me up at the gates of hell But I won't back down

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