In his book Death in the City, Francis Schaeffer makes many points that still apply today about the 'post-Christian' culture of his day. All through the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s we find books and essays about the post-Christian culture of that time. Although much of what they wrote still applies to us we must not make the mistake so many of our contemporaries do: that of thinking we still live in a post-Christian culture. We now live in a non-Christian culture. There is no death in the city: the city is dead!
Many people, even today, think of Western culture as 'post-Christian'. This basically means that the culture is decaying because it has turned away from its Christian base, dying slowly. However, most people today do not consciously reject this base because they are ignorant of it. The base is gone! We do no live in an anti-Christian day, as I say most people are ignorant of Christianity, but it is definitely non-Christian. How could it be that few have noticed this change? They are not to blame, as Aristotle said 'The occurrence of an important transition in customs often passes unnoticed.' [1] This will still decay slowly into the anti-Christian culture under the Antichrist, but that is a different sort of decay. It is no longer the tearing down of the Christian base, but the building up of something else that will become the new base in the end times. It will be anti-Christian.
So we are living in the partial vacuum between the Christian base that was dying during the post-Christian age and the 'new' anti-Christian base that will be built up during this non-Christian one. What does this mean to us? In his book Schaeffer said, '…we are not ready for a reformation and revival.' [2] People then could hope that we eventually would be ready. Indeed, there was a major revival between then and now, but apparently it was not enough. Nowadays we should not make this our primary focus. To take one example from many, there are those who hope abortion will be outlawed again, but it won't. Schaeffer made the great point that 'You can hear it over and over again—all kinds of secondary solutions to secondary problems. Of course these are problems, but they are not the central problem.' [3] All the 'issues' of today, like abortion, are secondary problems. Does this mean we stop working and preaching against them? Of course not, but they should not be our primary focus. This may sound fatalistic, but remember that the end must come sometime, and there must be a lot of degradation before anyone will believe the lies of the Antichrist.
So what shouldbe our main focus? The answer to this is twofold. First and foremost we must stop quibbling amongst ourselves on minor issues. In the end does salvation hinge on what point in the Tribulation Jesus will return? We agree thatHe will return. Does it finally matter what kind of music is 'okay' and what is not? All these arguments do is cause the unsaved to write us off. Second, we must focus on personal evangelism. One-on-one evangelism will win more, and more effective, converts than all the impersonal signs, ads, and tracts you can have. In our individualistic culture impersonal methods just don't work, and now without a Christian base we must all so tell them what's wrong before we offer to fix it. The concept of sin is almost completely alien to them. This necessary explanation is not something that can be properly conveyed impersonally.
(The scene is in Hell, at the induction ceremony for selected Devils into the Hall of Pain. The head of the Hall has just announced that Screwtape has been selected and he rises to make his acceptance speech:)
Your Imminence, your Disgraces, my Thorns, my Shadies, and Gentledevils: [4]
Looking back over my illustrious career there have been many successful endeavours which I have been involved in, but by far the greatest of these was the work I did on the project that removed the base put in by the Enemy from human culture. I am happy to inform you that we have succeeded! Hell is ready to move into the next stage, where we build up ourbase. This will require several changes in the way we do things, however before I say anything more on this I would like to mention the current state of affairs.
In a toast I proposed a few decades back [5]I said that we were successfully increasing the number of souls we damned, while at the same time the quality was diminishing. Since then the unimaginable has happened: we have more than doubled the number of souls damned! The quality has continued to go down, however this is trivial. The reason for this is that, because of their pathetic quality, even the most novice tempters can handle more than ten of these souls (who are completely ignorant of the Enemy or His plan) at one time! Back in my days of active service we each were assigned one soul which was our responsibility, once we got better we were allowed more, but even the most experienced of us never got more than five! It has been getting easier and now how many of our tempters have numbers this small?
The quality will soon be going up. We have been building new foundations in the absence of the Enemy's, one of the prominent ones being the worship of ourselves. Not only does this afford pleasure to the particular tempters and to our Father Below at being worshipped, but also these devotees of ours are much tastier once they are here. There is a massive increase among all the bases we have begun to build of Yoga, Transcendental meditation, and Channelling. All of these things allow us to use our strategies for creating devotees in the East in the West as well. Slowly we will make this the only base. Not only will we have a huge number of souls, but they shall also all be of better quality! Once they begin to worship us we can convince the pathetic souls to do innumerable thing that are an abomination to our Enemy: things like the sacrifice of their children, the drinking of blood, and 'religious' sexual perversion.
In the future we will need less tempers, since each will be able to handle such great amounts of souls. Many more devils will be needed in administration, though. Plans are being laid to increase our power in all areas of the globe, and we are getting constantly closer to there being only one government over all of the planet. We will then need many in administration here to co-ordinate the operation of that government. Eventually the whole base for their culture will be the worship of us, and the hate of our Enemy. Once this happens our Father Below plans to possess the leader of the Earth's government. We will win!
Looking forward to this dark and diabolical future I proudly step up to my role in the brining about of this. You were right to select me for entrance into the spiteful and deliciously dirty Hall of Pain. I proudly and arrogantly accept this reward that I have obviously earned through my perfect service record.
[1] Aristotle Politics 1303 a 22
[2] Francis Schaeffer Death in the City p. 31
[3] Francis Schaeffer Death in the City p. 58
[4] Due credit should be given to C. S. Lewis, not only for creating the character of Screwtape, but also for this easily adapted 'greeting'.
[5] C. S. Lewis 'Screwtape Proposes a Toast'