I recently had a brief chat with a fellow Christian in the church I attend that revealed an interesting but potentially troubling view expressed in our movement.
The brother recently attended an international leadership conference for our worldwide churches in the US, where one of the speakers shared about the urgency we must have in building the Kingdom of God. To underline the urgency, the speaker apparently shared (based on what the brother told me) that in a few years Islam will be the World's major religion and if it keeps growing at the current rate, it will be the dominant religion in the US. My immediate reaction was, 'so what?'. Why 'so what'?
Well it's not as if the World's major religion has been, or ever truly was Christianity as Jesus taught it, and I certainly wouldn't describe the US as a Christian nation (it's meant to be a secular nation actually). But if Islam was to dominate the World or the US, this is an American concern and perhaps a political concern, but not a Christian one. Even when Christianity dominated certain parts of the World it did so in some of the most horrific ways, not the ways Jesus taught. And the faith was even born at a time ruled by paganism and secular values, and thrived nonetheless.
If we are to take Jesus and Biblical prophecy seriously then we know the Kingdom of God, "will itself endure forever" (Daniel 2:44), there's nothing to worry about. The only variable is who will endure with it. God is not in a foetal position in a corner of his office wondering what became of his country - after all he's not a conservative fundamentalist Christian American, or any kind of earthly citizen. In fact I don't think he has any interest in politics or nationalism of any kind. But we can appropriate God's image (thus committing some kind of divine copyright infringement) and have him represent our causes without his compliance, agreement or permission.
If we're in God's army, the most dangerous enemy is usually within our own hearts, and where our hearts will be in a few years is purely up to us.
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