Individualism and a False Christ

Authors

Benjamin Wagner, Concordia Seminary, St. LouisFollow

Document Type

Article

Keywords

church, Christian, faith, individualism, theology, worship, arminianism, forgiveness, essay

Submission Type

Bible Study; Lecture; Sermon Prep

Abstract

I once sat down with a well-read church historian to inquire about what makes the American Church distinct from those of the past two millennia in Christian tradition. Instead of rambling on about megachurches, televangelists, the prosperity Gospel, Christian liberalism, or anything of the sort, I received a rather blunt and uneventful answer. Immediately after my mouth closed, the historian replied, “The American Church is very individualistic.” From there, the conversation drifted into the fall of Christianity in the West, the rise of secularism, and the general spiritual deadness permeating the atmosphere of America. In the Historian’s mind, there was some inextricable link between the individualism in local churches and the decline in their attendance.

Disciplines

Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion

Scripture References in this Resource (separated by semi-colons)

Exodus 34:6; Psalm 19:12;

Submission Cost

Free

Submission Audience

Laity; Ministers; Scholars

People in this Resource (separated by commas)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.

Recommended Citation

Wagner, Benjamin (2024) "Individualism and a False Christ," Grapho : Concordia Seminary Student Journal: Vol. 7: Iss. 1, Article 5.
Available at: https://scholar.csl.edu/grapho/vol7/iss1/5