Understanding the Gospel's Power in Post-Christian America

We are in a unique time.  The early church wrestled with the religion of Judaism on one hand and the pagan world of ancient Rome on the other.  The attack upon Christianity was fierce.  But in the west as marriage is redefined and the last vestiges of Christendom pass away we face sharing the everlasting gospel of Jesus Christ with a world that thinks it has heard the gospel and rejected it.  Our world thinks it has tried Christianity and found it wanting. But it is not real Christianity that has been rejected it is religious moralism.  Now we face a growing climate of various spiritualities of self-centered religions on one side (I am God or God is so distant I can't know him.) and irreligion (I don't believe in God or trust just in myself.) on the other.  Tim Keller has been very helpful in helping us discover aspects of the gospel that relate to both the religious and irreligious. Jesus faced the religious in the guise of the Pharisees and the irreligious in the political form of the Herodians. Mark 8:15 (ESV)And he cautioned them, saying, “Watch out; beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.”  This focus of Jesus and the warning to the disciples is something we do well to heed.  On one side we can retreat from the culture in moral disgust and on the other we can embrace its cynicism.  But Jesus calls us to participate in his work of bring the gospel to both religious and irreligious America.  We speak to people who worship every sort of idol and people who are rejecting God.  The gospel speaks judgment and holds out hope in grace that saves.  It connects with our neighbors and repels our neighbors.  Why? Because the gospel is the truth and it is filled with grace upon grace.