Andrew Brunson and His Call to American Christians as Church Attendance Drops

Andrew Brunson, an American pastor who suffered two years in a Turkish prison for defending his faith, spoke at Family Research Council last week about the sense of urgency that he felt to warn Christians in the United States of the struggles on the horizon.

One would expect an international missionary to speak on the call to evangelism in other countries, but instead he directed his talk in an entirely different way. He spoke about persecution that American Christians are facing and will continue to face nationally. Brunson said that American Christians are going to come under a lot of pressure in the coming years, and emphasized how our focus must remain on being rooted, obedient, and abiding Christians where we are currently.

“Now, in America it is a social negative to be a Christian. Christian morals are now a ‘threat’ to society,” Brunson stated. “The driving form of persecution in the United States is the exclusivity of Jesus’s salvation, and the fact that Jesus demands obedience from His people.” Brunson explained that there has been a slippery backslide from sincere Christianity to moralistic, therapeutic deism. Essentially, over the years, our society has watered down the biblical truths to a simple overarching concept: “good people go to heaven.” Our secular society does not react to this watery, fluffy Christianity, and it is not affected by it.

Alternatively, our society does react to the truth. “This mindset won’t survive the pressure. Churches do not talk about controversial issues because of the conflict and pressure that comes with it,” Brunson warned. “We are headed into a more difficult time than we [know], because the church is being targeted on issues like sexual immorality, identity, life, and family.” These less agreeable issues, where the Bible is clear (and can be seen as offensive), is where we are going to face persecution here in the states, he believes.

There is a lack of deep, obedient faith that swims against the current in our country and that will withstand the modern-day persecution here, Brunson argued. We have transitioned into a society that looks to the church to uphold our faith and keep us committed, not an abiding relationship with the Father.

Brunson noted that our world has taken a sharp turn in the past 10 to 15 years. He credited the formation of media, present-day activism, and the pandemic for the transformation. A recent statistic noted that church attendance has gone down an average of 4% since before the pandemic. We have transitioned into a society that is not committed to an abiding relationship with the Father.

Clearly, Brunson’s predictions about the decaying stability of Christianity in America have proven true over the past few years. His assumptions about the lack of true Christians were brought to fruition in this statistic. Brunson ended his speech with a call to action, “The most important thing we can do is strengthen our foundation.”

As American Christians, we must acknowledge that the church attendance is low, and the social pressure is on. There is persecution here in our country against the core beliefs of our faith. It is important that we stand firm in what we know is true and grow deeper roots. Brunson said it best, “Our world really did change with COVID, and we are not going back. … We need to stand with other believers with courage and prepare ourselves for what is to come.”