A few years back, Pew Research Center released a survey on America’s religious landscape and found that, over a bit more than a decade, the number of adults professing to be Christians had dropped from 77% to 65%, and the number of “religiously unaffiliated” had risen from 17% to 26%.

These changes were large enough for Pew to observe,

“The religious landscape of the United States continues to change at a rapid clip.”

Before we jump to conclusions, it’s important to realize that these mere poll numbers could mean at least a couple different things.

First, it could simply be that fewer people are calling themselves Christians. Because Christianity’s influence in broader culture has certainly waned in recent decades, there could be fewer “cultural Christians” whether or not there are actually fewer born-again believers. In other words, fewer people are now exposed to the kind of “Christian things”—regular church attendance, for example—that would prompt them to call themselves “Christians.”

On the other hand, it could be that there are actually fewer born-again believers in the country. That’s the kind of thing that it’s impossible to poll, but if it were true, it would probably manifest itself in the kind of stats we see. So it could be that either fewer people are genuinely Christians, or it could be that Christianity is losing its ambiance in culture such that fewer people call themselves Christians.

Either way, it sure seems that as a nation we are falling into the “prosperity trap” God described for the Israelites in Deuteronomy 8. He warned them that—after they had received food, houses, livestock and riches—they should not forget the Lord who had given them all those blessings.

Otherwise, God warned, they would become proud, forget God, and be destroyed.

God has certainly blessed the United States of America, and it’d be hard to find another country that was founded on a more explicitly Christian foundation. But America is on a steady trajectory of forgetting God, the Source of her blessings, and is losing her soul as a result. If this keeps up, it won’t be long before she loses the blessings as well.

But it’s hard to simply “forget God” and leave it at that. God is not a Being who is easily forgotten, and we are not beings who can easily stop worshiping something. Usually, when people forget God, it is because we have diverted our attention to some other god we have set up for ourselves.

That way, we have some tangible replacement to help us shut out the unsilenceable voice of God, and our desire to worship something is still fulfilled. And as I look around at the young generation around me, I see a huge idol rearing its hoary head. The right to define yourself.

We are willing to sacrifice any element of God’s created order if it conflicts with our inner preferences about who we want to be.

Particularly, tolerance for homosexuality and gender confusion are justified on the basis of the specific right to define who you are. Get this, everyone: no one else can tell me who I am. Only I can decide that for myself.

Everyone else now has a moral obligation to step out of my way as I pursue it. Even my parents. Even if I’m a 12-year-old boy deciding to become a girl. 

As we said previously, it’s very hard to ignore the voice of God, at least in a vacuum. It’s a lot easier to manufacture a loud voice that says what your itching ears want to hear; at least now that you have a replacement to listen to instead. And let me tell you, the right to self-definition is extremely effective in diverting attention away from God.

It’s emotionally compelling—because who doesn’t want to be able to decide everything about themselves? It’s galvanizing—because it frames everything that you disagree with as a moral adversary to be crushed. And it’s convenient—you never again have to listen to anything uncomfortable.

At least in this life.

Now, don’t get me wrong—there’s a difference between self-definition and self-determination. Self-determination is a man’s right or liberty to choose his own career, for example, or marry the woman he wants to marry, without interference from the state.

Of course, this is dangerous apart from God, but a very powerful thing when it’s oriented towards God. Generations of our forefathers have fought for the liberty to live a life free from tyranny and where one can worship God freely.

But that’s not the same thing as defining who you are.

God is our Creator, and He has decided in His infinite goodness to create us with a human nature. This is reality. So we do not have the right to decide whether we are a dog—He already decided that for us.

We do not have the right to decide whether we are male or female—He already decided that for us. Given the sex we are, we do not have the right to decide whether we can marry a man or a woman—He already decided that for us. Each of us is created within ordained categories established by God, and it is idolatry to think we can transcend these—and foolishness if we expect no consequences.

It’s startling to see an entire culture sinking into this trap. God’s stark warning in Romans 1 seems to be ringing true before our very eyes: men refuse to glorify God, so God gives them over to the sinful lusts of their hearts, and men don’t think knowledge of God is worthwhile, God gives them over to a depraved mind (Romans 1:21-32).

We might mock ancient cultures for being gullible enough to worship wood and stone statues, but let’s not overlook the fact that we are gullible enough to worship ourselves.