Rejecting Apathy: (Apathy is a state of indiffernce, or the suppression of emotions such as concern, excitement, motivation, and passion. An apathetic individual has an absence of interest or concern to emotional, social, or physical life. They may also exhibit an insensibility or sluggishness.)

The Church and American Civilization - Chuck Colson

August 7, 2009

Many Christians, once motivated by protecting the sanctity of life ,
religious freedom, and traditional marriage, seem inconsolable—as if the
fight is over and there’s nothing we can do about it.

But embracing this attitude is a certain prescription for disaster.

I received last month a newsletter by Don Reeverts of the Denver Leadership
Foundation. In it he gives the following quote, often attributed to an
18th-century Scottish writer:

The average age of the world’s great civilizations has been two hundred
years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence...from
bondage to spiritual faith...from spiritual faith to courage...from courage
to liberty...from liberty to abundance...from abundance to
selfishness...from selfishness to complacency…from complacency to
apathy...from apathy to dependency...from dependency back to bondage.

These are sobering words. This question of where America is in the cycle
should be extremely important for Christians. That’s because I firmly
believe that culture is nothing but religion incarnate—that when we see a
culture losing its moral footing, it’s because believers have failed to
bring Christian truth to bear in society. We haven’t been, as Calvin put it,
making the invisible kingdom visible.

So what stage are we in? Reeverts thinks we are entering the stage of
apathy. And I hate to say it, but I agree. I am finding growing apathy among
believers.

Apathy manifests itself in how people dress, how they talk, how they care
for each other—and how concerned they are about the great issues of the day.
It resembles what the Greeks called acedia, a languidness, a torpor, in
which we stop caring about anything.

Apathy inevitably leads to dependency. And once we become dependent on Big
Brother , we are back in bondage. Can anybody really watch the dramatic
growth of governmental power and not be alarmed? For the fact of the matter
is that the more government acts as God, the less people depend on the one
true God.

Your congressmen and senators are home now for summer recess. Have you
contacted them? Are you angry about what’s happening in this country today?
Things like the elimination of the conscience clause for medical
professionals, or embryonic stem cell research , or the advance of gay
“marriage,” or threats to religious liberties, or government making
life-and-death decisions in health care? If you’re not upset about those
things, you’ve succumbed to apathy already.

I can’t imagine anybody sitting at home, comfortably watching us slip into a
state of dependency without getting outraged, and then without expressing
that outrage.

If we value our liberties, if we believe in the most fundamental principles
upon which our civilization is based, then we owe it to our God and to
future generations to speak out.

Institutions aren’t going to change the course of America; but great
movements have changed the course of the nation and will again. And what
better network to fuel a movement than the Church? Rejecting apathy and
trusting in God, firm in our belief in human dignity and our God-given
liberties, the Church can ignite a fire in this country.

Do we get it? I pray that we do.