“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:14-16, ESV)

In 1971, the popular Beatles singer, John Lennon, sang of a dream he had where no religion existed in the world. In that dream, not only was there no such thing as religion, but also no heaven or “hell below us,” and “above us only sky.” Such a world, he sang, would bring about world peace and unity since there’d no longer be anything worth killing or dying for.

Many today hold on to Lennon’s dream. In 2020, when most of the world was in isolation during the COVID-19 outbreak, Lennon’s song “Imagine” was sung by 25 celebrities in a compilation video posted on YouTube. Many still believe that a world without religion would be preferable. More specifically, many people have thought it better if Christianity didn’t exist in the world.

The so-called New Atheists, such as Richard Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens, have argued vociferously in their books The God Delusion and God Is Not Great that “religion poisons everything.”

However, only 8 years before Lennon recorded that song, another dream was expressed across the pond by Martin Luther King, Jr. In that dream, he imagined that one day “little black boys and black girls [would] be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.” The irony is that while Lennon’s dream envisioned a world where there was no Christianity, King’s dream was firmly rooted in biblical Christianity. His iconic speech appealed to his Christian faith, which holds that every person was made in God’s image and has sacred value in God’s sight. King even deliberately quoted Scripture like Isaiah 40 to make his point.

“I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.”

After quoting this passage, King declared, “This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with… With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.”

So which worldview is right? Is religion—and more importantly—is Christianity a force for good or evil in the world today?

Is Christianity Headed for Extinction?

In a 2016 survey, 30.9 percent of freshman college students claimed no religious affiliation, which is a 10 percent rise since 2006. Many have noticed this growing trend to be non-religious and have predicted that Christianity and the other religions are destined for extinction. This has been called the secularization hypothesis, because it predicts that religion will be pushed more and more to the fringe as secular values advance.

But is this true? Actually, no. In contrast to the thinking of many academics, the reality is that Christianity has never had a wider reach. Right now, Christianity is the largest belief system in the world, with 31.5% percent of the world’s population identifying as Christian. While it’s true that those identifying as religious in Europe and North America has declined in recent years, on the global scale, Christianity is growing stronger than ever.

Many sociologists have been forced to admit that the whole secularization hypothesis has been totally debunked. Robust Christianity is globally on the rise, and the trend is actually toward a more religious rather than secular world.

Biblical Christians would expect nothing less. Not only did Jesus promise that His gospel would be proclaimed to all nations (Matthew 24:14; Mark 13:10), but He also promised that the church He built will prevail “and the gates of Hades will not overcome it” (Matthew 16:18, NIV).

But the question remains: Is Christianity a force for good or evil in the world? After all, just because something is believed by many doesn’t make it true (also, many who claim to be Christian don’t follow Jesus’s teachings).

Joy in Knowing Jesus

A 2016 article in USA Today was entitled “Religion May Be a Miracle Drug.” The authors begin by asking, “If one could conceive of a single elixir to improve the physical and mental health of millions of Americans—at no personal cost—what value would our society place on it?”[1]

They go on to lay out all the correlations between mental and physical health benefits and consistent religious participation. According to their research, Americans who are actively involved in a local church tend to be more optimistic, have lower rates of depression, are less likely to commit suicide, have greater purpose in life, are less likely to divorce, and even tend to live longer! There is also good research showing that those who live out a robust Christianity—including having a regular prayer life, active Bible reading, consistent church attendance, and meeting the needs of others in the community—tend to be happier in life.

In fact, in his book The Happiness Hypothesis, even atheist social psychologist, Jonathan Haidt, makes the case that devout Christians tend to be happier than secular atheists like himself!

He writes: “Surveys have long shown that religious believers in the United States are happier, healthier, longer-lived, and more generous to charity and to each other than are secular people… Religious believers give more money than secular folk to secular charities, and to their neighbors. They give more of their time, too, and of their blood.”[2]

Obviously, sociological research isn’t the ultimate reason to surrender your life to Christ. We are to surrender to Christ because He is the “King of kings and Lord of lords” (1 Timothy 6:15). But it’s worth noting that objective research done by secular scholars inadvertently agrees that there really is joy that comes from knowing Jesus. Non-religious scholars like Haidt have begun to realize there really is something to what Paul taught: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again, I will say, rejoice” (Philippians 4:4).

The truth is that when the Bible is taken seriously and faith in Christ is lived out, there is a positive impact—both personally and in society. Christians first started universities to educate the mind, launched hospitals to care for the sick, and built orphanages to house those whom the world had rejected as a lost cause.

It is because of their Christian faith that William Wilberforce worked to abolish slavery in England, Dietrich Bonhoeffer spoke out against the Nazis, and Martin Luther King marched for the civil rights of black Americans. Today, many speak out boldly for the life of the unborn, largely due to their faith in Christ.

From Atheism to Jesus

This happened for Dr. Sarah Irving-Stonebraker. Sarah was an atheist, known by her friends at Cambridge for being “politely hostile” to Christianity. She passionately believed that one should defend the human rights for the hurting and underprivileged. But something happened while she attended a series of lectures given by the well-known atheist, Peter Singer, who was trying to make the case for human rights from an atheistic worldview.

As Sarah listened, it slowly dawned on her that despite Singer’s best attempts to prove otherwise, the godless worldview of the atheist gave no explanation for why humans should have any rights at all. If we are nothing more than a bunch of organized cells in a mindless universe, how could anyone really speak of human rights at all? She later met a group of Christian students whose lives were deeply shaped by Jesus. They were a joy-filled community that lived out their faith “feeding the homeless, running community centres, and housing and advocating for migrant farm laborers.”[3]

As Sarah considered this issue, she realized that it was none other than the biblical worldview—which she had rejected as a teenager—that made the best sense of humans having value and therefore, having rights worth defending. A human being, she realized, whether born or unborn, is not just another organism to be disposed of, like a worm or a beetle, but had intrinsic value because he or she had been made in God’s image, and thus was a neighbor deserving her love. Sarah gave her life to Jesus and today she fights for the rights of the underprivileged from the solid standing of a biblical worldview.

This is just one of countless examples of how the light of God’s truth can pierce through the darkness of this fallen world and bring about the dramatic transformation of a single individual.

I began by asking whether Christianity is a force for good in the world today. Consider that Christianity alone—of all the world’s religions—not only offers a reasonable explanation for why human beings have value in God’s sight, but that it also declares the truth that everlasting life is found in knowing this great God. Christ-centered Christianity is without question the greatest force for good this world has ever seen, because it alone points to the free offer of eternal life found in Jesus Christ (Romans 6:23).

But this is only the case as Christians have held tightly to the Word that their Lord gave them. When Christians have conformed to the world around them and lost touch with the biblical worldview, they have ceased being a force for good, because they no longer have brought hope to the world. And I think we can all agree that this world desperately needs hope.

Because Jesus is the ultimate Light of the world, His followers are called to be lights shining in the world (Matthew 5:14-16).

Consider what this means for you personally. In what areas of life is it hardest to bring the light of Christ? In whatever area that may be—at home, in the workplace, with family—ask God for courage to hold fast to the Word of life in this dark world.

Have thoughts on this post? Feel free to comment below!

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[1] Tyler VanderWeele and John Siniff, “Religion May Be a Miracle Drug,” USA Today, October 28, 2016, https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/10/28/religion-church-attendance-mortality-column/92676964/

[2] Jonathan Haidt, “Moral Psychology and the Misunderstanding of Religion,” Edge, September 21, 2007, https://www.edge.org/conversation/jonathan_haidt-moral-psychology-and-the-misunderstanding-of-religion.

[3] https://believersportal.com/former-atheist-prof-sarah-irving-stonebraker-shares-incredible-story-of-conversion-to-christianity/ Accessed on May 3, 2023.