When Christ returns, will the world even care?
John the Baptist appeared, preaching in the desert of Judea and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand! ... I am baptizing you with water, for repentance, but the one who is coming after me is mightier than I. I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fan is in his hand. He will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
– The Gospel of Saint Matthew, 3:1, 11-12
IF you are pondering or sharing this article, you’re like St. John the Baptist in the above December 4 Mass Gospel reading for the Second Sunday of Advent. The herald of our Lord’s coming two millennia ago was also a lone voice in the wilderness of a worldly world all caught up in earthly concerns and aspirations, from bread on the table and safety on the road to pomp, power, fame and fortune.
Today, those calling for repentance and religiosity are often judged eccentric, fanatic or plain boring. Our Lord expected it. In the Gospel of St. Luke, after assuring that God vindicates those who turn to Him in faith, Jesus wondered: “Nevertheless, when the Son of man comes, will he find faith on earth?” (Lk 18:8).
When fortune kills faith
In the 2017 survey conducted in 32 nations by international market research firm IPSOS, between 74 and 100 percent of respondents in 16 countries said they believed in God. Faith was most prevalent in Indonesia (100 percent), the Philippines (99 percent), Brazil (98 percent), India and Colombia (both 97 percent), and Turkey (95 percent).
But the figure was less than 40 percent in eight states and below a quarter in Sweden (22 percent) and China (just16 percent, leaving nearly 1.2 billion Chinese nonbelievers).
Wealth and communist rule tended to diminish religiosity. About the same time five years ago, Pew Research found that two-thirds or more of people in emerging nations put great value on religion, compared with fewer than three out of 10 respondents in affluent countries or under current or past communist rule.
And even less believable for people is the “unquenchable fire” awaiting “the chaff” of unrepentant sinners. Even in countries like Britain and Sweden, where belief in God is 39 and 22 percent, respectively, only 6 and 9 percent believe in hell after death.
Needless to say, those disbelieving hell seek no redemption, and atheists do not pray to God, even for salvation from deadly illness or injury, let alone eternal damnation.
The most worrisome survey trend for faith is how rising fortunes tend to diminish the role of religion in nations. And since every country and all humanity seeks greater and greater prosperity, the question arises: Will human progress curb faith in God?
And as more and more people lose their faith as their fortunes grow, are billions fated to march merrily to final judgment without even asking for grace and mercy before the Almighty meting out divine justice after death?
From godless to godly
Maybe things aren’t so hopeless. For one thing, when people say they do not believe in the Almighty, they may yet believe. A 2017 online Pew poll among 4,729 adults in America found that half of the 19 percent nonbelievers actually bowed to a “higher power or spiritual force.” And of the four-fifths of respondents expressing faith, more than a quarter acknowledged that same power or force, not the God of the Bible.
Is that good or bad? Well, for Christians seeking to bring people to God and, as Jesus commanded, making disciples of all nations, belief in a higher power even among nonbelievers opens them to evangelization. If a nonbeliever accepts that a higher being exists, he or she may be persuaded that God is that entity.
However, with over one-fourth of believers not actually praying to God, but to some force or power, there’s clearly more work to do even among the avowed faithful. And we’re not yet even talking about obeying His commandments and turning to Him