Wake-up call: This is what happens when Christians are afraid to offend

A new Pew study suggests the steep decline in Christianity is finally “leveling off,” as if that’s a cause for celebration. It’s not. The damage is done. Entire generations have grown up with no real catechesis, no spiritual formation, and no sense of the sacred.

But make no mistake: This isn’t happening because the church refused to modernize. It’s happening because it did.

If the apostles walked into half these churches today, they wouldn’t smile or applaud. They’d flip tables.

For decades, the great institutions of Western Christianity traded clarity for relevance and truth for tone. Sermons stopped warning and started pandering. The word “sin” was quietly retired, considered too sharp for modern ears. In its place came talk of “journeys,” “growth,” and whatever else kept the collection plate full. The church, once feared by tyrants and hated by the powerful, rebranded itself as a wellness center with great art.

The cross became a prop. The sacraments became optional. The faith became a product: Clean, inoffensive, entirely forgettable.

It wasn’t outreach — it was surrender.

Internal sabotage

In Germany, Bishop Gregor Maria Hanke recently stepped down. Not in disgrace but in exhaustion, drained by a church more obsessed with synodal committees and gender equity audits than with souls. In England, Rowan Williams, the former archbishop of Canterbury, now sounds like a man trying to apologize for ever having believed anything at all. His God is not the Lion of Judah, but a poetic abstraction — something you might ponder over tea with the New Atheists, whom he now openly sympathizes with in the New York Times. Under his influence, Anglicanism traded its spine for softness, turned cathedrals into museums, and watched belief crumble under the weight of constant theological retreat.

One is Catholic, the other Protestant. Different branches, same disease: a church more eager to appease the culture than to challenge it.

Let’s call this what it is: Internal sabotage — and it’s everywhere.

The crisis facing Christianity isn’t secularism but cowardice. Many argue that the culture has conquered the church. But I argue instead that the church surrendered. A church that’s afraid to offend cannot save, command allegiance, inspire sacrifice, or offer truth.

It fades, not with a bang, but with a bow — one retreat at a time. First on marriage, then on sin, then on the very uniqueness of Christ. By the time it gets to the resurrection, no one’s listening, and even the preacher isn’t sure he believes it.

Exhibit A

You see this collapse most clearly in the rise of cafeteria Catholicism, the unofficial religion of the spiritually lukewarm, the pick-and-choose faithful. They love the incense and the music, the ashes and the Advent calendars, but deny the church’s authority and rewrite morality to match whatever’s trending on TikTok. They cross themselves at Mass, then applaud abortion at the ballot box. They genuflect before the altar only to kneel again at the altar of “inclusion.”

Jesus, to them, was a nice guy. So was Buddha. And really, who are we to judge?

It’s not faith. Not really. It’s branding. And like all branding, it demands nothing and means even less. These are people who want the comfort of religion without the burden of obedience. A God who affirms, not one who commands. A God who blesses their choices, not reshapes them. A God who whispers sweet nothings instead of thundering truth.

But a gospel that never tests is a gospel that never transforms. And a church that never says “no” is a church no one takes seriously.

For years, church leadership has whispered that hell is probably empty, celibacy is optional, and the Eucharist is just a metaphor if that’s easier for you to stomach.

So it’s no surprise that millions now treat Christianity like a salad bar: A little resurrection, hold the repentance.

No power in conformity

The early Christians weren’t tortured and killed because they tried to fit in — but because they refused to conform to the spirit of the age. They stood for something absolute. Something final. They proclaimed Christ as King in a world that demanded silence, and they paid for it in blood.

That’s what gave them power. That’s what made Rome afraid.

They weren’t trying to be liked. They were trying to be faithful. They didn’t soften their message to gain followers. Instead, they hardened their resolve, and the church exploded across the world because of it. Not in spite of the offense, but because of it. The gospel was a scandal then, and it should still be one now.

Today’s church, by contrast, tiptoes through culture like it’s walking on broken glass. It holds interfaith dialogues with those who openly despise it and lobbies for carbon taxes while souls starve. We have Catholic bishops who march in Pride parades but are nowhere to be found at pro-life vigils. We have Protestant pastors hosting drag nights in church basements while their congregations hemorrhage members. The shepherds worry more about upsetting activists than defending the word of God. They preach about climate change, white privilege, and plastic straws.

But they stay silent on sin, judgment, and repentance. It’s time for both Catholics and Protestants to snap out of it. This isn’t a debate over doctrine. It’s a culture that wants the church destroyed, and too many inside it are holding the door open.

A purified church

If the apostles walked into half these churches today, they wouldn’t smile or applaud. They’d flip tables.

God doesn’t need marketers. He needs martyrs. Not spiritual consultants but disciples. The future of Christianity will not be built by bishops apologizing to the New York Times or pastors retweeting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. It will be built by those who kneel in silence and believe in public, even when the world calls them fools.

Maybe that’s the real message here: The church isn’t dying but being purified.

Let the saboteurs resign. Let the cowards step down. Let the cafeteria close. What’s left will be smaller, yes — but stronger. Not performative. Not progressive. But holy. Finally, again, holy.