Cultural indicators

An article titled, "Why God Is Dead at the Supreme Court"appeared on the web this week. It is written by a rabbi and talks about the religious backgrounds of the supreme court justices. With Obama's latest nominee the court will have no justice that is protestant. Does it really matter in a society that is more and more secular in nature? It matters in at least one way. What this shows us is that religious faith or background has become increasingly irrelevant. If the religious background of the current justices is any indication it shows us that protestantism is failing to have an impact on intellectually oriented jobs. Five of the current justices are Catholics. This points to the ongoing struggle that protestantism specifically and  evangelicalism in general finds itself in.
It seems to me that protestantism/evangelicalism has lost its heart. The whole point of protestantism was to protest the error of the Catholic church. One of the cries of the reformation was Sola Scriptura (Scripture Alone). This was meant to assail the Catholic position that Scripture and the Church were equal in authority. The leaders of the reformation immersed themselves in God's word and became experts at applying it to life and living. They sought to have their thoughts and actions brought captive to the word of God. This often made them good political leaders or judges because all that they did was rooted in God's word. This would still apply today if it still was applied today. The protestant movement fractured and split into many different denominations. These denominations have come to wear the badge evangelical in general (Some of you may protest this application but I believe it is fair). When I say that evangelicalism has lost its heart what I mean is that we have begun to become modern Catholics. We do not say that scripture is insufficient but we live like it is.

• We add programs to attract people to our services. (I guess that meeting with others who are pursuing the most magnificent and awesome being that has ever existed is not sufficient.) 
• We create slick market driven campaigns designed to attract people of a specific demographic. (Somehow Jesus making a way to bring a rebellious and sinful people back to himself is not enough.)
• We do not know how to share our faith effectively and we often do not want to. (Ask yourself how many times have you been approached by an evangelical with the gospel? How many times have you been approached by a Mormon or Jehovah's Witness or other group.)
• We prefer to let our actions speak the message. (If our actions are any indication then the message we are speaking is that we are ashamed of the gospel and don't want anyone to reject us because of it.)

You see the gospel is a message of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. It is the forgiveness of our sins and our reconciliation back to God. This is judicial in nature. It is relevant. Those who follow Jesus should be the best informed to be justices. They should be attracted to a God who is just and preserves His justice by the exercise of grace given through Jesus. You see a God focused life will inform our decisions and actions and make us better suited to be justices and judges in the land.