There seems to be little doubt that the state of religion in America, especially the state of the Christian religion, is vastly different in the year 2025 from twenty-five, fifty, or one hundred years ago. Church attendance numbers, steadily shrinking since the 1970s, swiftened their decline in the aftermath of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. Increasing numbers of people identify themselves with no specific religion or even no belief in deity at all. The religious environment today often is referenced as “Post-Christian”, or at the very least increasingly secular. As such, the modern church and its leaders are in the position of responding to a situation that it has not experienced in hundreds of years: a world in which a significant portion of society does not seem to care about it any more. These sections are modified from my doctoral project, which aimed to offer a possible response for the church in light of rising apathy about religion, especially Christianity.

               Throughout these pages, I explore one small aspect of today’s Post-Christian era. My doctoral research sought an answer to this question: What do the spiritual stories shared by apatheistic members of an online community centered around a video-gaming livestream say to the church about its identity as an evangelistic community, especially among people for whom the existence of God is irrelevant to their daily life? By listening to the stories of people with apatheistic leanings, I found examples of those same people feeling excluded by the Christian church, in part because their questions about God and human life have not been answered in satisfactory or fulfilling ways. I encountered a desire for belonging and purpose, one which the church has not met. In response to the stories I heard, I suggest a better way for the church is to view evangelism as part of its identity rather than as a practice. I argue that the work of gathering the church is not primarily the work of the members of the church, but rather is the activity of the Holy Spirit. At its core, the church is a community gathered by God to bear witness to a new world inaugurated by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the reign of God. The church both hopes for the fulfillment of the reign of God and lives out its in-breaking into the present. The church’s invitation to enter God’s reign is a response to the Holy Spirit’s already-present work in the lives of those outside the church, a portion of which is gathering persons into the church. My research showed that understanding evangelism as part of Christian identity, rather than a set of practices, respectfully responds to rising apatheism—as Christians bear witness to the reign of God in authentic ways, they offer a desirable alternative community and an encounter with God.

               My research question came from the same community who served as the question’s focus, as well as other interactions with people who do not claim an affiliation with any particular religious group. In these interactions, especially ones in which religion and specifically Christianity were the topic, even those with some level of belief in deity or some other higher power did not express a concern about many of the motivators the church has a tendency to use in evangelistic practice. A message like, “Repent of your sin and be saved!” falls flat—they see no need to change the direction their life is going, do not see themselves as a “sinner” or a “bad person” in need of forgiveness, nor do they see any particular appeal of the salvation that is offered.

               When I started in the Missional Leadership Doctor of Ministry program, these thoughts came to mind again. I wondered how the church’s understanding of salvation, mission, and evangelism sounds to those who are outside of the church, and I felt unsure if that understanding is effective in a Post-Christian era. At first, my thoughts focused on a congregational context, that of the congregation I was serving as pastor at the time. My original plan for this project was to introduce some kind of practice to the church to shift their focus outward to those in their community rather than being focused inwardly. As I continued to explore these questions of soteriology and missiology, I came to understand that the active agent in missions and evangelism is not the Christian person’s practice of evangelism: God is the actor in this work. The role of the Christian person is to create a space of welcome for those whom God is gathering into the church, even as they live out their own call into the reign of God—evangelism is not just a practice, but is a central part of the church’s identity.

               In thinking of how to answer these questions of salvation and evangelism, I wondered if attempting to answer them within the church would be the best choice. Certainly much has been written and said within the church about the practice of evangelism, but I had already noticed the ineffectiveness of those practices, at least with regard to this specific community. I realized that the answers to these questions might be better explored by actually talking to people outside of the church about their thoughts on salvation and evangelism. As I already had a strong connection to this community, they seemed to be an excellent environment in which to ask people outside of the church about these questions in order to help the church better respond to a Post-Christian era.

               Having decided on the context for my research, I next needed to focus my question into something more manageable. I began with a big idea, “How does one exist as a follower of Jesus in a world in which being a Christian has a negative perception?” As I continued to ponder a research questions, it came to be concentrated around evangelism: How might the church share the good news of Jesus and the reign of God to people who are not interested in what the church offers? As I continued my thinking, I realized that treating evangelism as a specific practice of Christianity might be a part of the disconnect between those inside and outside the church. No one likes to feel objectified, and too often practices of evangelism reduce the target of those practices to someone in need of conversion rather than seeing them as a whole person made in the image of God. My question now focused on listening to the stories of people outside of the church in hopes of finding an understanding of evangelism which is responsive to the work of God in a Post-Christian era and honors and respects the inherent humanity and autonomy of those outside the church.

               This question resonated with me, combining my desire to offer welcome to all people in the reign of God with my concern that the church as it exists today is largely structured to interact with a world that no longer exists. The results of my research will be helpful in leading congregations to respond to the world as it is and the work that God is doing in it, continuing the role of the church as the people whom God has gathered to bear witness to God in its time.

               I have structured this exploration in roughly eight sections. This one, the first, provides an introduction and offers some of the background to why this is important to me. The next describes our current situation of “Post-Christianity,” as increasing apathy towards theism in America leading to the development of a new categorization in addition to “theism” and “atheism,” that of “apatheism.” Following this, in “Transcendences,” I begin with the work of Charles Taylor, to explore the decline in religious belief which Ryan Burge notes in his study of religious statistics. Taylor argues that Western culture has developed a way of looking at the world which is “disenchanted,” focusing on the things we can see and explain (the immanent) and limiting our interactions with the things we cannot (the transcendent). Responding to Taylor, William Cavanaugh in The Uses of Idolatry suggests that rather than a “disenchantment,” a Post-Christian era is “misenchanted.” Cavanaugh sees a shift of what things a person considers sacred and suggests that the encounters with transcendence are still present, but they do not fit neatly into categories of religious or secular. Through the work of Robert Geraci and Budimir Milenko I will continue to explore these encounters with transcendence and the optionality of belief present in a Post-Christian era.

               In the next several sections (“The Reign of God,” “The Gathered Church,” “Bearing Witness,” and “At the Edges”) I argue for a community-based understanding of the church and evangelism as a part of the interactions along the edge of the church with the world. I begin with the assertion that the church is the gathered people of God who bear witness to the reign of God as a new household of faith, and Christian evangelism is the intentional acts which invite persons into the reign of God. This perspective on evangelism focuses on the activity of God, and seeks to treat apatheists as fellow humans on a journey rather than as objects to be converted, even while offering an invitation into the alternative community formed to proclaim the reign of God in the world: the church. I propose that evangelism is not a practice of the Christian church, but is part of its identity. This section will clarify my understanding of what the reign of God is, describe the church as a gathered community by work of the Holy Spirit, and restate the centrality of a lovingly invitational posture to the church’s identity. Next, I look backwards to Scripture and the early church, describing the Christian life and evangelism in a Pre-Christian era, as the first Christians responded to the work of God they experienced in Jesus’ ministry, death, resurrection, and ascension. Then, I briefly share some of the major changes in the time of Christendom, journeying forward into the modern era. Finally, I return to the increasingly Post-Christian present, combing theological reflection and historical examples to suggest a way forward for the church—a new understanding of who the church is as it bears witness to the reign of God in this Post-Christian era.

               The final section, “Tensions,” connecting a theoretical understanding of evangelism with the results of my research. Here I suggest that the work of the church in a Post-Christian era is to be who it is: the gathered people of God who bear witness to the inbreaking reign of God. This chapter reflects on my hypothesis, that evangelism is an invitational response by the church to the Holy Spirit’s gathering work, in light of the research findings. I conclude this section with some practical suggestions for fostering an evangelistic Christian identity in a Post-Christian era, especially with regard to apatheists, which lovingly respects the boundaries of those who are outside of the Christian church while also offering an invitation into the reign of God by the Holy Spirit through the church.