Loss of interest?
Some statisticians say Americans are losing interest in God. I don’t believe it. We may be losing interest in organized religion – a loss that is understandable (and in many instances well-deserved). But interest in God is not waning and will never wane. Having said that, I feel I need to qualify that last statement. I don’t mean to say that there isn’t a palpable, increased hostility toward God and those who believe in him – there is. But the pursuit of God in the soul of man is real. It’s innate to his being and the pursuit of it will never end (or diminish) until God is found or death precedes the discovery. Let me explain a little further.
Nicholas Woltersdorff, philosopher and author of many books on philosophical and theological interests, wrote a book entitled Lament For a Son, after the death of his 25-year-old son who died suddenly and tragically in a mountain-climbing accident. Here’s what he had to say:
“When we have overcome absence with phone calls, winglessness with airplanes, summer heat with air-conditioning – when we have overcome all these and much more besides, then there will abide two things with which we must cope: the evil in our hearts and death.”
Until God is found there is emptiness in every heart. That emptiness is filled with pleasures – the pursuit of which is incessant and never satisfied in isolation. It is only satisfied by ultimate truth… and ultimate truth is found only in God. No, Americans are not losing interest in God. Perhaps what is really going on is a loss of interest – and increasing disillusionment – with the pursuit of self-pleasure.