The existentialist shrug, in which man casts off his crutches and tries to face an unknown future for what it is, is simply an attempt to perform the movement of faith, without God: "Leaving what is behind I press on to the high calling--of myself." The attempt may be foredoomed. But it again is a movement which could only be attempted in a culture long called to faith. One cannot imitate what one does not know.
For the gospel is a two-edged sword. Where it is proclaimed and heard, and not believed, it is a savor of death. It destroys the words by which men seek to make their leap into darkness tolerable. If what it gives in their place is rejected, man has nothing. Western civilization is the civilization which has heard and not believed--and now faces nothingness.
The gospel has been our great debunker. The early Christians were not, after all, persecuted for being too religious but for being anti-religious, enemies of the beliefs which hold society together, atheists. He who says that God has happened in time and space ends all attempts to give life meaning on the basis of the timeless. The feeling of the ancient guardians of culture that Christianity was a menace was entirely accurate. Christians do not, in bitter fact, believe in the gods.
We weep for the emptiness which man finds when he hears the gospel but denies it. We are called to bind the wounds. But we are not called to build up again what we have torn down--lest we nullify the grace of God.
--Robert Jenson
