american loneliness and the gospel
how the friendship deficit creates adverse conditions for proclaiming Jesus
Earlier this year, the U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, produced an 82-page report calling out the “epidemic of loneliness and isolation” in our country. Besides the lack of emotional well-being we experience when we’re lonely, the report details the significant negative health effects of this crisis. According to the report:
The physical health consequences of poor or insufficient connection include a 29% increased risk of heart disease, a 32% increased risk of stroke, and a 50% increased risk of developing dementia for older adults. Additionally, lacking social connection increases risk of premature death by more than 60%.
As he writes in Harvard Business Review, “Loneliness and weak social connections are associated with a reduction in lifespan similar to that caused by smoking 15 cigarettes a day and even greater than that associated with obesity.” Obesity is better for you than loneliness; so is half a pack of smokes per day.
In the last post, I shared some alarming statistics about the steep decline of friendship in American life. There’s no doubting the sociological facts of the matter. Our highest ranking public health officials have weighed in on its detrimental effects on our physical health. The spiritual effects of this decline are far more difficult to measure.
However, I’d like to take some time to reflect on the ways the loneliness epidemic forms us away from Christ and undermines our ability to receive and believe the Christian gospel.
the relational essence of (redeemed) human-being
We know that God is relational in His very essence. We can say that God is love (1 John 4:8), because He is community—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Jesus taught His oneness with the Father (John 10:30). From that eternal Trinitarian oneness, Christ prayed that His followers would be one with each other in unity and love, even as He is one with the Father (John 17:21).
As divine image bearers, human beings are fundamentally created for community (Gen. 2:18). In the brokenness of sin, we are alienated from one another. At the cross, Christ liberated us from sin’s power. Now He welcomes us to participate in the newness of human-being He inaugurated in the resurrection (Rom. 6:4; 2 Cor. 5:17).
In other words, living in loving relationship with our neighbors is a fundamental part of human flourishing, and a non-negotiable aspect of living under the redeeming work of Jesus. Becoming a fully-formed Christian requires relationship.
social imaginary and the implications of loneliness
In A Secular Age, Charles Taylor defines a “social imaginary” as the way people “imagine their social existence, how they fit together with others, how things go on between them and their fellows, the expectations which are normally met, and the deeper normative notions and images which underlie these expectations” (171). It is “that common understanding which makes possible common practices, and a widely shared sense of legitimacy” (172).
It is in fact that largely unstructured and inarticulate understanding of our whole situation, within which particular features of our world show up for us in the sense they have. It can never be adequately expressed in the form of explicit doctrines, because of its very unlimited and indefinite nature. (173)
What Taylor is arguing here is that culture carries within its practices, messages and environment the values and imaginitive horizons of a given people. In his words it is “practice which largely carries the understanding” (173).
In other words, it’s not the ideas of culture that are most important in shaping who we are as a people (whether that’s critical race theory or Christian Nationalism). Rather, it’s the practices we share, the stuff of everyday life that set the parameters of the truths our pre-rational selves will find believable. The culture we inhabit sets the limits of our imaginations and tells us what is and is not plausible.
Culture carries within it a “plausibility structure”—the framework required for ideas to make sense. Relationship is a crucial plausibility structure for the gospel. It’s what makes the gospel make sense.
Culture is fundamentally formational. It has the power to shape our imaginations, to determine the (im)possible. If our culture undermines relationship, it undermines our ability to follow Jesus, because following Christ requires oneness with Him and His people, the Church.
Bottom line: the loneliness epidemic in the United States creates a culture that makes the very message of the Christian faith deeply implausible.
If our culture undermines relationship, it undermines our ability to follow Jesus.
no friends, no good news
If someone is starving on the side of the road, you can’t call out in passing, “Jesus loves you” without giving them the bread their body craves. There’s no love in drive-by evangelism (James 2:15-17). Giving food to the hungry is not the gospel. But giving food to the hungry meets their needs in a way that makes the message of Jesus believable to them.
We are living in a time and place in which the gospel is far less plausible because people are far more isolated than ever. The gospel is unbelievable when people are relationally unavailable. No friends, no good news.
The gospel is not merely a set of abstract propositions that can be affirmed intellectually. It is an announcement of a spiritual reality that has been brought about by the grace of God in Christ. It has implications for every aspect of who we are and how we live. And it becomes increasingly believable—increasingly good news—the more we understand our nature as relational beings created and redeemed for communion with a relational God.
The gospel is unbelievable when people are relationally unavailable.
In order for the church to be an effective witness to the gospel of Jesus, we have to meet people in our culture where they are in the midst of loneliness and isolation. If relationships are a distant reality to our neighbors, Christians need to be prepared to walk in the way of Christ and invite them into relationship with us.
Are we ready for that?
What do you think? Is there space in our lives for relationship with people who need friendship? Is the church the kind of place where relationships are available to lonely people?