We’re living amid the largest religious transformation in American history. Forty million Americans have left the church in the last 25 years. Many other Western countries have already seen similar declines. But that’s not the only challenge. After the fall of Christendom, believers in Western countries now face a strange mixture of apathy and antagonism toward the gospel. Many of our neighbors view Christianity as yesterday’s news but also as the source of today’s problems.
The reasons our friends and family leave the church are both common and complex. The Keller Center wants to close that back door by giving you gracious answers and innovative strategies to help friends and family find God in the church. Already we have commissioned and begun to assess the largest-ever survey of people who have left the church. We plan to share this data through our website, books, and podcasts as we consult experts who can help church leaders respond wisely.
In previous decades, even non-Christians in Western nations might know enough about God, sin, salvation to connect the dots as we testified to Christ. But now, those dots may not even occur to them. Many of our secular neighbors can’t seem to comprehend the gospel, let alone admit they need it. We need churches with wide-open front doors, where our neighbors can connect the dots by meeting the very body of Christ, a compelling community. The Keller Center shares best practices through cohorts, essays, books, conferences, courses, podcasts, lectures, and more.
Even as we make the church a more hospitable place for skeptics and doubters, we must go to them—in their neighborhoods, in their schools, and in their workplaces. The Keller Center’s resources equip Christians with answers developed in collaboration between leaders in the academy, marketplace, and church. We have begun to develop creative and accessible apologetics content on various platforms where many young people first encounter arguments against Scripture and faith.
In summary, The Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics helps Christians share the truth, goodness, and beauty of the gospel as the only hope that fulfills our deepest longings.
We want to train Christians—everyone from pastors to parents to professors—to boldly share the good news of Jesus Christ in a way that clearly communicates to this secular age.
Much of this training will come from The Keller Center’s fellows. The Keller Center equips these next-generation leaders through regular online gatherings and an annual in-person retreat. During their multi-year terms, these writers and teachers collaborate on answers to the questions that either lead people to lose faith, or prevent people from finding faith in the first place.
In The Keller Center’s online cohorts, you can learn with and from other front-line leaders on the most pressing issues facing the church today. You can sign up for our newsletter to be notified when our fellows publish an essay or release a new podcast. And you can financially support the center so that our efforts can grow in proportion to the scale of this historic challenge.
