The stark headline — in large red letters against a black background — blaring at the reader from the front of the April 13 Newsweek announces “The Decline and Fall of Christian America” by Jon Meacham, the editor.

The first thing Meacham admits in his personal column, however, is that the title is overblown. They’re selling magazines. Meacham says, “Christianity is not depleted or dying; it remains a vibrant force in the lives of billions.”

So, what happened?

Someone took a poll and found that fewer people are calling themselves Christians than a few years back and more Americans say their religion is “nothing at all.” Publishing houses quickly went into overdrive churning out books announcing the failure of Jesus Christ’s mission. The religion page of Saturday’s Times-Picayune depicts a book titled “Nothing: Something to Believe In.”

Give me a break.

I’m by this the way I am about the television news a couple of days ago describing the panic in America as a result of a) Obama’s election and b) the increase in murder/suicides by crazies, both of which, we’re told, have resulted in a rush to buy more guns and stock up on ammunition.

Talk about over-reacting.

In the middle of the 18th century, the French atheistic philosopher Voltaire predicted that in a hundred years, Christianity would be extinct and the only Bibles would be found in museums. A hundred years later the French Bible Society was located in his house.

After listening to a visitor ranting against God, the Bible, the church and Christian doctrine for an hour while he worked on the fellow’s wagon, the blacksmith ceased his hammering, looked up, and quietly observed, “You know, this old anvil has worn out many a hammer.”

The decline of the influence of Christians in politics is no sign of anything except poor leadership by some less than mature believers and self-appointed spokesmen. How does the old saw go — “He who marries the culture today finds himself a widower tomorrow.” Some of our leaders tried to wed the church to the political culture of Ronald Reagan and the George Bushs. Once the program of any president becomes synonymous with the Kingdom of God and Christianity, you know you’re in trouble and headed for a downfall.

Meanwhile, many of our most eloquent spokespeople have been the proverbial “voice in the wilderness” over the last generation urging God’s people not to equate the success of their program in Congress with the coming of the Kingdom of God. Even if abortion were outlawed tomorrow and all mills were shut down by dark, the ungodliness in this country would still be of sufficient magnitude as to deserve for America the undiluted judgment of God.

And I’m not a pessimist. That’s just how things stand.

I get tired of self-important prognosticators and pundits sounding forth on non-issues regarding the Lord’s people.

Someone will write a book claiming to de-bunk the resurrection of Jesus and editors will play it up as though the author is saying something never before thought of. The only thing new under the sun, they say, is the history you do not know. It’s old stuff, this new-age ‘nothingness.’

In our Wednesday pastors coffee, one of our men gave us Tim Keller’s take on pluralism. The pluralist says all religions are like the blind men with the elephant, one holding the tail and pronouncing God as rope-like, another patting the belly and concluding deity is ‘like a wall,’ another with the trunk, and so forth. The pluralist concludes them all in darkness, with each one conveying a small portion of the truth. God is the Elephant.

Keller says, “Interesting that only the pluralist knows God is the elephant.”

The group fed up with each sect claiming an exclusive knowledge of God falls into the same trap and asserts that it alone knows what God is like.

In his entertaining little volume, “Stop Me If You’ve Heard This: A History and Philosophy of Jokes,” Jim Holt presents the question which Martin Heidegger posed as the deepest and darkest in all of philosophy: “Why is there something rather than nothing?”

Holt posed that question to Columbia professor Arthur Danto. He curtly replied, “Who says there’s not nothing!”

Another philosopher from Columbia, Sidney Morgenbesser, is said to have replied, “Even if there was nothing, you still wouldn’t be satisfied!”

And that, I suggest, is the reason that those buying into the philosophy of nothingness (“Nothing: Something to Believe In”) will soon be abandoning that faith for something else. It has nothing to offer, no strength to give, no hope for dark times and trying days. It does not satisfy.

I need to dig it out and read it again. A book on a back shelf at my home goes by the title of “I Don’t Have the Faith to Be an Atheist.”

Whether one’s religion is atheism or nothing or the message and worship of the Lord Jesus Christ or any other of the religious options on the scene today, they all involve faith, some more than others. None are accessible without the customer being asked to provide a certain measure of faith.

An eccentric landowner put out a call for a fence five feet high and guaranteed never to fall down. Various builders showed up with plans and drawings for fences that high, but none could promise it would never ever fall. Finally, one fellow won the contract.

What he did was build the fence five feet high and six feet wide. That way, if it ever fell, it would be higher than it was at the beginning.

Have you ever noticed that every time experts pronounce the death (okay, “the decline and fall”) of the Christian faith or the church or the influence of Jesus Christ or the popularity of the Bible, they’re proven wrong. History is filled with instances.

This Easter, Christian, proclaim your faith. Announce to the world that because “Christ is risen,” nothing is the same forevermore. Death is licked, hope is on the throne, and the future is bright for all who are in Christ.

Kenneth Chafin taught two generations of preachers in our SBC seminaries. In a meeting I was attending once, he said, “I tell my students, when you stand at the funeral of a believer, proclaim the message boldly and confidently. After all, you’ve got the only message in town.”