I made known to them your name, and I will make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them. (John 17:26)

Over the last couple decades we have heard critics decry what has been variously described as "civil religion," "religion in general," or "the religion of the American way of life." Recently, Dr. Robert Jenson, a professor at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, restated the criticism this way: "The God proclaimed in American Protestantism is inoffensive - a God who makes no difference ... mainline Protestantism is to a great extent atheistic."

I think Dr. Jenson and the other critics are onto something, but I would like to state the issue a little differently. The real problem is not that we are becoming atheistic but that we …