Recently, PEW funded a major study, and just released its report, on the state of religion in America. From what I can tell from a most minimal perusal, it pretty much parallels my own modest sampling and analysis.

When I explored this matter with a denominationally diverse group of undergraduates the concensus looked something like this:
Church is a place. It's a building with an address. It's something you go to (for a variety of personal reasons), not what you are.
When asked what was the most essential element of Church there was no statistically significant response. It totally depended on the person and what they were looking for.
For people in the lower echelons of the socio-economic strata, Church might play a factor in how they located themselves in a new community. For all others, it was at best a secondary matter that one looked into after all the essentials were taken care of--proximity to work, stable property values, amenities conveniently close by, etc.
When asked why some people don't like Christians, they were quick to identify most of the same maladies that are recounted in the Barna Group's book by Kinnaman (Un-Christian: What A New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity, [Baker, 2007]): hypocritical, judgemental, sheltered, political, pushy, etc. They were unashamed about this, despite knowing it was pretty much the opposite of "they will know we are Christian by our love."
They were unanimous in their rejection of the idea that city planners should be required to designate space in any new development for religious facilities, and non-plussed to learn that this had been the case for most of our history.
In short, my summary of their understanding of the role of religion in American life, including their own, is that
a. it's a purely personal, individual matter
b. the church has no authoritative (or functional) influence in their lives--no-one and certainly not an institution can tell you what you have to believe or how to behave
c. basically, church brings no "added value" to a community
and d. that it's not likely any of this will change. After all, why should it?

Given this scenario, and you can get the overwhelmingly comprehensive data that undergirds my little sample in the PEW report, I'm trying to imagine what gospel might sound, look, live like in this North American world.
Though we live in a culture of violence and death (recent shootings in a mall and classroom close by), there seems to be no sense of warrant, and certainly no urgency, to want life or society to be any different than it is. So if gospel is anything other than a blessing on what is, it's hard to imagine how it would really matter to us.

Thinking (in American style--binary and violent) of the martyrs of the church through the ages, I wonder: if, while we were at the local mall or in our class/office, etc., a rogue were to put a gun to our head and demand that we "sin against the Holy Spirit" or be shot on the spot, what would we do? Which life--life with God or a life immersed in our cultural benefits--would claim our soul?

billvg