Series on the Modern Lukewarm Evangelical Church – No. 12

Many Protestant churches succumbed to the secularizing modernist culture during the first sixty years of the Laodicean period (1870 to the soon-coming Rapture of the faithful church). They became known as the liberal-modernist-progressive Protestant churches that have a strong history of following the episcopal form of church government (e.g., top down rule of the pope through church hierarchy to the local priest, and the laity at the bottom) or the presbyterian form (committee rule). During those sixty years, the Roman Catholic Church continued its 1,700 years of corrupt church government. Together, the Catholics and the liberal Protestant churches are false churches that claim to be Christian but are apostate.

Those faithful Protestant churches that came into the Laodicean period were generally described as conservative, fundamentalist, or evangelical and almost all kept their allegiance to the first century congregational model of church government. However, a disturbing trend began to emerge among evangelical churches in the 1950s and 1960s. Even though evangelical churches generally retained the congregational form of government in their constitutions and bylaws, many began adopting a CEO-corporatist style of church leadership which in many respects contains significant elements of the authoritarian episcopal and presbyterian forms of church government. This drift away from the first century model has significantly contributed to the emergence of a modern lukewarm evangelical church.

Congregational form of church government before its demise in the last half of the twentieth century

In the not too distant past, most evangelical churches had a preaching pastor leading the church, whether a seminarian, Bible school graduate, or self-taught. The first qualifications of pastors of that era were that they were God-called and had a leadership gifting as a preaching pastor. Seminary or Bible college degrees did not determine their gifting or call, but many sought training either before or thereafter. In Greek, the word “pastor” means to be a shepherd. The shepherd tends his flock by which is meant that he pastors the flock, gently rules them, associates with the flock as a friend and companion, keeps company with them, and feeds the flock.

Standing at the side of the preaching lead pastor in the pre-1960s were the elders of the church. Elders were men and women who had been given a leadership gift (sometimes more than one) as an evangelist, prophet, teacher, and possibly as an apostle being sent out and supported by the local congregation, i.e., missionary. As was the case in the first century church, most elders were not professionally trained or degreed in their gifting, but they functioned in their leadership gifts with equal status with the other elders of the local church. Their leadership gifts were just as important to the shepherding of the local church body as that of the lead preaching pastor. Otherwise, those churches could not have survived in the first century or the present day.

Growth of the CEO-corporatist leadership style in church government during the last half of the twentieth century

Just as the episcopal form of church government created an unbiblical division between the clergy and laity within the Roman Catholic Church, so does the CEO-corporatist style of leadership create an unbiblical division between the pulpit and the pew in Protestant churches. The CEO style of church leadership grew out of the mega-church phenomenon beginning after World War II and eventually became known as the Church Growth seeker-friendly method of doing church. This movement profoundly damaged a multitude of evangelical churches of all sizes. The pastors of smaller congregations soon began to imitate the teachings, methods, and mindset of the mega-church gurus who promised that their methods were the best way to build a church in the modern age. The mindset of these pastors changed from shepherds to managers.

To quickly give an overview of the outworking of the CEO-corporatist leadership style in church government in the modern evangelical church, I quote from a 2013 interview of Glen Newman, author of Pastors Move Over – Make Room for the Rest of Us. Although the author does not agree with many of his prescriptions for a return to the first century model of church government, he has correctly diagnosed the reasons for the departure of the evangelical church from that model and the consequences thereof.

Ephesians 4:11, 1 Corinthians 12-14 shows a clear system of all believers ministering to one another and worshipping house to house. The elders were the leadership of that day and servant leaders at that. But they also recognized each other’s personal gift of ministry. In the New Testament there were no “CEO” type leaders and in fact there were multiple pastors within the flock, ministering and nurturing those that needed it…[Newman] attributes the origins of the senior pastor model to the Constantinian era in the fourth century and notes that it was later adopted as a part of the Roman Catholic tradition.

The pastor in that church (mega church) isn’t really pastoring anybody. What the people are doing is they are watching a show on the stage. When there is no service, behind the scenes the pastor is running the church like a business and his assistant pastors are like middle managers. I [Newman] believe that the elders should be leading the church. Not people who sit on a church board but spiritual leaders, and we have forgotten that the elders are the spiritual leaders…For many centuries the church has been run either like a monarchy or in the modern Protestant churches like a business.

This (the CEO led churches) have created passive, uninvolved congregations that in many respects are spiritually immature due to this dependency on the professional clergy to do what they should be doing themselves…the CEO-type approach to church government was of particular concern in megachurches where church members can easily be forgotten.[1]

Much of what Newman has said is correct. However, I believe that evangelical churches that emerged at the beginning of the First Great Awakening mostly followed the first century model in the context of modern times up to the 1960s. But adaptations of the first century model due to the “context of modern times” do not mean that gifts of leadership in the local church are to be deconstructed and refashioned to fit the demands of the modern world. Rather, the essentials of the five-fold ministry elements and their application in the local church must be retained but adapted to reach and minister to people in current cultural life (e.g., use of itinerant evangelists to preach in the local church on a periodic basis). The rise of the CEO style of leadership is an example of the deconstruction of the five-fold ministry elements and the local church model of government. CEO style pastors have significantly contributed to the decline or loss of the leadership giftings of other elder-pastors in the local church and a loss of the operation of the gifts of the Spirit in all believers because congregation members are transformed into spectators.

In the mega-churches and smaller churches led by want-to-be pastors of a mega-church, the church body is no longer a flock but a mega-herd or mini-herd as the case may be. Flocks are not driven but follow the shepherd for they know the master’s voice. Herds must be driven by their masters or seduced into following the goodies on the master’s hay wagon. The CEO style of pastoring is a complete distortion of the meaning of the word “pastor” and separates the office of pastor from its first century New Testament meaning of “shepherd” of the flock.[2]

Power and Control – The motivation for a CEO-corporatist style of leadership

The term “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely” is generally attributed to nineteenth century British politician Lord Acton. As we have seen in our study, this proverbial saying seems to have been proven true by the behavior of a great majority of church leaders during the entirety of the history of the Church Age. The author would add an addendum to Lord Acton’s axiom: The greater distance there is between those ruled and those with power to rule, the greater the abuse and corruption of that power.

This is a picture of what is happening as the evangelical church transitions from an elder-led, congregational style (local control by local members of the body of Christ) to a CEO-corporatist leadership led by a single ruling pastor aided by a complicit staff of pastors and a docile board of deacons. Any threat to the leadership’s regime endangers their control and must be avoided at all cost. Things to be avoided include controversies, conflicts, voicing of inconvenient truths, and disruptions in the appearance of unity. Above all, they must control and control requires power.

Signs that signal a transition to a CEO-corporatist style of leadership

• Incorporation into the local church of Church Growth seeker-friendly methods and practices. As churches grow, the elders are replaced by paid professional staff members who receive job assignments and instructions from the CEO. The middle managers interact with the congregation and report back to the CEO. Thus, the CEO is effectively separated from his flock and is no longer a true shepherd. In elder led churches, there are multiple shepherds that interact with the entire church while fulfilling their leadership giftings.

• A gradual tightening of authority over the laity and leadership below the senior pastor. In effect, this is a gradual return to an episcopal, top down, style of church government which sharpens the distinction and widens the gulf between the pastor and the laity as happened with the Roman Catholic Church and most authoritarian and mainline churches of the Reformation era.

• Complete control over the message, the microphone, the platform, and the messengers allowed to speak to the local congregation.

• Complete control over the dissemination of financial and attendance information. Financial reports to the congregation often lack important details, consistent standards of reporting, transparency, and in some cases accuracy. Voting membership rolls and the church’s constitution and bylaws are rarely or never disseminated to the membership.

• Suppression of descent by the implementation of “leadership agreements” whereby volunteer applicants are required to give unwavering allegiance to the leadership team and their decisions, plans, and direction of the church. To be part of any facet of church ministry (the team) applicants are required to agree to every aspect of the agreement. This is a new phenomenon sweeping through the evangelical churches, and there are numerous websites that promote and supply these agreements to churches. Many leadership agreement templates contain two key phrases placed among other relatively innocuous statements which in many cases are not the business of the church but must be checked in order to be a member of the “team.” The two key phrases that assure leadership’s power and control appear to be the heart of these agreements and are similar to the following:

(1) “Support the lead pastor, pastoral staff, and the direction of our church.”
(2) “Speak positively of our church’s leadership in public and private conversation.”

After checking all the boxes, the applicant must certify the application is complete, accurate, and not misleading in any way, and then sign the agreement.

This move toward ultimate control of what one does, thinks, and says in the church suggestive of the heavy hand of “big brother” found in a totalitarian society described in George Orwell’s book 1984.

• Tight control over the dissemination of contact information of congregation members that would allow direct communication between members, e.g., addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses.

• Removal from the local congregation of the “bother” of having to make decisions even if they have a congregational form of government. These congregations are seldom asked for guidance other than to vote for the propositions presented by the leadership. However, in the correctly functioning congregational model, ultimate authority resides with the local members of the church. The elected leadership roles are considered representatives of the entire congregation and subject to the local church.

• Minimize, disregard, or discourage operation of the gifts of the Spirit within the local body. Some of the gifts of the Spirit are regarded as having become unnecessary or non-operational following the first century apostolic age, e.g., divers kinds of tongues, interpretation of tongues, prophecy, working of miracles, and divine healing to name five of the nine gifts of the Spirit described in 1 Corinthians 12:4-11. Can there be any doubt as to why many evangelical churches have become lukewarm and powerless while being ridiculed and shunned by a hostile culture?

• Complete departure of the office of evangelist in the local church. There are people with the gift of soul winning in the local congregation, some by preaching and others by working with sinners around an altar or independently in other settings. One of the great disasters in evangelical churches over the last three decades is the almost complete removal of the ministry of the itinerant evangelist that in former times periodically came to local churches to preach to both saints and sinners with regard to their spiritual condition. The preaching of these evangelists often generated the spark necessary for the Holy Spirit’s revival of a local congregation. Supporting apostles sent out from the church (missionaries) are not a substitute for the office of evangelist in the local church.

• The office of prophet is no longer evident in most evangelical churches to deliver direct revelations from God; to expose sin, warn of judgments to come, uphold the righteous standards of God’s Word; battle worldliness and spiritual lethargy and false teachers; and to warn, challenge, comfort, encourage and build up God’s people. Prophets often point to sin in the camp that other elders do not quickly see. CEO type leaders fear prophets because these pastors do not want anyone to make waves or bring criticism which may reflect badly on their leadership and interfere with their goals of keeping the congregants uninformed but happy and supportive of the leadership and their agenda.

• Teaching from the pulpit by anyone but the preaching pastor is rare if non-existent unless that teacher is thoroughly vetted by the pastor as someone in substantial agreement with the pastor on almost any issue. There are many gifted teachers in full-time ministry or resident in the local church who are not allowed to exercise their leadership gift of teaching from the pulpit.

Repent, restore, and encourage

It is time for leaders and the body of Christ in the lukewarm evangelical church to repent for the abuse and corruption of the design, organization, and operation of the church as practiced by the first century New Testament church, the evangelical churches of the Philadelphian period, and those faithful evangelical churches thereafter. The congregational model of church government must be restored in full including the leadership gifts of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. Also, the body of Christ must be encouraged to seek the gifts of the Spirit and to exercise those gifts in the local church and elsewhere under the direction of the Holy Spirit.
______

The lukewarm evangelical church is interested only in its comfortableness, prosperity, and satisfactions in this life. But this present age is the end-time spiritual battleground between God and His children vs. Satan and the dark forces of this world. The ultimate prize in this battle is the souls of mankind. We know who the victor is, but the final score won’t be announced until the end of the Church Age which will occur at the moment the church is raptured. When that moment occurs, there will be a single individual known only to God who will be the very last to person to make his or her peace with God before He calls His bride home. We must ask ourselves, what could we have done in this battle to bring just a few more souls into His kingdom before that last person is saved?

Friends, we must expend every ounce of our being in His noble cause. Hold nothing back and when our life is over we can stand before Jesus knowing that we have left everything on the battlefield.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Leonardo Blair, “Megachurch Pastors Running Churches Like CEOs Unbiblical, says Former Pastor,” Christian Post, February 19, 2013. https://www.christianpost.com/news/megachurch-pastors-running-churches-like-ceos-unbiblical-says-former-pastor.html (accessed August 31, 2021).
[2] Glen Newman, Pastors Move Over-Make Room for the Rest of Us, (Acton, Texas: Glen Newman, 2010), p. 33.

Series on the Modern Lukewarm Evangelical Church – No. 11

In the Introduction to this series titled “Church, Inc.,” the author presented the following premises which are necessary to guide our understanding of the history of the organized church over two millennia to its present condition—the modern lukewarm church at the end of the Church Age just before the Rapture of the church.

1. Satan knows that separation of man’s relationship from God will occur if he can corrupt the truth of God’s Word and/or the Church.

2. Corruption of the truth of God’s Word comes through the infiltration of false teachers into the church to spread lies and false teachings. [See previous three-part series: “False Teachers in the Evangelical Church.”]

3. Corruption of the essentials and details of God’s design, organization, and operation of the church will damage or destroy God’s pattern for the church and its mission.

4. The essentials and details of this design, organization, and operation of the church are portrayed in the leadership gifts given to the elders of the church and the gifts of the Spirit given to all members in the body of Christ. To corrupt the operation of the leadership gifts and the gifts of the Spirit in the church is to damage or destroy God’s design, organization, and operation of the church.

The revelation of the seven periods of church history during the Church Age was given by Jesus to the apostle John on the Isle of Patmos and is recorded in Revelation chapters 2 and 3.

We have examined the seven periods of the Church Age, and it has become evident that the premises set forth in the Introduction of this series on Church, Inc. have confirmed the truth of those premises. The essence of the truth of these premises is that when the church adheres to the first century New Testament commands with regards to the New Testament doctrines and the design, organization, and operation of the local church, it will flourish. If it does not, the church will be compromised, then fully corrupted, and death follows.

With the brief exception of the faithful church in the Philadelphian period (1720-1870), the cycle of compromise, corruption, and death resumed at the beginning of the Laodicean period and continues to the present day (1870-to the soon-coming Rapture of the church). However, even during the darkest centuries of church history, the love and grace of God and the gifts of the Holy Spirit sustained generation after generation of that remnant of the organized church comprised of all born again believers (the universal church) even though many suffered and died for their King and His kingdom.

In Part V we examined the Philadelphian and Laodicean periods of church history. These two back-to-back periods present a stunning miniature portrait of the entire Church Age over its two-thousand-year history of the once flourishing church and its dramatic decline.

In Part VI we continue our examination of the modern Laodicean period. However, the examination will transition from a historical perspective to a contemporary view of events, trends, and circumstances beginning in the mid-twentieth century and lasting to the present day that created the modern lukewarm evangelical church. The afflictions, failings, and weaknesses of the modern lukewarm evangelical church have caused its demise as a moral force necessary to stem the decline of American culture.

Modern evangelical church declines in the last half of the twentieth century

As the Laodicean period progressed into the second half of the twentieth century, major segments of evangelical Christianity began to mirror the lukewarm Laodicean church of the first century that Jesus described as being indifferent, subdued, apathetic, unconcerned, and half-hearted. Similar to the first century Laodicean church, many modern Protestant evangelical churches generally have become comfortable, prosperous, and well-satisfied. These churches pride themselves on their bank accounts, fine buildings, members of high standing, and being socially recognized and influential. But Jesus’ indictment of “wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked” continues to apply to these modern imitators of the first century church at Laodicea. As a result, the most important goal of the leaders of the lukewarm church is that they maintain their comfortableness, prosperity, and satisfactions in this life.

What are the ailments, failings, and circumstances that caused lukewarmness in the evangelical church over the last 60+ years?

The evangelical church is sick, a sickness unto death if rapid remedial action is not taken. Before action can be taken, we must know the causes of the sickness. Therefore, we must take a deep forensic dive into the pathologies of the evangelical church in America with regard to its doctrinal failures and its dysfunctional design, organization and operation of the church. It is important to remember that the essentials and details of this design, organization, and operation of the church are portrayed in the operation of the leadership gifts given to the elders of the church and the gifts of the Spirit given to all members in the body of Christ.

• Doctrinal failure

We begin with what is most important. Doctrinal failure is akin to heart failure in humans. Doctrine is the heart of the Christian faith. We may limp along because of faulty organization and operation issues, but doctrinal failure quickly brings death. God is truth, and God especially hates its opposite—lies. Thus, there is no greater lie than to lie about God’s truth. We have dealt with the subject of false teachers in the previous series titled “False teachers in the evangelical church.” Note that that truth is singular. There is one truth. Lies are plural. When one lie fails to defeat the truth, another lie replaces it. Truth remains unchangeable and irreplaceable.

Our main purpose in the “Church, Inc.” series is to examine the church’s failing to adhere to the first century model for its design, organization, and operation of the church. To this end it will be beneficial for the reader to review Part I of this series.

• The failure to follow the design, organization, and operation of the first century New Testament Church

In the remainder of Part VI we shall describe those gifts as established and modeled in the first century New Testament church. In Part VII, we shall compare and contrast the failure of the modern lukewarm evangelical church to follow the first century New Testament church’s design, organization, and operation. The failures are caused by a corruption or abandonment of the leadership gifts given to the elders of the church and the significant absence of the operation within the church of the gifts of the Spirit made available to all members in the body of Christ.

(1) Leadership gifts – the first century model

Apostles – The term “apostle” is applied in two ways. In the unique sense, apostle refers to those who were the Spirit-inspired witnesses to Christ and His ministry. They were personally commissioned by Christ to preach His original message and establish the church. Here we are referring to the original core group of disciples including Matthias who replaced Judas Iscariot and Paul following his Damascus Road encounter with Jesus.[1]

In the general sense, the term “apostle” was used for “a commissioned representative of a church, such as a messenger appointed and sent as a missionary (i.e., to take Christ’s message into another land or culture) or for some other special responsibility…and dedicated to establishing churches according to the true and original message of Christ.” Apostles in this general sense continue to be critical in accomplishing the mission of planting churches at home and throughout the world.[2]

Prophets – Prophets in the New Testament were spiritual leaders and uniquely gifted in receiving and communicating direct revelation from God by the prompting of the Holy Spirit. The role of the prophet continued throughout the Church Age following the establishment of the church in the first century. Having the calling of God upon them, prophets were Spirit-filled and called to warn, challenge, comfort, encourage, and build up God’s people. They expose sin, warn of judgment to come, uphold the righteous standards of God’s Word, battle worldliness and spiritual lethargy, and are alert to the danger of false teaching.[3]

However, the NT prophet’s message (if not specifically recorded in Scripture) is not to be considered infallible, and the message must be evaluated by the church and other prophets. Above all, the message must be consistent with the Bible and its principles and patterns. NT prophets, like their OT counterparts, can expect rejection in a church that is lukewarm or in a rebellious condition. Yet, the work of NT prophets continue to be vitally necessary to the spiritual health of churches, especially during the current end times Laodicean period of the Church Age.[4]

Evangelists – New Testament evangelists were godly ministers, gifted and commissioned by God, to present the gospel of spiritual salvation to those who did not know Christ. Their chief gifting is soul winning as they help establish new ministries and Christian works in cities and among people who need to be awakened to the faith in Christ. The work of the evangelist includes (1) preaching to the lost and those who are spiritually weak in the faith, (2) bringing lost souls to salvation through Christ and baptism in water, (3) bringing revival to the church, (4) miracles, healings, and rescue from the control of evil spirits, and (5) working with and encouraging believers to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Failure of the church to value and support the ministry of the evangelist will increase the number of souls lost for eternity.[5]

Pastors – Pastors are considered to be a part of the elders of the church and have the God-given gift of overseeing (overseers) and caring for the spiritual needs of a local congregation. The pastor’s task is to nurture individual believers and the local church body to fulfill their God-given roles of Christian service. Essentially, pastors function as shepherds, and they must care and protect their “flock,” the church. This care and protection includes communicating God’s Word through accurate preaching and teaching, and coming against false beliefs, ideas and teaching. In effect the elder with the leadership gift of pastor is the principal preaching elder. According to Donald Stamps, “The NT shows a number of pastors directing the spiritual life of the local church.”[6] [emphasis added]

This raises a question as to the duties of the pastors (elders). Did all of the other pastors (elders), apart from the overseeing preaching pastor, preach and exercise their leadership gifts in the local church (prophet, evangelist, and teacher)? The answer is yes. We may infer that the other elders took the lead in exercising their particular leadership gifts as well as the gifts of the Spirit made available to all believers. The point is that the “preaching” pastor, the shepherd charged with care and protection of the local flock, was not the only preaching/teaching pastor. The other elders in the local church presented an evangelical message, prophesied, or taught, and all supported the ministry of the apostle (missionary) to other regions and countries.

Teachers – “Teachers are those who have a special, God-given gift to clarify, explain, and communicate God’s Word in order to build up the body of Christ.” The core of the teacher’s leadership gift is to guard, by the Holy Spirit’s help, the original message of truth embodied by God’s Word. The purpose of the presentation of truth is to produce holiness in all believers (i.e., moral purity, spiritual wholeness, separation from evil, and dedication to God). As the exercise of the leadership gift of teaching declines, Christians lose their concern for the truth and authority of the message.[7]

(2) The gifts of the Spirit

The gifts of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:4-11) in the lives of all believers in the local church are just as critical to the proper design, organization, and operation of the local church as are the leadership gifts. Without the gifts of the Spirit working in the lives of believers, the leadership gifts would have no substantive effect on the spiritual life of the church. We will mention but not expand on the gifts of the Spirit because the emphasis in this series is on the leadership gifts.

• Revelation gifts: word of wisdom, word of knowledge, and the discerning of spirits
• Power gifts: faith, healing, and the working of miracles
• Utterance gifts: prophecy, divers kinds of tongues, and interpretation of tongues

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The design, organization, and operation of the first century New Testament church was achieved through the proper operation of the leadership gifts and the operation of the gifts of the Spirit within the body. With the exception of the Philadelphian period, the church abandoned the first century model of the New Testament church beginning in the early to middle second century to the present day. In its place the church adopted an episcopal from which placed church government and its operation in the hands of a single individual beginning in the fourth and fifth centuries until the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century. But church reform in the Reformation period did not extend to a return to the first century model of church government. That return occurred at the end of the Reformation period with the Separatists and Puritans in America. The congregational model of the Separatists and Puritans laid the foundations for evangelicalism and the three Great Awakenings that brought about the faithful church and spanned the entirety of the Philadelphian period (1720-1870).

In Part VII we shall examine the ascending CEO-corporatist leadership style that has significantly caused many evangelical churches gradually over the last sixty years to become the face of the modern lukewarm evangelical church.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Donald Stamps, “The Ministry Leadership Gifts for the Church,” Fire Bible-Global Study Edition, Ed. Donald Stamps, (Springfield, Missouri: Life Publishers International, 2009), pp. 2259-2260.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid., pp. 2260-2261.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid., pp. 2261-2262.
[6] Ibid., p. 2262.
[7] Ibid., pp. 2262-2263.

Series on the Modern Lukewarm Evangelical Church – No. 10

In Part V we shall examine the last two periods of the Church Age – Philadelphian (the faithful church) and Laodicean (the lukewarm church).

• Philadelphia – The faithful church (AD 1720-1870). It was a church of revival and spiritual progress. The church had proved itself faithful and obedient to the Word. As its name implies, it was a church of love and kindness to each other. Because of their excellent spirit, they were an excellent church. They kept the word and did not deny His name. No fault was attributed to the church, only mild reproof for having only a little strength or power. The Philadelphian period began about 1720 with the early stirrings of the First Great Awakening in America and the British Isles.

The sixth period is named after the church at Philadelphia (1720-1870). For the first time since the first half of the second century (the early-mid 100s) the universal church, comprised of all born again believers, created a society that made possible a substantial return to the doctrines and the design, organization, and operation of the first century New Testament church. This return came of age at the beginning of the Philadelphian period in 1720, almost exactly one hundred years after the Pilgrims landed on the shores of America. The faithful church of the Philadelphian period was made possible and was sustained by the Three Great Awakenings that occurred over the next one hundred and fifty years.

Prior to 1720, there were a number of isolated revival outpourings of the Holy Spirit in the late 1600s and early 1700s. Out of these early stirrings came a renewal movement called evangelicalism that fundamentally changed many churches and denominations and helped birth the First Great Awakening in the 1720s. The churches that embraced evangelicalism emphasized a revivalist style of preaching, personal conversion, personal devotion and holiness, individual access to God, and de-emphasized the importance and authority of church government.[1] [emphasis added]

Evangelicalism in its outworking essentially followed a congregational form of church government as described by B. K. Kuiper.

Each local church is self-governing. It chooses its own pastor, teacher, elders, and deacons. Churches have no authority over each other, but it is their privilege and duty to help each other. It is highly desirable that from time to time they hold assemblies in which all the churches are represented, and in which matters of concern to all are carefully considered and discussed. The churches, however, are not required to adopt the decision of the assemblies.[2]

The exact date of the beginning of the Great Awakening in America and its conclusion are a matter of supposition. If the long view is taken and correctly includes the revivals in the early 1720s and concludes with the waning of the Awakening’s long-term effects on society, then The Great Awakening can be said to span from about 1720 to the American Revolution in 1770s.[3] There were even some revivals that occurred during the years of the Revolutionary War.

Thomas Kidd points to an extraordinary series of revivals in towns along the Connecticut and Thames Rivers in 1720 and lasting until 1722. The Connecticut revival was “the first major event of the evangelical era in New England” and “…touched congregations in Windham, Preston, Franklin, Norwich, and Windsor.” One of the largest of the Connecticut revivals occurred in the Windham church during 1721 with eighty people joining the church in six months. Over the three-year course of the revivals, several hundred new members and possibly more conversions were reported. The significance of this revival has been generally forgotten because of its lack of publicity through print media which may also account for the revival not spreading beyond its regional borders.[4]

In A History of the American People, Paul Johnson again distills the essence of The Great Awakening and its importance in the founding of America.

…There was a spiritual event in the first half of the 18th century in America, and it proved to be of vast significance, both in religion and politics…The Great Awakening was the proto-revolutionary event, the formative moment in American history, preceding the political drive for independence and making it possible…The Revolution could not have taken place without this religious background. The essential difference between the American Revolution and the French Revolution is that the American Revolution, in its origins, was a religious event, whereas the French Revolution was an anti-religious event.”[5]

If one considers the one-hundred and fifty-year history of the faithful church during the Philadelphian period (1720-1870), the three Great Awakenings and their continuing influence on the nation covered the entire era with the exception of three brief periods of spiritual decline: The First Great Awakening (1720-1760s), the two phases of the Second Great Awakening (1794-1812 and 1822-1842), and the Third Great Awakening (1857-1858).

Each of the three Great Awakenings played a decisive role in the history of the nation. The Great Awakening was the formative moment in American history preceding the political drive for independence and making it possible. The Second Great Awakening was the stabilizing moment whose effects lasted until the 1840s and saved the new nation from political and moral destruction. The Third Great Awakening was the sustaining moment that prepared the nation to endure the national conflagration of the Civil War and made possible its reunification and survival in the war’s aftermath. The revival of the late 1850s caused men and women, in both the North and South, to be spiritually prepared for the coming struggle in which the nation would exorcize the demon of slavery and recover its national unity.

One of the most remarkable occurrences of the Philadelphian period was the significant rejection of the episcopal form of church government and a return to the practice of local control of the organization through a congregational form of church government. Part of the reason for the changes can be attributed to the Pilgrims and Puritans. Although the Puritans were wealthy, claimed far greater numbers in the Massachusetts colony, and came with a staunch Church of England episcopal form of government, they soon exchanged the episcopal form for the congregational model supplied by the radical, much despised Pilgrim Separatists. The Pilgrims set the standard of church government in the Bay Colony.[6] As previously mention, this de-emphasis of the importance and authority of church government was a strong characteristic of the evangelical renewal movement born at the beginning of the Great Awakening and which fundamentally changed the form of church government in many churches and denominations to the present day.

One of the outstanding features of the Great Awakening in America was the beginning of a broad belief by evangelicals that the heart of the Christian faith was the “new birth” of an individual soul. Inspired by the preaching of the Word, the doctrine of the “new birth” invigorated even as it divided churches. The Evangelical supporters of the Great Awakening who championed the “new birth” were the Presbyterians, Baptists and Methodists, and they became the largest American Protestant denominations by the first decades of the nineteenth century. These denominations held a predominantly congregational form of church government. Opponents of the evangelical supporters of the Awakening and their call for a “new birth” were either wholly opposed or were split in their response. These were the Anglicans, Quakers, and Congregationalists that generally declined towards the end of the 1700s.[7]

It is important to understand that the congregational form of government did not mean that all churches embracing congregationalism were in favor of the revivalism of the Great Awakening. Congregationalism more readily makes possible revival but does not insure that it will occur. Other factors may play a role. For example, a church with a congregational form of government that allows false doctrine to remain within the church will not see a move of the Spirit that leads to revival. However, it is an obvious conclusion that churches who follow a congregational form of government and rigorously hold fast to and defend the inerrant truth of the Scriptures are most likely to seek and receive periodic outpourings of spiritual revival by the Holy Spirit.

The Philadelphian period in church history is a remarkable expression of the grace and goodness of God poured out upon a people who sought to establish His kingdom and a nation upon the inerrant and indestructible Word of God. The great blessings of God were the result of a return to the doctrines and patterns of organization and operation of the first century New Testament church.

By the end of the American Revolution and establishment of the American republic, the populist wing of evangelicalism had become the dominant branch of Christianity.[8] These denominations predominantly held to a congregational form of government most similar to the first century New Testament church.

• Laodicea – The lukewarm church (1870 to the Rapture of the Church). Laodicea was the worst of all of the seven Asian churches. There was nothing good to commend it. Its great sin was that it was lukewarm—neither hot nor cold. Its indifference arose from self-conceitedness and self-delusion. It believed itself rich and in need of nothing but in reality was wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. Christ reminded them of where true riches may be found, without which severe punishment would follow.[9]

As it has been for two thousand years of church history, the central conflict within the church is the truth and authority of the Bible. Recall that the forces of the anti-religious Enlightenment exploited the two hundred years of strife within the church following the Catholic-Protestant split that began in 1517. Those same anti-religious forces dressed in the clothes of modern humanism and secularism also exploited the division between the liberals and fundamentalists between 1870 and 1930. During those six decades, the American church surrendered to secular humanists leaders and institutions a significant majority of its power and authority to direct and influence American culture.

To retain a modicum of social power, cultural authority, and institutional influence in the wake of the onslaught of humanism and secularism, the late nineteenth century, liberal Protestant leaders and their churches began embracing secular human sciences (psychology and sociology) to lend credibility and cultural relevance to their religious pretensions. Put another way, the focus changed from an eternal relationship with God to the health and well-being of one’s self in this life. The liberal Protestant leaders and their churches who sought survival through accommodation of the spirit of the world brought poisonous compromise to the few remaining vestiges of their long-abandoned doctrines and faith and produced a profane and powerless church that had lost its saltiness and was “…no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trodden under foot by men.” [Matthew 5:13b. RSV]

Some may suppose that the fundamentalist opponents of liberal Protestants were the original silent majority. But in reality, the conservative leaders of the once dominant populist evangelical churches (and the new holiness denominations that separated themselves from the liberal churches) were not silent but just didn’t have the cultural clout or platform from which to mount significant opposition to the liberal churches and their newly found secularist allies.

Nancy Pearcey described the mindsets of the fundamentalist conservatives’ loss of cultural dominance after their sixty-year battle with theological modernism and the emergence of their post-World War II offspring – the neo-evangelicals.

They (the fundamentalists) circled the wagons, developed a fortress mentality, and championed “separatism” as a positive strategy. Then in the 1940s and 50s, a movement began that aimed at breaking out of the fortress. Calling themselves neo-evangelicals, this group argued that we are called not to escape the surrounding culture but to engage it. They sought to construct a redemptive vision that would embrace not only individuals but also social structures and institutions.[10]

Just as the modernist churches had lost their saltiness, the fundamentalists hid their light as they abandoned the culture and its institutions, and the forces of secularizing humanism were freed to wreak havoc in American culture.

Following World War II, the evangelicals engaged the culture through church membership and evangelization. However, the beginning and rapidly accelerating dramatic cultural disorientation of the late 1960s eventually allowed secular humanists to capture the culture as faith was substantially driven from the public square. As a result, the muffled voices of the faithful were confined within the four walls of the local church. And as the fundamentalists did in the early twentieth century, a large portion of the evangelicals began to increasingly abandon the culture and its institutions beginning in the late 1960s to the present day.

With the demise of resistance from the evangelical church in a secularizing culture, Satan intensified his attack on American evangelical churches from within. Many evangelical churches, as did the liberal churches a hundred years earlier, accommodated the world as a means of survival.

Following the cultural turmoil that began in the mid-1960s, many modern evangelicals began centering their redemptive efforts on the individual rather than a powerful presentation of the truth and authority of the gospel. The truth of the gospel was replaced by a therapeutic gospel that accommodated the seeker and catered to his felt needs. These evangelicals had either forgotten or ignored Paul’s admonition to the Romans:

And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God. [Romans 12:2. KJV]

______

As we have examined the seven periods of Church Age history, it is evident that the premises set forth at the beginning of this Church, Inc. series have proven to be true. The essence of the lessons learned is this: To corrupt or abandon the operation of the leadership gifts and the gifts of the Spirit, as established in the first century New Testament church, is to damage or destroy God’s design, organization, and operation of the local church in every period of Church Age history.

In Part VI we shall continue to track the decline of the evangelical church during the Laodicean period since the 1960s which has to a great extent become the modern pattern of the first century church at Laodicea.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth, (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2004, 2005), pp. 253, 256-257.
[2] B. K. Kuiper, The Church in History, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1951, 1964), p. 261.
[3] Thomas S. Kidd, The Great Awakening-The Roots of Evangelical Christianity in colonial America, (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2007), pp. 9-10.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Paul Johnson, A History of the American People, (New York: HarperCollinsPublishers, 1997), pp. 110, 116-117.
[6] Kuiper, The Church in History, p. 328.
[7] “Religion and the Founding of the American Republic,” Library of Congress.
https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel02.html (accessed August 27, 2021).
[8] Gordon S. Wood, “Religion and the American Revolution,” New Directions in American Religious History, ed. Harry S. Stout and D. G. Hart, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp.185-188.
[9] Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, ed. Rev. Leslie F. Church, Ph.D., (Grand Rapids, Michigan, Zondervan Publishing House, 1961), pp. 1970-1974.
[10] Pearcey, Total Truth, p. 18.