The American Church – 1 – Love letters to my family

Following the feast of the Passover the night Jesus was betrayed, He spoke to his disciples of a new commandment.

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another. [John 13:34-35. RSV]

Clearly, Jesus intends for there to be a special love between all true Christians by which is meant everyone in the world who has been born again and walks in the historic biblical faith regardless of denomination or fellowship. This special love binds the church in oneness or unity as expressed by Christ when he prayed for the church.

I do not pray for these only (the disciples), but also for those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. The glory which thou hast given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them, and thou in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them even as thou hast loved me. [John 17:20-23. RSV]

We Christians haven’t done a very good job of becoming “perfectly one” before a watching world, especially when differences arise within the church. But differences will always occur within the body and must be resolved. It is how those differences are addressed that determines our witness before the world. If there is a lack of true love one for another, those differences will lead to great strife, turmoil, and bitterness. To achieve God’s standard of oneness requires Christians to simultaneously practice God’s holiness and God’s love. God is holy and God is love. Love without holiness is compromise. Holiness without love leads to harshness, strife, and discord.[1]

So how does the church and individual Christians do a better job of addressing their differences before a watching world? Francis Schaeffer believes that we must obey the Bible equally in doctrine and the way we live in all facets of life.

But if we truly believe this, then something must be considered. Truth carries with it confrontation. Truth demands confrontation; loving confrontation, but confrontation nevertheless. If our reflex action is always accommodation regardless of the centrality of the truth involved, there is something wrong.[2] [emphasis in original]

I have titled the first chapter on the American evangelical church as “Love letters to my family.” They are love letters which I write with a grieving heart. I love the evangelical church and all of my born-again brothers and sisters in Christ. But today’s evangelical church is not simultaneously practicing God’s holiness and God’s love, and we are at a time of confrontation. There are many godly men and women who are far superior to this author in biblical knowledge, Christian love, and spiritual maturity but who also believe it is a time to confront the spirit of the world that has invaded the church.

In the first part of this book we shall briefly survey the history of the church since its inception two thousand years ago. Understanding the central themes, successes, and failures in its history is important and will give insight and perspective to the issues faced by today’s Christian church. More importantly, we shall extensively examine the infiltration of the modern church by the spirit of the world which has led to its demise as a moral force necessary to stem the decline of American culture.

The spirit of the world

Over the course of its history, the church has suffered attack from within (theological compromise) and without (cultural compromise), but the principal thrust of both attacks can be described as nothing less than the diminution and final abandonment of biblical truth. As will be seen in the upcoming chapters, this diminution and abandonment of truth has occurred because the church has failed to recognize and resist the spirit of the world which has invaded the church.

To recognize the spirit of the world is to know that it is the complete antithesis of the nature and character of God. Where God is truth, it is a lie. Where God is just, it is injustice. Where God is love, it is hate. Where Godliness means life, it leads to death. Where God is goodness and mercy, it is sin and cruelty. The spirit of the world is Satan’s chameleon—always refining its outward allure to match the demands of a culture but remains unchangeably corrupt within. The spirit of the world has plagued mankind since Satan tempted Eve in the Garden. It has been Satan’s tool of choice by which he attempts to destroy the church.

The spirit of the world during an age of rampant humanism has redefined and compartmentalized the meaning of truth in all spheres of American life. Decades of this humanistic view of truth has been absorbed by most Christians and evangelical churches. They now unconsciously accept the heresy that there are two sources of truth—religious truth and all other truth newly enthroned by the enlightened age of science and reason. In one half of the dichotomy are matters of science and reason. This truth is considered to be public truth and applies to all individuals and to all spheres of public life including the physical sciences, social sciences, politics, economics, and the arts. The other half of humanism’s dichotomy of truth is limited to religious truth which is oriented toward religion and involves matters of personal opinion such as the existence of God, values, and morality. Since these are deemed to be personal beliefs, they are considered as being non-rational, subjective, and have no basis in fact in the natural world and therefore privatized which is to say they have no voice in the affairs of the other spheres of American life.[3] Particularly since the age of Enlightenment and its codification of the humanistic philosophy, this false dichotomy of truth is the modern veneer which covers the unchanging spirit of the world present since the fall of mankind.

However, biblical truth can never be shoved into a compartment in which religious matters are only allowed to contribute suggestions as to values and standards of morality in a pluralistic, independently functioning culture. To the contrary, the biblical revelation is the only correct answer to the scientists’ perpetual quest for a “theory of everything.” The Bible gives truthful answers as to where man came from, describes what went wrong with the world, and tells man how he can get out of the mess man he has made. Nevertheless, many evangelicals have bought into the humanistic dichotomy of truth, and it has been a catastrophe for the church and culture in America.

The evangelical church has been especially susceptible to the humanistic spirit of the world for two reasons. One is theological and the other is cultural.

Biblical illiteracy

Within the theological realm, the evangelical church has exhibited a marked growth in biblical illiteracy in the last decades of the twentieth century and continues to the present day (by which is meant a remarkable lack of familiarity with the Bible and its central themes and teachings). In the spirit of the age, consistent and thematic biblical teaching has substantially declined in many evangelical churches. Here we speak of the decline in Sunday school training for all ages and the discontinuance of children and youth organizations within the church that promoted scripture memorization and biblical knowledge for decades.

At the same time, there has been a significant decline in expository preaching as preachers began emphasizing the therapeutic realm of personal relationships and feelings. This has led to a drift away from preaching the great organizing themes of the Bible such as the nature and character of God; the creation, fall, and redemption; the historical narratives of the Old and New Testaments; and the Christian walk in a hostile world.[4] There is a time for pulpit teaching on topical and peripheral subjects, but for many it has become the rule rather than the exception. An excess of topical preaching leads to fragmentation by which is meant fragmentation of the Christian worldview. Furthermore, fragmentation of the Word causes man to descend from the glorious heights from which one can clearly see truth to a forest of facts and minutia that hide truth and ultimately destroys within men’s minds the concept that truth exists. Fragmentation tends toward relativism in which selected facts are arranged to fit the desired outcome and results in loss of context.

Evangelicals must evangelize, and it does not occur under sterile laboratory conditions but in a messy, hostile culture residing in Satan’s domain. To effectively evangelize is to spread the gospel message but not in a hit and run fashion. We have a responsibility to engage individuals and the culture by being prepared to give reasons which support the credibility of the Bible, especially when challenged by skepticism and pagan philosophies.

In the early part of the twentieth century, the fundamentalists effectively disengaged from and abandoned the culture to the secular humanists and their toady colleagues in the liberal churches. Later mid-twentieth century evangelicals once again began engaging the culture to counter the spirit of the world. But following the tumultuous 1960s, the last three generations of the evangelical church have retreated and failed to adequately defend the culture from alien philosophies such as humanism and false religions in a skeptical, post-modern age. Even when past generations of evangelicals knew their Bible exceptionally well, historically they were not well-versed in apologetics, the history of the church, and the wisdom of the great Christian thinkers and writers of the past. As a general rule, evangelicals have never fared well in presenting and defending their faith when challenged by skepticism and hostile ideas and ideologies. This must change.

Accommodating the spirit of the world

On the cultural front, the evangelical church has not only not countered the spirit of the world but accommodated much of it in the church. Instead of evangelizing the world, the world has evangelized the church. Many in evangelical leadership will vehemently deny this assertion and point to their success in reaching out and being relevant to the culture in which we find ourselves. We cannot dispute the fact that the church must translate unchanging Christian theology into the contemporary language of each generation. But irrespective of the claims of many in evangelical leadership, there is a difference between evangelism through accommodation of the spirit of the world occurring in many evangelical churches today and that of earlier eras when evangelism meant an uncompromised presentation of the word of God in the face of ridicule and rejection by a hostile culture. While the evangelical churches proudly boast of their effectiveness in fulfilling the great commission by winning the lost, such conversions accomplished through accommodating the spirit of the world ring hollow when large numbers of those converts do not subsequently exhibit commitment to a Christian lifestyle.

To a significant extent, the modern church has not stood against the spirit of the world in the church or in the public arena. Whether occurring through compromise, adding to, taking away, misinterpretation, disregard, neglect, or ignorance, the process of accommodation, however subtle, has diminished the authority of scripture. Writing thirty years ago, Schaeffer succinctly describes the importance of fidelity to scriptural authority in both word and deed.

What seems like a minor difference at first, in the end makes all the difference in the world…in things pertaining to theology, doctrine, and spiritual matters, but it also makes all the difference in things pertaining to the daily Christian life and how we as Christians are to relate to the world around us. In other words, compromising the full authority of Scripture eventually affects what it means to be a Christian theologically and how we live in the full spectrum of human life.[5]

Schaeffer points out that the pre-Reformation church believed in the inerrancy of scripture, but they had allowed many non-biblical theological ideas to infiltrate the church. These ideas were placed alongside of the Bible and in some instances were regarded as superior to the Bible. Eventually, these non-biblical teachings and practices led to abuses which brought about the Reformation.[6] Likewise, many of today’s evangelical churches are allowing questionable practices to infiltrate their churches which are contrary to both the words and meaning of the scriptures. Although the statements of faith of many evangelical churches proudly list the inerrancy and authority of the scriptures, their preaching and practices say otherwise.

In summary, the diminution and/or abandonment of the Bible as the infallible and inerrant truth of God is occurring in varying degrees in many evangelical denominations, churches, fellowships, and organizations. It occurs because of a growing ignorance of evangelicals in Bible knowledge and accommodation of the spirit of the world within the churches.

Evangelical churches arose during the First Great Awakening and have been at among those at the forefront of all that has been good in the church world and America for over three hundred years. They are not perfect and never have been, and they will continue to make mistakes. But the evangelical church must continually examine itself and make necessary course corrections when error enters in order to avoid those heartbreaking words spoken by Christ in the Sermon on the Mount.

Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many works in your name? And then will I declare to them, I never knew you; depart from me, you evildoers. [Matthew 7: 21-23. RSV]

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Francis A. Schaeffer, The Great Evangelical Disaster, (Westchester, Illinois: Crossway Books, 1984), p. 168.
[2] Ibid., p. 64.
[3] Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth, (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2004, 2005), pp. 20-21.
[4] Ibid., p. 301.
[5] Schaeffer, pp. 44-45.
[6] Ibid., p. 45.