What Lies Ahead: "Christianity Loves a Crumbling Empire"

This article by the Internet Monk is worth reading completely. I think it is mostly on-target. The evan-jelly-fish church in America is quite possibly in for a serious and rude awakening.

What is the answer? A return to solid, Biblical theology. In a word, think Biblically and act accordingly:

We are on the verge – within 10 years – of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity. This breakdown will follow the deterioration of the mainline Protestant world and it will fundamentally alter the religious and cultural environment in the West.

Within two generations, evangelicalism will be a house deserted of half its occupants. (Between 25 and 35 percent of Americans today are Evangelicals.) In the "Protestant" 20th century, Evangelicals flourished. But they will soon be living in a very secular and religiously antagonistic 21st century.

This collapse will herald the arrival of an anti-Christian chapter of the post-Christian West. Intolerance of Christianity will rise to levels many of us have not believed possible in our lifetimes, and public policy will become hostile toward evangelical Christianity, seeing it as the opponent of the common good.

Millions of Evangelicals will quit. Thousands of ministries will end. Christian media will be reduced, if not eliminated. Many Christian schools will go into rapid decline. I'm convinced the grace and mission of God will reach to the ends of the earth. But the end of evangelicalism as we know it is close.

Why is this going to happen?

1. Evangelicals have identified their movement with the culture war and with political conservatism. This will prove to be a very costly mistake. Evangelicals will increasingly be seen as a threat to cultural progress. Public leaders will consider us bad for America, bad for education, bad for children, and bad for society.

The evangelical investment in moral, social, and political issues has depleted our resources and exposed our weaknesses. Being against gay marriage and being rhetorically pro-life will not make up for the fact that massive majorities of Evangelicals can't articulate the Gospel with any coherence. We fell for the trap of believing in a cause more than a faith.

2. We Evangelicals have failed to pass on to our young people an orthodox form of faith that can take root and survive the secular onslaught. Ironically, the billions of dollars we've spent on youth ministers, Christian music, publishing, and media has produced a culture of young Christians who know next to nothing about their own faith except how they feel about it. Our young people have deep beliefs about the culture war, but do not know why they should obey scripture, the essentials of theology, or the experience of spiritual discipline and community. Coming generations of Christians are going to be monumentally ignorant and unprepared for culture-wide pressures.

3. There are three kinds of evangelical churches today: consumer-driven megachurches, dying churches, and new churches whose future is fragile. Denominations will shrink, even vanish, while fewer and fewer evangelical churches will survive and thrive.

4. Despite some very successful developments in the past 25 years, Christian education has not produced a product that can withstand the rising tide of secularism. Evangelicalism has used its educational system primarily to staff its own needs and talk to itself.

5. The confrontation between cultural secularism and the faith at the core of evangelical efforts to "do good" is rapidly approaching. We will soon see that the good Evangelicals want to do will be viewed as bad by so many, and much of that work will not be done. Look for ministries to take on a less and less distinctively Christian face in order to survive.

6. Even in areas where Evangelicals imagine themselves strong (like the Bible Belt), we will find a great inability to pass on to our children a vital evangelical confidence in the Bible and the importance of the faith.

7. The money will dry up.

What will be left?

•Expect evangelicalism to look more like the pragmatic, therapeutic, church-growth oriented megachurches that have defined success. Emphasis will shift from doctrine to relevance, motivation, and personal success – resulting in churches further compromised and weakened in their ability to pass on the faith.

•Two of the beneficiaries will be the Roman Catholic and Orthodox communions. Evangelicals have been entering these churches in recent decades and that trend will continue, with more efforts aimed at the "conversion" of Evangelicals to the Catholic and Orthodox traditions.

•A small band will work hard to rescue the movement from its demise through theological renewal. This is an attractive, innovative, and tireless community with outstanding media, publishing, and leadership development. Nonetheless, I believe the coming evangelical collapse will not result in a second reformation, though it may result in benefits for many churches and the beginnings of new churches.

•The emerging church will largely vanish from the evangelical landscape, becoming part of the small segment of progressive mainline Protestants that remain true to the liberal vision.

•Aggressively evangelistic fundamentalist churches will begin to disappear.

•Charismatic-Pentecostal Christianity will become the majority report in evangelicalism. Can this community withstand heresy, relativism, and confusion? To do so, it must make a priority of biblical authority, responsible leadership, and a reemergence of orthodoxy.

•Evangelicalism needs a "rescue mission" from the world Christian community. It is time for missionaries to come to America from Asia and Africa. Will they come? Will they be able to bring to our culture a more vital form of Christianity?

•Expect a fragmented response to the culture war. Some Evangelicals will work to create their own countercultures, rather than try to change the culture at large. Some will continue to see conservatism and Christianity through one lens and will engage the culture war much as before – a status quo the media will be all too happy to perpetuate. A significant number, however, may give up political engagement for a discipleship of deeper impact.

Is all of this a bad thing?

Evangelicalism doesn't need a bailout. Much of it needs a funeral. But what about what remains?

Is it a good thing that denominations are going to become largely irrelevant? Only if the networks that replace them are able to marshal resources, training, and vision to the mission field and into the planting and equipping of churches.

Is it a good thing that many marginal believers will depart? Possibly, if churches begin and continue the work of renewing serious church membership. We must change the conversation from the maintenance of traditional churches to developing new and culturally appropriate ones.

The ascendency of Charismatic-Pentecostal-influenced worship around the world can be a major positive for the evangelical movement if reformation can reach those churches and if it is joined with the calling, training, and mentoring of leaders. If American churches come under more of the influence of the movement of the Holy Spirit in Africa and Asia, this will be a good thing.

Will the evangelicalizing of Catholic and Orthodox communions be a good development? One can hope for greater unity and appreciation, but the history of these developments seems to be much more about a renewed vigor to "evangelize" Protestantism in the name of unity.

Will the coming collapse get Evangelicals past the pragmatism and shallowness that has brought about the loss of substance and power? Probably not. The purveyors of the evangelical circus will be in fine form, selling their wares as the promised solution to every church's problems. I expect the landscape of megachurch vacuity to be around for a very long time.

Will it shake lose the prosperity Gospel from its parasitical place on the evangelical body of Christ? Evidence from similar periods is not encouraging. American Christians seldom seem to be able to separate their theology from an overall idea of personal affluence and success.

The loss of their political clout may impel many Evangelicals to reconsider the wisdom of trying to create a "godly society." That doesn't mean they'll focus solely on saving souls, but the increasing concern will be how to keep secularism out of church, not stop it altogether. The integrity of the church as a countercultural movement with a message of "empire subversion" will increasingly replace a message of cultural and political entitlement.

Despite all of these challenges, it is impossible not to be hopeful. As one commenter has already said, "Christianity loves a crumbling empire."

We can rejoice that in the ruins, new forms of Christian vitality and ministry will be born. I expect to see a vital and growing house church movement. This cannot help but be good for an evangelicalism that has made buildings, numbers, and paid staff its drugs for half a century.

We need new evangelicalism that learns from the past and listens more carefully to what God says about being His people in the midst of a powerful, idolatrous culture.

I'm not a prophet. My view of evangelicalism is not authoritative or infallible. I am certainly wrong in some of these predictions. But is there anyone who is observing evangelicalism in these times who does not sense that the future of our movement holds many dangers and much potential?

If You Don't Believe Jesus is the Only Way, You Are Not a Christian

1. Moral relativism is the greatest evil of our day. It leads to massive confusion, despair, suicide, and countless power struggles. It is like a colorless, odorless gas which has escaped into the atmosphere of our culture, which we have breathed in without knowing it. To pick just one example, our legal system has become overrun with power struggles over such things as whether evolution or creation, or both, can be taught in public schools. The ultimate legal “issue behind the issue” in these fierce debates, as every lawyer knows, is who gets to decide. The same can be said for abortion, euthanasia, etc.

2. No one can believe such things as “my ideas [about ultimate issues of faith] are just as good as your ideas,” “no one can tell me what to believe,” “all religious are just different paths to the same god,” and the like, and believe at the same time in the Christ who said: “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6) No one can believe in moral relativism and believe that “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12) Many other scriptures could be piled upon these.

3. The organized Christian church should speak out with one voice against this evil, and even call it what it is, a heresy. From time to time through history, the Church has been called upon to draw the lines that distinguish the true Gospel from various false teachings that assail it. This is one such false teaching, yet it has been adopted, albeit perhaps unconsciously, by many who claim to name the name of Christ in our society.

The Church needs to speak clearly and with one voice, and proclaim to all such people: If this is what you truly believe, then whatever else you may be, you are not a Christian.

[The above are some thoughts on Moral Relativism, arising out of reading the chapter in John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion on the doctrine of the Church, and the necessity for the people of God to hear the preaching of the Word as a congregation in order to avoid “lone ranger” Christians who by failing to attend such preaching fall into all kinds of error.]

Naming Names

Berit Kjos in a superb piece titled, "How To Resist the Pull of the Crowd" writes:

"Our anchor and foundation is God's unchanging Word...Postmodern leaders resist such truth. It doesn't fit the collective thinking of the new managed society. It clashes with the pluralistic vision of unity in diversity: all gods are equally valid. All lead to the same end.

Unlike noble visions and humanist idealism, God's actual Word can't be manipulated by today's clever facilitators. His unchanging truth is poison to the consensus process...As the apostle Paul wrote two millennia ago,

"...the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. But you be watchful in all things..." 2 Timothy 4:2-5."

This Scripture gives us three crucial facts about pagans in the last days:

1. They will follow many teachers;

2. They will not listen to God's truth;

3. They will turn instead to fables -- such as the myth that "all religions pray to the same god."

So, who are these false teachers? Who are these "postmodern leaders?"

It is time to name names. They include:

President Bush
Oprah Winfrey
Joel Osteen
Ravi Zacharias
James Dobson
Rick Warren
Robert Schuller
Billy Graham
John Armstrong

...and many others.

Each of these has stated or implied the myth that "all roads lead to the same god." Their public statements are thoroughly documented. Many of them are quoted or linked on this blog.

So what do we do about it?

Berit Kjos gives the only true answer:

"So how can we use truth to ward off contemporary myths, lies and distortions? We read, study, memorize and follow God's Word. It builds an unshakable foundation for our thoughts and values."

In other words, we put into practice the teaching of God's word in Romans 12:2: "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind."

We also follow the teaching of Scripture, "Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you..." II Cor. 6:17

Pres. Bush Admits He is a Universalist

(HT: Slice of Laodicea)

Stop Reading This Post and READ THIS ARTICLE FROM MODERN REFORMATION MAGAZINE INSTEAD!

Here, from the pages of Modern Reformation magazine, written with great care and insight by Peter R. Jones, is an article that everyone naming the name of Christ needs to read -- now!

That means you, dear reader. Put down that mouse, or rather, pick up that mouse and direct your pointer here -- a brief excerpt to get you started appears below:

"We often use the term post-Christian to describe our present world, but perhaps fail to see its implications; namely, a serious repeat of the pre-Christian world that the early Christians faced-no general government support, but rather government intimidation, oppression and even persecution; no social encouragement, but rather deep suspicion and antagonism; no knowledge of the Bible and the Bible's worldview, but rather a deep commitment and acceptance of the pagan worldview; no "Big Man on Campus" Christianity, but rather the intimidation and ostracizing of Christian students by Big Brother Administration. From this perspective, the future looks ominous."

The children of the Sixties, and their biblical contemporaries, have sowed the wind and are now reaping the whirlwind. The "new spirituality" is here, and it is not a pretty sight. Nevertheless, we must be as wise as serpents, and innocent as doves. ( Matthew 10:16 ESV)

(From "The New Spirituality: Dismantling and Reconstructing Reality," by Peter R. Jones, Modern Reformation, vol. 17, issue 3 (May/June 2008)

Willow Creek and Brian McLaren: Serpent-Sensitive

Willow Creek Church pioneered the "seeker-sensitive" approach to what it calls Christianity. Brian McLaren (who is uncertain about almost every Christian doctrine except that "everything must change") was recently a featured speaker at Willow Creek. McLaren has accused believers who hold to the Second Coming of creating "violence and coercion."

But Willow Creek and McLaren are wrong. Professor Russell Moore of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary reasons correctly that their denials of the Christian faith will actually lead to MORE violence, not less:

"Even though McLaren claims to want world peace, his own view is actually the one that leads to violence, Moore said.

"When a Christian understands that he does not fight for his own honor, but that justice will be done by God, either through union with Christ and His cross or at the judgment itself, the Christian is freed then to trust God, not his sword or his gun or his fists or his tongue," he said. "It is McLaren's vision of a life that consists only of the justice achieved in this era that leads to violence and Darwinian struggle to see that a pound of flesh is exacted...If human beings do not expect a Messiah in the skies, they will expect to elect one or anoint one or biochemically engineer one. And, do not be deceived, such pseudo-Messiahs always eventually have a sword."

Amen! Professor Moore explains McLaren and Willow Creek are really "serpent-sensitive," not seeker-sensitive:

"When McLaren questions the existence of hell and the hope of the second coming, he is not a 'new kind of Christian.' Such things are neither new nor Christian.

"They are instead a repetition of the voice of a snake in a long-ago garden: 'Has God said?' and 'You shall not surely die.' It is tragic that one of the world's most renowned evangelical churches would highlight this kind of Serpent-sensitive worship."

Amen, and amen! Thank you, Dr. Moore, for so incisively and courageously exposing this heresy.


(HT: Slice of Laodicea)

Heresy Alert: Christians Should "Close Their Churches" and Go Help the Poor Instead

Thanks to Ingrid at Slice of Laodicea for alerting the flock to a new depth in heresy. The drumbeat grows louder by the day for Christians to "just do good" -- "deeds, not creeds!"

"Christians in the US should close their churches and channel their energies into helping the poor.

This is the message from the campaign 'Faith in Action', a resource developed by Christian humanitarian organization, World Vision..."

Yes, you read that correctly. Christians should cease worshipping, and just go out and do good works.

This is heresy, friends, and it is creeping into a church near you.

The Bible teaches that unless and until we are born again, all our righteousness -- including all our "good works" no matter how seemingly kind and loving -- are as filthy rags to God. Good works do not get anyone to heaven. Our works cannot and will never substitute for the righteousness of God given to sinners freely by grace through Jesus Christ. Doing good works is not the Gospel.

No one who teaches or even suggests that good works are all we need is preaching the Gospel. They are teaching something else.

Easter Sunday Minus the Gospel

One year ago, I posted on this blog about the Easter Sunday sermon at my church. That post is here. I also sent a letter to one of the elders containing basically the same comments. The only response it got was that one of the other elders commented that they needed to do more to “protect” the younger members of the pastoral staff (the implication being, from letters like mine).

If anything, the sermon given one year later on this past Easter Sunday, by the same pastor incidentally, was even worse. It was a truncated, carefully sanitized re-packaging of the Gospel that deliberately omitted: (1) any reference to judgment; (2) any explanation of the fact that we are all sinners by nature and that we are therefore under the just wrath of an omnipotent God; (3) any reference to the Atonement or why it was necessary; (4) any valid Scriptural explanation for why Jesus had to die; and (5) any valid Scriptural explanation for why Jesus was raised from the dead. Jesus did not die to “change your tomb into a womb” or any such thing. Any connection between “change your tomb into a womb” and the text of Acts 2:24 (“God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death…”) is so grossly attenuated that it is almost laughable. This presentation (I hesitate to call it a sermon) was not even on speaking terms with the true Gospel.

But when these empty words are preached on Easter Sunday morning at one of the largest churches in Wheaton, Illinois, it is hardly a laughing matter. Instead it is cause for weeping and righteous indignation. To soft-pedal the offense of the Gospel in this manner is wrong. What is worse, the church leadership, by all its venerable history of faithful preaching and teaching, should know it is wrong. Apparently they either do not know or do not care.

This poor young man has evidently gotten no instruction or guidance from the seminary he attended, from the senior members of the pastoral staff or the elders. What is more, the elders apparently think they have nothing better to do than to harass a few members for writing a letter questioning one of their proposals that was ultimately voted down by the congregation, while this kind of liberalism goes out unchecked from the pulpit week after week.

What is this but straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel? What is this but hypocrisy on a massive scale?

Is This Uncanny, or What???

Listen to Dr. Francis Schaeffer, warning us nearly forty years ago of the dangers of neoorthdoxy! Now neoorthodoxy's stepchild, the emerging church, is doing exactly what Dr. Schaeffer predicted:

"Neoorthodoxy...uses words that have strong connotations, as they are rooted in the memory of the race -- words like resurrection, crucifixion, Christ, Jesus. These words give an illusion of communication. The importance of these words to the new theologians lies in the illusion of communication, plus the highly motivated reaction men have on the basis of the connotation of the words. That is the advantage of the new theology over secular existentialism and the modern secular mysticisms. One hears the word Jesus, one acts upon it, but the word is never defined. The use of such words is always in the area of the irrational, the non-logical. Being separated from history and the cosmos, they are divorced from possible verification by reason downstairs, and there is no certainty that there is anything upstairs." [emphasis added]

Even more uncanny is the fact that Dr. Schaeffer warned us about men such as John Armstrong for whom words no longer have any fixed or inherent meaning so that only "experience" is left:

"The evangelical Christian needs to be careful because some evangelicals have recently been asserting that what matters is not setting out to prove propositions [from Scripture, ed.]; what matters is an encounter with Jesus. . . . [emphasis added]

The Truth:

"I will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy name for thy lovingkindness and for thy truth: for thou has magnified thy word above all thy name." (Psalm 138:2)

(HT Herescope)

Who Is John Armstrong?

Lighthouse Trails Research blog has an excellent story on John Armstrong's latest flirtation with the emerging church. It reveals the agenda behind those whom Armstrong is now courting.

Here is my letter to Lighthouse Trails commending their story and sharing my own experience with Armstrong:

Thank you for publishing yesterday’s article on John Armstrong. Having sat under this man’s teaching several years ago, I can testify to how he has radically changed. The response given recently by a member of the board of directors of Armstrong’s organization to John MacArthur’s critique of him in MacArthur’s book The Truth Wars is one of many pieces of evidence for Armstrong’s departure from orthodoxy. The response was completely over the top. It heaped abuse on MacArthur but utterly failed to answer the charges against Armstrong in any substantive way.

For example, the writer attempted to mount a defense of Armstrong by claiming that Armstrong can recite the Apostle’s Creed without reservation. Reciting the Apostle’s Creed is hardly a test of orthodoxy; many outright heretics throughout the history of the Church have claimed to believe it. The real question is, what meaning does John Armstrong ascribe to the words of the Apostle’s Creed when he recites it? Does he believe those words have actual, concrete referents, or doesn’t he? We are no closer to an answer after reading the “response” given on Armstrong’s behalf.

The fact is that John Armstrong appears to believe it is not possible to know clearly what the Bible teaches as truth – in other words, he denies the doctrine of the clarity (perspicacity) of Scripture. He believes it is arrogant to say that the Bible teaches specific, understandable truths. He may claim he does not, but that is not only the letter but the spirit and practical effect of his latest writings. His recent switching of his ordination credentials to the Reformed Church in America – the denomination I grew up in – is simply part and parcel of his attempt to make it appear as though he is still “reformed” in his theology – after all, the name of his new denomination has the word “Reformed” in it. Of course, those who know that denomination realize the RCA, like so many others, has gone far off the track of Biblical orthodoxy in recent decades and his now openly embracing New Age false religion, mystical spirituality, and other heresies.

I find it especially painful and troublesome that Armstrong has somehow convinced the respected elder statesman of that denomination, I. John Hesselink, to put his stamp of approval on Armstrong. One can only believe that Dr. Hesselink, who is now well advanced in years, simply is no longer able to recognize the dangers posed to the Church by Armstrong and the like.

The same, however, cannot be said for Wheaton College. How Wheaton can have this man on its faculty teaching “spiritual formation” is simply beyond comprehension – unless Wheaton, too, is abandoning Biblical Christianity and opting instead for a cultured distaste of “the arrogance of certainty” and for the emerging church.

Please keep up your good work. The common person in the pew is simply no match for the verbal tap-dancing of men like John Armstrong. There is an appalling and almost a total lack of discernment in these matters.

The Church desperately needs to be warned of the false teachers that are everywhere – inside the Church, not outside. I am sad to say that I fear John Armstrong is among them. May God keep all of us in Him.