If you are coming late to this series of blog posts, you may wish to start here and catch up as this is part three of a series. If not, this can serve as somewhat of a standalone.
With the tremendous 21st-century downgrade of the Church comes a parallel downgrade of the “average” church member’s understanding of God’s word and, with it, the downgrade of the Church’s leadership. You often see this when an elder “retires” from the board and plants himself in the pew. He seemingly chooses to retire from all ministry within the church, becoming a “pew sitter.”
The pew sitting-retired-elder malady is as it often accompanies the effort to downgrade our understanding of God’s word to the lowest possible denominator, the greater our ignorance of God’s word. Ignorance of God’s word leads to ignorance of God’s will and our place in the Church’s ministry. Churches end up with people and leaders who lack conviction because they lack any certainty about the meaning of God’s word and how to apply it. It’s mostly a pastor’s fault because of weak preaching and teaching. But the “member” is at fault, too. The writer of Hebrews puts it this way:
About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. 12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, 13 for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. 14 But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil (Hebrews 5:11-14).
The problem often begins at the pastoral level and elder level. Weak teaching leads to weak Christians. Weak teaching takes a toll over time. Our spiritual appetites and spiritual digestive tracts are degraded. Our spiritual nutrition is low. We prefer spiritual junk food. Biblical precision upsets our spiritual stomachs. We develop an appetite for fluff. We don’t want to be challenged. We want to be entertained.
Church folks become spiritually numb. Sadly, we often find good people preferring a sentimental Christianity. Kind of a “Hallmark Card Christianity.” It’s warm and fuzzy. It values friendship over facts. It values good feelings over truth. It asks the question, “Can’t we all just get along?” How would Jesus answer such a question? Jesus answered that question for us in Matthew’s gospel:
“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. 36 And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. 37 Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. 38 And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it (Matt. 10:34-39).
Take a look at verses 37-39. Friendship over facts. Family over Jesus. Where should our priorities lie? What does Jesus say?
Denominations, associations, and churches slowly decay when they pursue this downgraded minimalist Christianity—and God’s people suffer spiritual atrophy. A church slowly loses membership over the course of a few decades. No one really notices.
Spiritual flab becomes the new normal, the order of the day, and everyone is sort of at peace because all their friends are there. Then their children walk away from this flabby faith, but they cling to their sentimental Christianity in hope that their son or daughter’s peer-pressured campfire conversion at youth retreat will still get them into heaven despite their apostasy.
What’s next? Many become and remain comfortably numb... “we four friends and no more...” until Providence upsets their apple cart. Then they have choices to make. The narrow path or the wide path. Sometimes “easy” remains the order of the day. It’s a sad story that is repeated again and again in our culture as well as in too many churches in our community.