Latter-Day Church Reality
What’s wrong with you? “You seem to struggle with being content.” “Well, there’s no such thing as a perfect church,” “Are you one of those ‘heresy hunters?’” “You aren’t a ‘church-hopper’ are you?” “Nobody else has a problem with what your talking about; maybe you should take a deeper look at your own heart.” “Come now brother, you act like there’s a false teacher behind every bush.”
If your a zealous Christian with a deep love for the truth, the above statements might sound familiar to you, but it just might be that the trouble isn’t in your set (or head). It took several years for the following to sink into my head: if one takes Scripture seriously, we must believe that solid New Testament churches will be the exception in our day, and not the norm. In fact, the big question is not where to find a “good” church, but rather what to do, and how to think about the fact that such churches will be extremely rare in our day. Julia Duin took a stab at it in her book, “Quitting Church: Why the Faithful Are Fleeing and What to Do about it.” I think her book describes the symptoms well and offers a reasonable solution to the problem. More on that in my close.
First, I must believe that any mentality that fosters the idea that “there are many good churches out there, but you have to find them,” couldn’t be true. Why? Because the coming of Christ and His ascension marks an “age” that will be characterized by an unprecedented attack on the truth unrivaled in all of redemptive history. I delve into this in detail in the following post: https://paulspassingthoughts.wordpress.com/2009/06/24/an-apostolic-call-to-discernment-in-the-%E2%80%9Clast-days%E2%80%9D/
Christ said the following in Luke 18:8, “…when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” In the very beginning of the New Testament age, all-out warfare between truth and error was a raging fire, mostly WITHIN the church. Almost all of the New Testament books are primarily written to address doctrinal error / heresy WITHIN the church, or address that problem as a secondary issue. The only exception I can think of is Philemon. Furthermore, it is clear that looking forward historically, the apostles made it clear that the problem would only get worse: “while evil men and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived” (2Timothy 3:13). Also, the apostle Paul warned Timothy, “For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine” (2Timothy 4:2,3). Got that? Men will not TOLERATE sound doctrine in the last days; and again, I think the apostle is talking about men within the the church. And with bad doctrine comes the usual results:
“But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God-having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them” (2Timothy 3:1-5).
Paul said the times would be “terrible,” and I have to believe that the Holy Spirit isn’t given to exaggeration. Frankly, when you consider the mindset of today’s church in regard to the sufficiency of Scripture, what could be more descriptive than “having a form of godliness but denying its power”? Forget biblical counseling for serious life problems, its been replaced with Church-in-a-Bottle and Saint Sigmund. Without getting sidetracked further, I might also mention Peter’s description of the latter-day characteristic regarding eschatology (2Peter 3:3-10). The church’s disdain for last things has become very prevalent, especially in this decade.
However, this isn’t the picture we are coming to grips with in our day. We don’t want to think about how bad it really is when the kingdom of darkness has been perfecting its trade for 2000 years. The apostle Paul was consumed with defending the truth on every front, and warned that false teachers would increase, not decrease; and again, that was 2000 years ago!
But there’s hope. The manual for doing church right hasn’t gone anywhere; the truth still waits for all who will follow. Julia Duin seemed to advocate home churches that aren’t constrained by church hierarchies. Perhaps, but I do think new churches that have the right biblical goals are a good solution to the problem. I also think that such churches will have to remember the following: the kingdom of darkness will seek to snuff them out early on; where there is life, there is CHANGE; the Bible must be the final authority on EVERYTHING, and; a hermeneutic used for interpretation of the Scripture must be known and agreed upon. The problem is huge, but God never leaves his children without remedy.
paul
Paul's Passing Thoughts 
A pertinent point made in her book is that mature Christians who have attended church for many years are leaving. The young newer Christians attend church because they believe it is leading to somewhere. They haven’t “burned out” yet. It’s not that churches are necessarily “bad” or “good”, it’s more like that the “good” churches begin to lack relevance in a mature Christian’s life.
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Hmmm,yes, I remember that in her book, a very valid point. Again, where there is spiritual growth – there’s CHANGE.
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Larry, your point is extremely important. What are mature believers to do? If they work in the church to bring change, they must have the pastor(s) and other lay leaders on board. Usually, those attempts are met with extreme resistance, because the Pastor and his staff want unilateral control and the laity leadership, if any, is sworn to following the chain of authority described in Scripture.
So, Paul, in the end, what we have are clergy-types who are more interested in a career and ‘success’ of the church than they are interested in doctrinal clarity and accuracy. Even worse, even if they preach and teach doctrinal accuracy (as you are defining it), few to no churches have any amount of genuine discipleship which teaches people how to put the truth into practice and how to proactively grow into the image of the Son.
People are just too busy, don’t you know. Most churches have no ‘culture’ of true discipleship and true spiritual growth (not just knowledge, but striving to grow in the ability to implement it in one’s life, directly seeking to become like Jesus Christ).
On another note, Paul, you say, “Forget biblical counseling for serious life problems, its been replaced with Church-in-a-Bottle and Saint Sigmund.”
Obviously, Biblical counseling is always essential if a person needs help with serious life problems. However, to suggest that medication for chemical imbalances and other conditions that can cause depression, anxiety, and other serious symptoms should not be used, if necessary, in conjunction with Biblical counseling would be naive.
If it’s okay to take heart medication to get the rhythm right, and if Timothy can take a little wine for his stomach, then medications aimed at normalizing cognitive functioning, so a person can be in a position to apply Biblical truth to their life in practice, are Biblically legitimate.
Finally, to suggest that all secular thought on the psychological dynamics of the human mind are irrelevant to Biblical counseling would be equally naive. While it is true that a believer should not seek counseling from a non-believer, and the number of good Biblical counselors is few who know how to handle the psychological issues associated with applying Biblical truth to one’s life, it is silly to lump all psychological insights in with (mostly blasphemous) Freudian thought. For example, there are many psychological truths associated with grief, for example, which are not to be found directly in Scripture. There are principles associated with unresolved anxieties which arose during one’s childhood, due to trauma, neglect or other difficulties. These, too, are not directly discussed in Scripture. While the counselee should pray, seek the Lord for healing, read relevant Scripture, take godly counsel and do what is Biblically right as to such problems, understanding more about the mind is permissible. To suggest that science can learn nothing useful for believers about the human mind would be absurd.
I’m not sure you were indicting psychology as a whole, or treatment of mental disorders via medication as a whole, but I thought it important to explicate those issues a bit. Too much glibbery when we are on a rhetorical rampage is what causes a lot of doctrinal error, and the same can cause us to form prejudices against God-given means for helping ourselves and others. Obviously, the problem has been that some throw out Biblical counseling in favor of mere medication and mere psychologizing, and that is outright destructive. Period. So, your point is well taken with those caveats in mind.
God bless you for another great article, Paul. tw
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Tad,
I think between you and Larry, we have an accurate view of some formidable obstacles in today’s churches. Sometimes I wonder if formal accreditation patterned after the world isn’t the biggest problem, along with the “career” mentality that goes along with it. To your other point, yes, BALANCE is always key.
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