The post-Christian era isn’t someone else’s fault, it’s mine

I’ve mentioned that I am reading Chuck Swindoll’s The Church Awakening. He’s careful to explain the book isn’t a call to revival, but more a call for individuals to wake up and stop the erosion in the body of Christ.


As I’ve studied the book and examined the related scripture passages, I found it helpful and telling if I replaced the word “church” with the word “I” or “me” or even using my own name in place of the word church.

This simplistic exercise doesn’t allow me to distance myself from what is being described by Swindoll as the erosion of the body of Christ as something that others are letting happen. It helps me keep in mind my own culpability, accountability, and responsibility in my family, my local assembly and the full body of Christ.

It’s not difficult to see that we have entered a post-Christian era in the United States where relativism out shouts truth. But, Swindoll’s work here has helped me examine my role in appeasing or capitulating the post-modern advance.

What I’m pleased about in Swindoll’s The Church Awakening is his offering of solutions to the errors he highlights. He is not content to simply cry foul without pointing to actions I must take to stop erosion of Christ’s church.

Christ told us that even the forces of Hades will not prevail over His church. Let’s re-establish the front line where battle is taking place and go in the power of the Holy Spirit wearing the full armor of God.

Is sin different today than in the past?

To some, this may seem like a rhetorical question, but from what I hear and read, I’m not sure even knowledgeable Christians think clearly on this point.  One thing I’m happy that God has helped me understand is that man has been sinful (not just having an old sin nature) since the fall of the first Adam.

                                     
Yet, as I read commentary on religious history or simply listen to people talk about how sinful man has become, I’m somewhat perplexed … especially when I hear people discuss this through the lens of the last 500 years of Western thought.


No reasonably informed Christian would find it surprising that man is sinful by nature and has been so since the fall in Eden.  But, that knowledge seems to escape many people when they view society as a whole and they lament its condition.

I suggest we take a very close look and examine the culture and practices of non-Jewish peoples throughout the biblical account  (Yes, the Hebrews were wayward, but that's a topic for a different post.)

I think what we will find is that man as a species isn’t any more or less sinful today than in 70 AD or in 1,000 BCE than he was at Adam and Eve’s disobedience.  Yes, there is a certain kind of societal entropy that occurs until the second advent (I hope not to digress into an eschatological debate here).  But, our standard is not one that compares man to man, or age to age.  Our standard is the one God gave us: a standard of righteousness.

With righteousness, there is no grey or degree.  A person is either righteous or not; he sins or he doesn’t sin.  The Bible clearly teaches us that all sin and fall short of the standard God set for us.  Thus, with that perspective, it should be easy to see that sin is sin, regardless of the era.  Instead of seeing the world around us as waxing or waneing in sinfulness, we should simply see our need for a solution to our unrighteousness -- Jesus Christ.

An evaluation: I failed

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm reading Chuck Swindoll's new book, The Church Awakening.  It's a must read for all church leaders, teachers, and lay people.  I'm also working on developing Sunday school lessons from this book to teach to our adult class.

In some related materials, I ran across a very basic evaluation tool that I thought would be a good reminder to readers as they think about their own Christian life and the life of their local assembly (ekklesia).

Swindoll first asks about the four elements a church must posses to be effective according to Acts 2: teaching, fellowship, worship, and prayer.  Then he asks the reader to use a five-point evaluation for each with 1 being neglectful and 5 being committed.

Teaching 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5
Fellowship 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5
Worship 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5
Prayer 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5

Note the scriptures indicates that the body must be "devoted" to these, not just to include them in what we do.  Tough evaluation on myself more than it was for my view of the local church I attend.  It means I need to get in gear and devote myself to these four more so than I do now.

Swindoll doesn't claim these are the only four a church must do exclusive of any other thing, but these are the mandatory elements.

So, here's my point.  I have a lot of work to do.  If I didn't circle 5 on any of these, it means I'm falling short of what the Bible teaches about these minimum requirements.  More succinctly said, I must be "devoted" to these four life elements or I'm missing out, I'm not serving as I should, and I'm not glorifying my God and enjoying Him in the way He desires for me.

This is one of those failures that is encouraging and has spurred me to live my life (note I didn't write "work up to") so I can circle 5s for all four.



Guilty of mote picking and hand wringing no more

I’ve been reading Chuck Swindoll’s book, The Church Awakening: An Urgent Call for Renewal. It fits nicely with what’s been weighing on my mind the last few years. My pastor at church lent it to me with a recommendation. In it, Pastor Swindoll does a wonderful job of illustrating just how far Christ’s church has drifted.


In Swindoll’s words, the church has eroded; and, this erosion has led to a number of heretical, false and unbiblical movements and trends in the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This isn’t stop-the-presses news. Many have decried the degradation of the church. However, this isn’t a new phenomena, church leaders and laypeople alike have railed against this. We can even see church erosion all the way back to the writings of the Apostle Paul.

However, what I enjoy about this book is the fact that Swindoll doesn’t just point out the error. Being truthful without slinging mud, Swindoll moves from pointing out error to teaching us solutions to the problems he observes.

As simple and obvious as that sounds, many outspoken believers point out error without shining light on correction. I’m guilty of this very thing. So, one of the key learnings I’ve come away with is not to be so quick about railing against things without providing carefully considered correction based on scripture.

Yet, even offering solutions isn’t enough. Each believer much take action when there is error around them. Stemming the tide of erosion of the church is not the sole responsibility of church leaders or even particularly gifted Christians. It’s a responsibility of laypeople under the leading of the Holy Spirit to recognize error, point it out and take action to deal with it.

Of course there are elders in churches and there is biblically prescribed discipline. But, if a layperson hears or learns of something that isn’t aligned with God’s word and leading, then that layperson’s inaction is sinful. My inaction is sinful.

So, now I am going to work hard at confronting error with solutions instead of just ringing a bell.

The snowball of relativism bigger than Darwinism

My sister-in-law frequently shares spiritual treasures and useful nuggets with me via email. As we were recently exchanging email messages, she shared this quote from Todd Kappelman's "The Breakdown of Religious Knowledge."

"Now, in the late twentieth century, we are in the middle of a revolution that will likely dwarf Darwinism in its impact on every aspect of thought and culture: the revolution is postmodernism, and the danger it holds in its most serious form is that truth, meaning, and objective reality do not exist, and that all religious beliefs and moral codes are subjective. In every generation the church has had its particular heresies to deal with, and postmodern relativism is ours. Christ has called us to proclaim truth to a dying generation, and if we fail at this task, the twenty-first century may be overshadowed by relativism and a contempt for reason as much as the twentieth century was overshadowed by Darwinian naturalism."

Here's the full article.

 
This was prophesied in God's word.  The question is not if we should lament or even argue these facts. The question is what are God's redeemed people going to do about it?
 
We must make our courage fast and no longer remain passive in word or deed. We must brave the slings and arrows we will undoubtedly experience when we actively defend biblical principles and proactively proclaim the Gospel. We must count the cost and find the sum that it is far more costly to remain idle while truth is decimated than whatever personal suffering we may experience by proclaiming and defending truth.
 
We must not wait for post-modernism and its relativism to touch our lives, we must circle its towered walls, not shrink from its parapets and sound the shofar against this deceit of Satan.
 
This is not the battlefield of a select few with uniquely honed skills of debate or scholarly knowledge. All whose position is "in Christ" are called to proclaim truth and use that great offensive weapon we are each equipped with: the sword that is the word of God. We carry all the information we need to thwart the assault of relativism either in our hand or our heart because all we need is contained in the Scriptures.
 
Where we have failed is in our courage. This is why the snowball of relativism has not only grown, but has gained such momentum that, as Kappleman writes, it will have a greater impact than the naturalism of Darwin.