The wellbeing of the Christ church on earth is largely bound up with the quality if teaching and preaching the church receives, and often tolerates. In OT times, the pastors have divine condemnation pronounced upon them for destroying and scattering the sheep of God's pasture. The people primarily, if not altogether, responsible for scattering the sheep are the religious leaders at every level - local church right up to national level. What have they done? They have scattered God's flock and driven them away, and have visited them, Jer.23:1.
When people leave one church to go to another, we give the flimsiest of reasons for such behaviour. They were opposed to the Gospel - and in many cases this is the truth! They fell out with the minister - and sometime this happens too. The preaching was too hot for them to handle - sometime the reason but not always. Seldom do church people say that the reason why Christians have been driven from one branch of the church to another is precisely because the Gospel is no longer preached there in the power of God's Spirit. There is no visitation of God among the people. God is not even welcome in His church on earth, and the preachers and elders make jolly sure that He is kept on the outside; after all, it is their church, not God's.
When Christians leave one church for another, the blame must pint primarily at the minister. What is he doing, or not doing, that caused such a move? What is he saying or not saying that caused these believers to move elsewhere? Why has he scattered believers to the four winds? Why has he neglected their never-dying souls? Why did he ensure that God was not visiting the church under his watch?
Do you know what God says about such a situation as this? He says He will visit them with the evil of their own doings. They do not care for the sheep, so God will show them that He will care for them and take up their cause. He will visit upon the church the natural and unsurprising results of what they have taught the people. Liberalism, even of the evangelical type, will bring down the judgement of God upon the church.
Sir Malcolm Muggeridge saw from his own liberal background exactly where liberalism has led. It has eliminated the categories that make the difference between love and non-love, write Dr Francis Schaeffer in his book Death in the City (p.46). It has actually taken us right in the practice of 'Murder without guilt and love without meaning.' Just look at what is happening in the world today, and you will see exactly that happening before our very eyes. Free sex is the order of the day. So long as people make sex 'safe,' it is OK to fornicate and adulterate. Violent men can commit murder, and there are plenty of people who will go out of their way to explain away this horrific, because irreparable, act.
But it has gone even further than that! It can and has led people into the rare predicament where they can no longer tell the difference between the external world and fantasy. The sheep are scattered and their minds are blown by pseudo-science/knowledge.
And who have done this? The shepherds of the sheep, pastors and ministers. What a judgement there is that awaits them! Even the good ministers have lost their credibility because they tolerate those who preach a non-gospel! And they explain it away by saying that there are different views of what the Gospel is, what a Christian is, and how someone becomes a Christian. They say that maybe God has them in the church's ministry because they could reach people that the evangelical could never reach.
What a load of poppycock! What theological and ecclesiastical cowardice! What acceptance of ecclesiastical apostasy! How can they still claim to be faithful men of the Gospel when they close their pragmatic eyes to what is going on around them? Liberalism is theological poison, it is fatal, it is utterly offensive to God, and amounts to trampling under foot the precious blood of Christ. It makes the Bride of Christ dirty and unacceptable to Him. That's why He has practically left her!
Do you agree with this analysis? Let me hear your response in the 'comments' box below.
1 comment:
"Liberalism is theological poison"
Indeed. But did we not already know that? Of course liberalism empties churches, and discerning believers will leave these where they do not hear the voice of the true Shepherd. That is their duty.
Whilst it is right to inveigh against the inroads of liberalism, it is possible to miss entirely the urgent and much needed reform WITHIN Evangelical/Reformed churches (as mentioned in my previous comment - but not answered?)
It is possible to condemn the presence and disastrous effects of liberalism, but omit to take action on the deeply entrenched traditions which underlie church structures and ministry in the Reformed tradition.
I refer again to tthe example of the 'clergy/pastor/laity division which directly militates against the actual functioning of the priesthood of ALL believers due to the exclusive role of the pastor/preacher in ministry.
If I may repeat what I posted before - for this needs addressing:
"This has profound implications for in effect ministry is almost totally undertaken by an ordained 'clergy class', whilst the opportunity for mutual ministry by the gathered saints is thereby totally excluded.
That is the current system, and it denies almost all that the NT teaches about mutual ministry. It renders such passages as 1 Cor 12-14 and Ephesians 4 as meaningless. Likewise, the 58 references to "one another" in the NT.
When therefore are we gong to confront and reform the clergy/laity divide?
It is artifical, now immense in its reach, is based on tradition alone, and militates against the mutual ministries the NT deems vital to the maturing and growth of the church (Eph 4:12,13)"
So to answer your question, at least in some measure as to why people leave churches. There may be many reasons for this, but for discerning Christians the reason may wll be that they understand that their opportunity to minister in any meaningful way is permanently closed off for them by the existing system of 'clergy' dominance.
Would you not agree therefore that reform in this area needs to be addressed?
As Howard Snyder rightly observes:
"The New Testament assumes CERTAIN PRECONDITIONS, and where these preconditions are lacking, New Testament results will not follow. Paul's teachings about the gifts of the Spirit assume a New Testament view of the church".
A church then may have repudiated liberalism which denies the Gospel, and yet be so immersed in the 'clergy' dominant tradition that it denies the EXPRESSION of Christ and that same Gospel through believers when gathered every Sunday morning.
Indeed, the whole raison' d'etre of meeting together is for Christ to be expressed through His whole body - is it not?
Thus Paul reminds us that "the body is not one part, but many" (1 Cor 12)
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