Transcript The Empty Church: The Suicide of Liberal Christianity

The Empty Church: The
Suicide of Liberal
Christianity
A book by Thomas C. Reeves
New York: The Free Press,
1996
Advice from one devil to another on
how to destroy a Christian’s faith:
“Talk to him about ‘moderation in all
things.’ If you can get him to the
point of thinking that ‘religion is all
very well up to a point,’ you can feel
happy about his soul. A moderated
religion is as good for us as no
religion at all—and more amusing.”
C. S. Lewis The Screwtape Letters
Mainline or Liberal Protestant
Churches
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American Baptist Churches
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
Episcopal Church
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
Presbyterian Church (USA)
United Church of Christ
United Methodist Church
The Critical Issue
• Even friends and insiders have
acknowledged mainline churches have lost
their impact, their zeal, even their meaning.
• The critical issue – Is there truth,
supernaturally revealed in Christianity, that
lies beyond our present understanding of
things, truth that is unchanging and
absolutely vital to our present and future?
– (1 Thes. 2:13; Gal. 1:8-10; Eph. 4:14)
– What, in short, are the essentials of the
religion without which it loses its authenticity
and power? And what are the implications for
personal conduct?
Dying from Within
• We seem to be dying from within of a
malady that has affected our moral
sensibility and seems to be rushing us
toward anarchy.
• “Under the conditions of late twentiethcentury modernity, the cultural
authority of American beliefs, ideals
and traditions is dissolving” (Os
Guinness).
The New Religion
• Arianna Huffington (The Fourth
Instinct: The Call of the Soul), said,
“Personal salvation is no longer
expected to be found exclusively in a
pew or on one’s knees. The therapist’s
office is the new sacred place.”
• It should be obvious that we are a
secular, materialistic people. Banks
and entertainment complexes appear to
be our cathedrals, and journalists and
talk show hosts our prophets.
Education
• “Deconstructionists have powerfully argued
that no written text has any fixed meaning, that
all interpretation lies in the beholder; and thus
we see individual moral relativism being
advocated at the highest intellectual levels.
Values clarification for the kids; deconstruction
for graduate students. Meanwhile, feminists,
gay and lesbian advocates and other minority
groups are arguing that all truth (especially
morality) is ideological.” (Paul C. Vitz,
Psychology as Religion: The Cult of SelfWorship 2d ed. Grand Rapids, 1994, p. 167.)
No Distinctive Doctrine
• A 1985 study revealed that laity in the
United Church of Christ (formed in 1957
out of a merger between the
Congregational Churches and the
Evangelical and Reformed Church) had
great difficulty identifying anything
distinctive about their denomination.
No Distinctive Doctrine
• In 1993, bishops of the United Methodist
Church’s Executive Committee pushed
their official papers aside and for three
hours spoke earnestly about such
questions as “What does it mean to be a
United Methodist?” and “What, if anything,
is distinctive about our church?”
• “Churches without any self-understanding
lose members” (Jim Andrews, head of the
Presbyterian Church, USA).
No Distinctive Doctrine
• At the Episcopal Church’s General
Convention of 1994, the House of Bishops
fell into bitter quarrels about
homosexuality, concluding that each
prelate would deal with the issue as he or
she pleased. Two weary observers
exclaimed: “The Episcopal Church is an
institution in free fall. We have nothing at
all to hold on to, no shared belief, no
common assumptions, no agreed bottom
line, no accepted definition of what an
Episcopalian is or believes.”
Why Conservative Churches Are
Growing
• In the above titled book, Dean M. Kelley,
official of the National Council of
Churches, argued that successful
churches make strict demands, both of
faith and practice, on their members.
– “Careful analysis of membership trends
shows that the churches hardest hit were
those highest in socioeconomic status, those
stressing individualism and pluralism in
belief, and those most affirming of American
culture” (Wade Clark Roof and William
McKinney, liberal professors of religion).
Why Conservative Churches
Are Growing
• Roger Finke and Rodney Stark,
sociologists, concluded in 1992, “to the
degree that denominations rejected
traditional doctrines and ceased to make
serious demands on their followers, they
ceased to prosper. The churning of
America was accomplished by aggressive
churches committed to vivid
otherworldliness.”
Why Conservative Churches Are
Growing
• Daniel V. A. Olson, sociologist, argues
that conservative churches prosper
because their members are united in
basic, orthodox Christian beliefs and
values that are distinctive from
mainstream American culture.
Failure to Retain Children
• A major reason for the numerical decline
of the mainline churches is their failure to
retain their own children once they have
reached the age of decision.
• Mainline churches all too often lack
effective Sunday schools.
– If schools and colleges shun religion, making
it seem odd and disreputable, churches can
devise high-caliber youth programs, classes,
and specially designed worship services to
teach the faith and encourage sound morals.
Preparing Our Children
• The pioneering educator Horace Mann
warned, “If we do not prepare children
to become good citizens—if we do not
develop their capacities, if we do not
enrich their minds with knowledge,
imbue their hearts with the love of truth
and duty, and reverence for all things
sacred and holy, then our republic
must go down to destruction, as others
have gone before it.”
Lost Missionary Zeal
• Gallup reports, “Invitation and evangelism
are virtually ignored by the mainline
churches.”
• In 1985 a third of the nation’s Methodist
churches had performed no baptisms;
almost two-thirds offered no membership
training or confirmation classes; and nearly
one-half lacked a list of potential new
members.
• The Episcopal Church in 1996 sponsored
just 25 overseas missionaries worldwide
(one was in England), down from 59 in 1989.
The Need for Our Mission
• In 1988, according to Gallup, 44 percent
of Americans were unchurched, which
equaled about 78 million adults.
– Only 4 in 10 knew Jesus delivered the
Sermon on the Mount
– Fewer than half can name the 4 gospels
– More than half read their Bibles less than
once a month, with 6 % saying they cannot
recall the last time they read their Bible
– Yet, only 5% said they were atheists
Why Do Liberals Dominate?
• …liberals have long been prominent in
the mainline. But there is also an
important principle of group dynamics
involved here: moderate, otherwise
busy people are no match for zealous,
ideological interest groups eager to
attain power. This is as true for
churches as it is for any other
institution.
Ignorance of Scripture
• Dr. David Carlson, a one-time resistance
leader in the Evangelical Lutheran Church
in America, thinks that widespread
ignorance of Scripture, theology, and
history contributes greatly to liberal
dominance. Appeals to anything beyond
current events often get nowhere with
church members, he says, for people no
longer know what you are talking about.
“We’ve lost the Scriptural and doctrinal
underpinnings.”
Ignorance of Scripture
• If Sunday schools are teaching about condoms
and poverty in Rwanda, there is little time for
things like Scripture and church history. And if
the clergy present the faith merely as a branch of
anthropology or social work, there is little need
for anyone to be informed.
• At the heart of the crises is “the loss of respect
for the authority of Holy Scripture and the
embracing of a worldview that ignores history.
Under these circumstances both Scripture and
tradition are treated as personal possessions to
be tried on from time to time. If they fit the
current fad of the age, then all well and good—but
if not, then toss them aside for more exciting
vesture” (Clarence C. Pope, Jr., Episcopal bishop
for the Diocese of Ft. Worth, 1989).
Poor Preaching
• Elizabeth Achtemeier, who teaches
Bible and homiletics at Union Seminary
in Richmond, Virginia, says that poor
preaching is contributing to biblical
illiteracy and “the cultural captivity of
the church.”
• Solid teaching is at a premium, and the
basics about sin, repentance,
judgment, and hell frequently go
unexplored.
Seminaries
• Seminaries and schools of theological
training are dominated by liberals.
• They are frequently the scenes of
“pathbreaking” statements…designed to
reveal the “latest breakthroughs” (as
though, like scientists, they were constantly
bombarded by new information).
• Graduates emerge with little faith in the
integrity of Scripture, a minimal grasp of
church history and orthodox theology, and
armloads of politically correct positions on
social and political issues.
Seminary Education
• The Methodist theologian Thomas C.
Oden of Drew University has complained
of a seminary education “awash in
antisupernatural assumptions,” one that
is “radically relativized.” “There is not
only no concept of heresy, but also no
way to raise the questions of boundaries
for legitimate or correct Christian belief
where absolute relativism holds sway.
The very thought of asking about heresy
has itself become the new arch-heresy.”
Seminary Education
• Since the 1960s, seminaries…have
designed their curricula to the “felt
needs” of their students. The results
have included a decline in academic
rigor and an emphasis on the
therapeutic, the trendy, and the easy
assimilation of leftist views.
• Postmodernism, a gospel of moral and
cultural relativism popular in academia,
was implicit if not explicit in much
contemporary theology.
Seminary Education
• In 1994, the Yale University Divinity School
professor Christopher R. Seitz complained
of his students: “Most don’t know the
names of half of the books of the Bible,
whether Calvin lived before or after
Augustine, what it means to say that Christ
descended to the dead or acted ‘in
accordance with the Scriptures,’ what the
wrath of God means or how to understand a
final judgment of the quick and the dead.”
Seminary students, he wrote, are prepared
to think critically about their faith while
lacking a “substantive base.”
Evolving Truth
• Mainline seminaries had tended for many
decades to see the Bible, certainly
selected portions of it, as a product of its
time and place.
• Truth evolved, many liberals believed; the
Holy Spirit was constantly guiding
discerning Christians—i.e., themselves—
into new and better avenues of
understanding.
• Name calling proved to be a powerful
device for achieving victory.
The Social Gospel
• Enlightenment, communism and science
arose as 3 great secular religions
• This gave rise to the Social Gospel, which
declared the word of God was in the
Bible.
• The Social Gospel was a powerful reform
movement within American Christianity
that emphasized the social demands of
the faith, particularly in the nation’s cities.
Following the Current
• Edmund A Opitz, a Congregational
minister, wisely observed:
– Churchmen in every age are tempted to adopt
the protective coloration of their time; like all
intellectuals, churchmen are verbalists and
wordsmiths; they are powerfully swayed by
the printed page, by catch-words, slick
phrases, slogans….In consequence, they are
pulled first this way then that by whatever
currents of public opinion happen at the
moment to exert the greatest power over their
emotions and imagination.
Political Involvement
• The homosexual rights movement made a
strong impact (2 to 2.5% of population).
• Liberation theology, black theology and
feminist theology remained popular.
• In 1995, fifteen leaders of the National
Council of Churches met with President
Clinton for 45 minutes extoling his social
policies and calling him “the guardian of
the nation.” They laid hands on him and
prayed he would be strong for the task of
defending the welfare state against the
Republicans.
Cal Thomas’ Comments
• “Perhaps that’s why so many of the
mainline churches would be more
properly labeled ‘sideline’ churches.
They, and others for whom politics and
government have become the way of
salvation, have squandered their moral
power on a lesser and weaker kingdom
that eventually will pass away and is
incapable of changing people’s hearts.”
– Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, December 10,
1995