What In The World Is Going On In Modern Christianity?

What in the world is going on here? What sort of mass madness has taken hold of us over the last 20 years? It seems like so much has changed. So much has gone down hill so fast. So many firm foundations have rotted away. And so many are coming out to speak about it, including recently Joshua Harris and the song writer from Hillsong.

But this is only the latest evidences of a descending roll from prior unity. We once generally held to an understanding, throughout Christianity that we're on the same team, we have shared beliefs, and we're going to work, if not together, at least separately toward similar goals. But we've seen that change a great deal. We often speak of western Christianity as a conjunction of evangelicalism, mainline protestantism, and Catholicism. But in the past ten years we've seen the group we affectionately consider to be mainline protestantism, that center-left coalition suddenly wax wildly apostate. And of course the central issue they've placed at the center of their apostasy, their departure from biblical truth, is the issue of LGBTQ. That's the direction they went around 2010-2013, and have continued along those lines, for the most part. There are always exceptions, but there it is. And we've seen that develop over the last ten years, since the original departure, into a new central ideological framework: social justice ideology, which conjoins critical theory with militant political activism, merging the two under the exceedingly tipsy banner of Christian justice work. Of course Christian justice work is a wise and good thing, but the ideologies taken, are simply secular social theories, that form the nexus of a political ideology, and a political agenda often referred to as progressivism. Essentially this path, from my viewpoint, simply turns these churches into outposts for the propagation of progressive ideology dressed up in Christian language. The social justice mandate becomes the central focus, and Jesus and the gospel are tagged on to the side to give credibility to the social justice warrior gospel of hatred, division, racism masked in fighting against racism, and the tearing down of the larger society due to perceived systemic injustices. And not only has this new gospel taken hold of mainline protestantism but there are forces within evangelicalism that are being seduced by this battle-cry as well.

Of course this is only one of many problems we face today. The next concern is of course the well noted and explored reality that evangelicals, mainline protestants and Catholics, though claiming a Christian worldview, do not actually hold particularly Christian worldviews, and do not regularly attend church services either. The decline of a biblical understanding of the world around us as Christians has led to luke-warm Christianity. We've seen a decline in church attendance. And we've seen a message being watered down whether in the pulpit or in the music played in the churches. Will historians exploring the rubble of what had once been western civilization compare hymns and sermon preached and written a hundred years ago with hymns and sermons prepared today and indicate with shock and surprise that the more recent works are entirely inferior to those produced in the past? It seems quite possible. With the advent of internet culture, and the interesting affect of cultural characters rising to the top, we see Christians who gather great popularity, but then later fall in disgrace, or renounce their Christianity, or some aspect of their lifestyle is revealed to not accurately display the logical outworkings of biblical Christianity. This is not particularly surprising, but it is of note given the influence of these leaders. We've seen one after another dropping to scandals, including James Macdonald and Bill Hybels. Perhaps God is revealing these things to us, so that we are not led astray.

It is certain that we are living in the last days. But then again so were Paul and Peter, the end days are simply the recognition that Jesus Christ will return very soon. And I believe it's more likely than ever that Jesus Christ will return, to rule and reign on this Earth. We have to live that way. We have to really live that way.

So often in my past I've taken God's instructions, his commands in the scriptures as suggestions, or nice ideas, but didn't really take it particularly seriously. The time for that is over. It is time to take God's word seriously, and live it carefully. We've seen such an antinomianism take over in the churches of our day and age, where it's just "believe in Jesus." And that's all. One and done. Once saved always saved. And it's a lie, and a snare, and it's deadly dangerous to those who love Jesus to think in those terms. We must repent, and believe. We must give our whole lives and whole hearts to Jesus. We must live by God's commands, believing in Jesus yes, but also living in holiness, and repenting daily, and paying our tithes diligently, and witnessing about Jesus to our friends and neighbors. This isn't a game. And we have to take it seriously. I take it deathly seriously, because I know what it's like to walk in darkness. And I've seen a great light.