Christianity in North America

Fundamental Flaw

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As many Christian churches employ more and more syncretistic tendencies, absorbing popular culture faster than a Kalihari-based sponge absorbs H2O, fundamentalism remains a holdout. For this they should be thanked.

If only it were that simple. Simple being the key word.

The Gospel is simple. “Yes” and “No” are simple. “Black” and “White” are simple. However, basic math does not mean that the Gospel is simply “Yes” and “No”, “Black” and “White.” That system was tried and found to be unable to save; it was called the Law.

Still, that is what much of fundamentalism offers: a “Christianized” Law. It is a religion based on what one does, not who one knows intimately. In many ways it is centered on Man, not God.

I’ve sat in the seats of some large fundamentalist churches. The characteristic that primarily comes across is the pride of being other. “Everyone else is succumbing to the world, but not us” seems to be the mantra. Even the hymns often reflect a peculiar arrogance of not being like everyone else. Strangely, very little talk of God can exist. I sat through a “message” at one of the largest churches of this type in the country that at no time discussed the Gospel. The pastor merely told how one church after another was becoming worldly, but not their church. Am I the only Christian who finds it odd that the one Person missing from that message, Jesus Christ, is the whole reason for having a church in the first place?

The problem with all this is that while it is easy to say “only we are doing it right,” self-aggrandizement does not make that statement true. Jesus’ opponents, the scribes and Pharisees, shared that perception—and we know how they turned out.

The Spirit of Christ was given to move us beyond the Law. The full gospel tells us that we cannot save ourselves; apart from the Holy Spirit, we are not in Christ. We can memorize every verse in the Bible and expound them for decades and the emptiness in our own hearts still betrays us. Hell is filled with theologians. Nor does repetition of a set of spiritualized activities constitute a living, vital relationship with an infinite God. In the end, what alone is eternal life? Knowing Christ.

We are like sheep, and most people have a faulty desire to be told what to do, to have life condensed into an easy to follow list that can be checked off. However, God gives His Spirit in order that we no longer need an external set of rules in order to live – it is far harder to live according to the Spirit than by a checklist, yet that is what God asks of us. If we succumb to a Christianity that merely says “Don’t!” then we fall into the trap described in Colossians 2:13-23:

When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you for the prize. Such a person goes into great detail about what he has seen, and his unspiritual mind puffs him up with idle notions. He has lost connection with the Head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow.

Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules:”Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.

If we make Christianity nothing more than a set of rules, we have stripped God of His sovereignty in our lives. This is idolatry: a god of our own making.

And there are more problems that go beyond simple legalism. Fundamentalists love to quote Galatians 1:8-9. It’s a proof text used whenever fundamentalist preachers disagree with a theology being espoused by another Christian group:

But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.

There’s only one problem with this. By the very standards they hold, they are preaching another Gospel. Why? Because most fundamentalist churches are cessationist, believing that the gifts of the Holy Spirit typically claimed by charismatics (see 1 Cor. 12) are no longer for today, having stopped when the canon of Scripture was completed. Any casual perusal of the New Testament shows the gospel being associated with the blind receiving their sight, the deaf their hearing, the lame walking, the dead being raised and such. The Book of Acts records these power encounters in detail with the Gospel (chapter 3 being especially apt). Paul wraps these miraculous gifts up in everything he preached as gospel truth.

Paul warns that in the last days people would come who called themselves Christians, acted like it, too, but denied the power of God (2 Tim. 3:5). The Strong’s Concordance leaves no hedging on the word for “power”, stating that this power is not mere power, but the very miracle working power of God. I contend that this power is no different than the power of God behind the gifts in 1 Cor. 12. Therefore, to claim that that power is no longer for today is to deny it altogether.

If fundamentalist churches are not preaching healing the blind by the gift of healing, if they do not tell the people in the pews that the miraculous power of God can work through them via the gifts of the Holy Spirit, aren’t they preaching another gospel, one devoid of power? They appear to be guilty of the very failure they claim for other theologies.

The Christian Church at the beginning of the new millennium needs more than legalism and cessationism. Life everlasting requires that we live by the Spirit or perish. And as much as the fundamental churches have championed adherence to the Scriptures, that is only one part of our life of faith and not its entirety.

The Oprah-ization of American Evangelicalism

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A little more than ten years ago I sat in the plush seats of Willow Creek Community Church, the Sunday pageantry unfolding before my eyes as I took copious notes for a college class: slick, professional music; non-threatening setting lacking any controversial religious symbolism; an (unknown to me) Christian “celebrity” telling how she saved her faltering marriage; a dramatic presentation on why men and women just can’t get along; and a message from founding pastor Bill Hybels talking about the unmet psychological and physical needs of marriage partners. There was something for everyone and the crowds seemed to leave happy. Little did I know that I was watching would become the norm of evangelical church programming in years to come.

Later, as I tried to analyze the information I had compiled after almost eight months of charting Willow Creek’s programming style, I was left wondering. Where was the cross of Christ (not the one that hangs in the sanctuary, but the one that asks all men to die to self)? Why was everything so calculatingly planned out? Why the lack of Bible exposition during the message and the overt reliance on psychology to explain our condition? But most disturbing of all, given the emphasis on reaching “seekers”, what were people being saved from and just whom were they being saved by?

A few years later, I talked with the pastor of the rapidly growing Midwest church I had attended for several years. My wife and I were moving to Silicon Valley and wanted to have a nice transition. In that time, I said to him, “Please, don’t let this church become just another Willow Creek.”

California didn’t pan out in the long run, so we eventually returned to find that my almost prophetic warning had gone unheeded. Not only that, but the church was firmly under the auspices of The Willow Creek Association, a rather nebulous organization that continues to draw evangelical churches into its fold. Along the way, the same ministry mentality had permeated many aspects of my old church. Cultural relevancy was the mantra and the message was less about the person of Jesus and more about how He can meet my felt needs. The messages were more structured along the lines of three points and a conclusion. Much of the charismatic emphasis that had brought me to the church in the first place had been toned down, perhaps to keep from scaring away seekers.

Having settled more than an hour from that church, we started looking around our area only to find ourselves startled by the sameness of different denominational churches that all were trying to be a clone of the church we were thinking about leaving, itself more of a clone of Willow Creek. In a bit more than a decade, what started in Barrington, IL had successfully permeated throughout a variety of different Christian traditions.

I’ve never really understood the fascination with Oprah’s TV show. And yet, I find evangelical churches today to be transitioning into something that increasingly resembles the Oprah cult. Truth is subject to feeling. Empathy reigns – how deeply someone feels about someone else’s pain is the principle measure of their spiritual depth. The Bible is just one source of wisdom. Anything that attempts to help us grow in religious knowledge is unquestionably assimilated. Reliance on psychological methods of dealing with reality is a given. Like John Lennon sang, “Whatever gets you through the night, it’s alright….”

Francis Schaeffer warned that the evangelical church’s fascination with philosophies outside of the ring of God’s truth would eventually drive it into error. He particularly cites the wholesale incorporation of psychological theory as one of the harbingers of disaster. We are living that warning every Sunday across America.

So even as pastors claim that their teaching is getting better and better – and 90% rate themselves as Good/Excellent in this regard according to pollster George Barna – biblical knowledge among those in the pews is reaching all-time lows. It is a curious thing that the unction of the Holy Spirit seems to be yielding a flock of “three points and a conclusion” messages that are falling on largely deaf ears. Perhaps we are entering a second fulfillment of Amos 8:11 – “The days are coming,” declares the Sovereign LORD , “when I will send a famine through the land- not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the LORD .” Our sanctuaries are filled with costly, state-of-the-art sound systems, but there appears to be nothing worth hearing coming out of the speakers.

The Spiritual Malaise of the 21st Century American Christian

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Something is wrong with American Christianity.

I hear it in the voices of new converts who spout more Maslow and Jung than quote Paul or Moses. I see it in the posture of those who have been with Christ a long time, but have grown weary and are dying for a fresh wind of the Spirit.

On Sundays, I hear it in the message (don’t call it a “sermon”!) as the pastor preaches about how God can make your every dream come true. I read it in the Bible study materials that make it plain that Jesus just wants to be our buddy. I partake of it in the worship in which we sing songs so vague they fall into the “God is my boyfriend” trap. And the worship band that a couple years ago sounded like The Lettermen sounds more like Led Zeppelin as they noodle incessantly with arrangements.

I see it in the rush to technique, Total Quality Management, demographic studies, felt needs analysis, doing but not being, and one throwaway Christian book after another supposedly written by a name pastor (but actually ghostwritten) who is helming the hottest church out there (today. Tomorrow it will be someone else.)

Conformity reigns. Any five churches are strangely similar to each other in all aspects of church life. We are all “seeker sensitive,” “purpose-driven,” “wild at heart,” and “culturally relevant.”

And we are deader than dead spiritually.

Ask any Christian you find today if they know Christ. Then ask them to define what “know” means and how that plays out in their lives.Then ask them to explain the plan of salvation and give a half dozen verses that can illustrate that plan. The response will surprise anyone who grew up in the faith pre-1990’s.

It’s frightening and should anger thinking Christians. We have settled for a form of godliness that ultimately does not know God at all.

Cerulean Sanctum is here to be an oasis for those who are reeling from the abandonment of traditional Christian practice and faith to the bankrupt versions we have so quickly rushed to adopt. It is a problem that afflicts every denomination, every theology, and most everyone sitting in the pews. But all is not lost. We hope to find answers and grow deeper in true discipleship under the tutelage of the Spirit of Christ, going back to what is true and lasting, while exposing the spiritual decay that is so prevalent today.

All are welcome. Come and join us!