The Sad Demise of Contemporary Christianity

            Why do so many Christians these days have so little or no concern for the great truths of Christ and His Church?  Very few seem interested in any discernment between truth and error.  Except for a very few basic beliefs the concept of heresy has been all but lost. 

            Consequently, so many, with what seems to be an unquestioning gullibility, accept and embrace and promote almost anything so long as it speaks of God or Christ or uses Christian language or refers to the Bible.  All that matters to such Christianity is that movies, music and celebrities just say Christian words and mention God or Christ.  The content of the Faith presented or believed is of little or no consequence since the content is seen only as points of division and unnecessary. 

            Where is the concern about whether the God being presented is the one Holy and Triune God before whom all others gods are false idols.  Does it not matter whether the person speaking or singing believes in the God of Scientology, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormonism, Seventh-day Adventism, the nameless god of many names of the Masonic lodge or one made in his/her own image according to his/her own likeness?  Do Christians today no longer believe that there is One Triune God whose existence, nature, character and attributes are particular, and any other God is false?  It is much like ancient Israel who so often embraced the gods of their neighbors.  It was as though it made no difference so long as the object of their affection was called God.  But the one true God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob called this idolatry and adultery. The content, i.e. the eternal nature, historical actions, character and attributes matter.  The Christian God cannot be any version of God other than that which corresponds to the God of the Scriptures – the Scriptures as interpreted, not privately by each individual, but by the one mind of the Spirit-inspired Church through the centuries. 

            And what about Christ?  Christ cannot be defined according to each one’s liking or of a thousand different denominations.  There is only one true Christ who is known by His life, nature, mission and teachings as defined and confessed in the Church for two thousand years.  Just because someone uses the name of Christ does not automatically mean they hold the faith of the one true Christ.  Many who speak of Christ on TV are known to hold false or heretical views of Him as to His nature, mission and teachings.  What is believed matters since our salvation depends on truth and not on fantasies or feelings.

            And why do Christians think that if someone professes Jesus as their Lord and Saviour that makes him a Christian?  Jesus Himself said that not everyone who calls Him Lord will enter the Kingdom of Heaven but he who does the will of the Father.  He also said that many who perform miracles and cast out demons will themselves be cast out of the Kingdom at the last day.  So we see that God and Christ and the Christian Faith have a very particular content and substance and cannot be just anything and everything.  Jesus also said that the Way is straight and the gate is narrow and few there be that find it.

So what has brought us to this sad demise and disregard or unconcern for truth? 

Could it be that having lost all connections to and continuity with the historic and True Christian Faith, Contemporary Christianity is left wide open for every wind of doctrine with no basis for discernment between truth and error or between the Spirit of God and the spirit of the god of this age?  St. Paul spoke of those who would have no regard for truth so long as their ears were being tickled or pleased.  Is this not an apt description of Contemporary Christianity?

With the loss of connection and continuity with the historical Christian Faith together with being under the control and influence of the spirit of the age, there is a wholesale reductionism of the Christian Faith resulting in “another gospel”.  It doesn’t seem to matter if an actor or performer portraying or preaching or singing about Christ also lives or promotes immodesty or immorality in their own lives or in other performances.  It doesn’t seem to matter if a movie effectively robs Christ of His divinity and holiness or portrays Him as a sexy looking movie star.  It doesn’t seem to matter if the sacred and the holy are reduced to just another entertainment venue for commercial consumption with no connection to the essential truths, sacraments and way of life of the Church, all of which are essential to salvation.

With Christ reduced to a sugar daddy saviour who is there to make us successful and sanctify our pride, vanity and materialism, and with salvation reduced to a guilt free and easy believism, and worship reduced to entertainment, a lecture and a pep rally, with the feast days of Christ’s life and ministry replaced by July 4, Valentine’s, Veteran’s and Mother’s Day, and the Bible reduced to some sort of owner’s manual at the mercy of endless private interpretations, and doctrine reduced to its least common denominator, and morality reduced to the standards of the world, and the Church reduced to a man-made organization it is no wonder that people get all warm and fuzzy with religious words regardless of their content or meaning.  

The content and discernment of the True Christian Faith can be found only when we stop pretending that the Christian Faith can be reinvented a million times to suit a million likes and dislikes and when we acknowledge the one undivided Voice of the Holy Spirit in the Church for the last 2,000 years.  This means to continue in the Apostles’ doctrine (fullness of truth and not just a few words), fellowship (the unity of apostolic oversight), the breaking of bread (becoming one Body by partaking of the one Body and Blood of Christ), and the prayers (the divinely inspired worship of the Church) just as was recorded of the early Church in Acts 2:42.  But it seems that these things no longer matter, or if they do they are interpreted according to each individual’s personal preferences. 

Once separation from the undivided stream of the Life-giving Spirit in the Church takes place, a sad demise is only a matter of time.