3-18-19<\/p>\n\n
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I am not sure whether the American trait of consumerism has metastasized on the body of our character. Or, as a prime suspect, post-modernism has infected religion. Or, in the latest of history\u2019s inexorable pendulum-swings, heresy rears its ugly head once again.<\/p>\n\n
Of course it is a combination of all three tendencies (and more sociopathologies), the main debate being what factors predominate. A movable feast\u2026 or infestation, I reckon.<\/p>\n\n
To me, the causes are easy to spot. And the effects are hard to confront; harder still to ameliorate; virtually impossible to reverse. Regarding the reversal of the crisis in contemporary religion, I look not to the Bible (which assures me that God can bring revival) but to history books (which reminds me that His apostate people seldom seek it).<\/p>\n\n
Christianity in the West largely has become a business of spiritual specialties, no longer a smorgasbord of nuanced beliefs but, virtually, a food fight. Denominations, hundreds of them, are not in themselves the problem. When the church split in two \u2013 Roman and Eastern Orthodox \u2013 that largely was political and geographic, hardly a schism. When the Roman church grew corrupt, it fostered Reform, thank God, resulting in denominations. Eventually, denominationalism. Sometimes good (Solo Scriptorum) and sometimes bad (self-styled junior popes and contorted creeds).<\/p>\n\n
I think the root of all these evils \u2013 of all evil \u2013 is the Sin of Pride. Going back to the Garden, it undergirds every other sin we routinely decry: hating, lying, lusting, unforgiveness, the rest. It is why God rebuked and chastised those whom He loved. It is why He codified the Ten Commandments. It is why He sent prophets. It is why Jesus taught. It is the reason that the Holy Ghost was sent. It is why the early Church formulated Creeds.<\/p>\n\n
Pride. The belief that we know better than God; that His rules might be right for others, bit not us; that \u2013 frankly \u2013 we know better than God.<\/p>\n\n
The human mind has an infinite capacity to fool itself. This dangerous attribute becomes deadly when combined with a society that is encouraging, indifferent, or enabling of these self-destructive impulses, as now.<\/p>\n\n
Churches no longer squabble over whether Christ\u2019s blood is present or symbolic in the Lord\u2019s Supper. Or whether we have free will or are predestinated. Or if the Gifts of the Spirit are for today.<\/p>\n\n
Just see what many, many churches and denominations are advocating in North America and Europe these days; or countenancing under their watch \u2013<\/p>\n\n
Toleration of homosexuality, abortion, adultery, divorce. \u201cHating the sin, loving the sinner\u201d often has yielded to acceptance, and even enablement.<\/p>\n\n
Doctrinal views of heaven, hell, forgiveness, and sin have been abandoned or have been stretched beyond traditional recognition.<\/p>\n\n
Personal \u2013 that is, spiritual \u2013 crises seldom are addressed with spiritual answers in today\u2019s churches. Sociological solutions of \u201cacceptance,\u201d and the New Morality (which is no morality at all), are offered instead. One\u2019s problems originate with society or tradition or intolerance or faulty upbringing\u2026 never one\u2019s own sinning.<\/p>\n\n
The secular ingredients of these poisonous formulas always include an appeal to Pride, and seldom an acknowledgment of God. It is almost axiomatic, isn\u2019t it, that flouting God\u2019s clearly presented Will is self-destructive? God has sent Commandments and prophets and teachers and inspired scribes and councils, and His Son \u2013 out of love, and for our well-being.<\/p>\n\n
Why do we scramble and scratch, confuse and contort, when He has laid out beautiful paths for us?<\/p>\n\n
Christianity is shrinking in North America and Europe. Thank God it is expanding \u2013 sometimes by the proverbial leaps abounds \u2013 south of the Equator, in Africa and South America, in Southeast Asia, and even in China despite persecution and killings.<\/p>\n\n
And the reaction of the contemporary churches in our countries that are dotted with cathedrals and church spires?<\/p>\n\n
If you don\u2019t like a spiritual belief, ignore it. If rules regarding certain sins are unpleasant, regard 2000 years of Christianity as \u201cbackwards\u201d and \u201cmistaken.\u201d If Bible passages and sermons make you uneasy\u2026 move on; elsewhere, or to nowhere at all.<\/p>\n\n
In that last option, people choose to move on, but it very possibly is to hell. To those who pick and choose what they should believe, that destination is not theirs to decide. The truth does not depend on your opinion of it.<\/p>\n\n
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