Every so often, there is a report that chronicles the decline of church membership in the United States. As often as these reports are produced, they are immediately followed by the musings of so-called religious experts who tell us that declining church membership is the canary pointing to the eventual demise of Christianity. And what do these “experts” attribute to this impending demise of Christianity? We are told that the decline in church membership and/or attendance is the result of Christians being Islamophobic, homophobic, xenophobic, moralistic, judgmental, and against a woman’s right to choose (abortion). So what is the solution these “experts” have for “saving” Christianity? They tell us that if Christians could “just be like Jesus,” then church membership will hit the stratosphere. The cyber sphere is littered with so much of this theological garbage that a theologically informed response is an absolute necessity.
Two issues will be briefly addressed here. The first is the errant notion that declining church membership is somehow predictive of a trend that does not bode well for the Church. That could not be further from the truth. In fact, I will offer the counter-argument that declining church membership could be a very good thing for Christianity. The second issue will be to expose the fact that the call for Christians to just be like Jesus is based on a naive and politically correct but not a biblical understanding of Jesus. If the world hates us, says all manner of evil against us, and wants to persecute because we take a stand for Christ, I say we are already so much like Jesus (Matthew 5:11).
DECLINING CHURCH MEMBERSHIP
The secular world has its own standard by which success is determined. The more money you make, the more successful you are according to worldly standards. The more Super Bowls an NFL team wins, the more successful the team is. The more touchdowns a quarterback throws, the more songs a singer sells, the more followers a person has on twitter, the more pizzas or burgers a restaurant sells are all measures of worldly success. You can see a trend here - the more, the better. The worldly standard is based on quantity, so the world wrongly assumes that is the same for spiritual success; hence, declining church membership is heralded as evidence of a failing church. Let’s consider two of the many problems that are associated with this secular perspective.
Much of the unfairness and tensions in human relationships can be attributed to the fact that some people want to have more than others. American corporations recruit multi-million dollar executives who hire part-time employees with no benefits, to create products cheaply as possible to be sold for as much as possible so that investors will get higher returns on their investments. When higher returns can no longer be achieved, employees are laid off. If that doesn’t work, then corporations shut down their American operations, destroy jobs and communities, and send production to countries where people are paid slave wages. They say this is done in the name of competition when it is actually done in the name of greed and profit.
Not everyone has access to legal means of getting more so that they can be seen as successful. In all major American cities, poorly performing public schools are usually located in communities that are heavily populated by African Americans, Hispanics, and other minorities. Too often, graduates from these public schools are functionally illiterate and are restricted to part-time jobs that force them to seek public assistance just to barely make ends meet. They will never make enough money to ever be successful according to the world’s standard. Those who make it beyond high school soon find themselves limited by discrimination in the work place. The entrepreneurs in this group quickly realize that they will never be successful through legal means. They resort to gang activities such as drugs and sex crimes.
There are drug dealers and pimps who make more money than medical doctors and college professors. Society may not like it, but these drug dealers and pimps are the mark of success in their communities. Like Wall Street bankers and corporate executives, they make more money than the average person. They are glorified in movies and rap videos and imitated in real life. Gang violence, prostitution, illegal drug trade, and sexual-slavery are all byproducts of the secular standard of success.
As you can see, the problem with the worldly standard is that it does not always bring out the best in people nor does it always achieve the best for society. The idea that declining church membership is evidence of a failing church is a false equation. Not only does Christianity reject the secular standard of success, the Bible specifically rejects the correlation between church membership and spiritual success
In John’s vision recorded in Revelation, Jesus sent messages to seven Christian communities (churches) in the Roman Empire. One of those churches was in the city of Sardis. The Christian community in Sardis had all the trappings of worldly success: large membership, overflowing coffers, and a politically correct pop psychobabble message masquerading as the gospel of Christ. Outsiders looking at the church at Sardis were wowed by how “alive” it was.; but Jesus had a different impression: "... I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead...” (Revelation 3:1) That brings us to the second problem with the secular standard of success: it is completely rejected by Jesus.
A Christian community that seemed so successful was, according to Christ’s own evaluation, dead - successful according to worldly standards but spiritually dead. How could this be? Sardis was a religiously pluralistic society. Emperor worship and the worship of Artemis (the Roman goddess of fertility) were just two options to Christianity. You know how some people say that all religions are the same? This was true in Sardis. The Sardis church abandoned the Christian gospel just to go along. In our world of multiculturalism, pluralism, and all sorts of let’s-get-along-isms, Sardis Christianity would be all the rage; but this kind of Christianity, though popular, has no spiritual value.
Declining church membership may not be a bad thing for Christianity after all. As a matter of fact, it could be a sign that the church is getting away from its Sardis ways and returning to the true message of Christ. In fact, when it comes to the small number of believers, nothing is more reassuring than these comments by Jesus himself:
2. “Many are called but few are chosen.” (Matthew 22:14)
Jesus understood the challenges of his message, that though it is given to many, it is acceptable to only a few. The gospel of Christ is not pop culture politically correct psycho-babble. To follow Christ is to commit to a lifestyle circumscribed by a restrictive moral code. Many people want Christ’s message of love and peace but not with the accompanying restrictions. They want the Jesus who says, “neither do I condemn you,” but not the Jesus who adds, “go and sin no more.” Unfortunately for them, the Jesus who does not condemn is the same Jesus who recognizes sin.
The modern person is accustomed to having options for everything. There are dozens of varieties of everything, from sodas, beer, and wine to apples, cars, boats, and homes. So the modern man also wants his choice of spiritual living. That is where Jesus and Christianity become problematic. While people are seeking a buffet of spiritual options, Jesus says, “I am the way ... No one comes to the Father except through me,” (John 14:6 - NIV). Jesus is not claiming to be one of many ways. He is claiming total exclusivity to the Father.
This message is too exclusive for a world that yearns for inclusiveness.When the authentic Christian message is proclaimed, including the exclusivity of Jesus and the Christian restrictive moral code, it is offensive to the modern à la carte spiritual seeker. The consequence is a stampede out of the church. This is not a bad thing at all. The church is not a night club where people can be whatever they want to be. Nor does Christianity offer options of spiritual paths or choice of moral principles.
The gospel of Christ is like a separator. It separates the sheep from the goats. It separates true believers from those seeking validation for their moral shortcomings. When the so-called modern and enlightened be-whatever-you-want-to-be, marry-whomever-you-want, claim-whatever-sex-you-want, and the end-pregnancy-at-will crowds do not find validation within the Church, they leave the Church in droves. That is not a bad thing at all for the Church.
In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus last words to his disciples were: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28: 19 - 20 NIV)
The Church is supposed to be welcoming to all while teaching people to obey what Christ has commanded. There are people who want to be called Christians but they don’t want to obey the teachings of Christ. These are the people who accuse Christians of bigotry and hatred. Here is a message that must not be lost on all who think the Church needs to be popular: If what Jesus preached was popular, the crucifixion would not have been necessary. So the next time before you go heralding the demise of Christianity, just remember that the faith is about the few and not the many.
JUST BE LIKE JESUS
When critics of Christianity say that Christians should “just be like Jesus,” what do they really mean? Do they really want for us to be like the biblical Jesus, the man who offended his society and the crowd had no problem calling for his execution? What is it that the christianophobes desire - that we should offend society or that we should be executed or both? I don’t believe that the Christian haters really want us to be like the biblical Jesus. For the morally challenged sexual perverts who pass for modern and enlightened humanity, Jesus was all about love, peace, and doing good. They have not bothered to question why this politically correct Jesus was crucified because the answer would reveal a Jesus unsuited to their deviant behavior.
For the biblical Jesus, there is something called sin - a moral offense, an act against God’s law. When Jesus encountered the woman who was caught in adultery (John 8), he embraced her as a person but he did not condone nor ignore her immoral behavior. Jesus did not say to her, “Jesus, instead, told her, “Go and sin no more.”
The christianophobes don’t want us to be like that Jesus. They don’t want us to call anything sin. Whenever we talk about sin, we are accused of being self-righteous and told to “just be like Jesus.” There is obviously a huge difference between the biblical Jesus and the character embraced by the morally degraded so-called modern society. So who is this Jesus that the modern world wants Christians to be like?
The Jesus of the christianophobes is a sanitized and politically correct version of the biblical Jesus. This modern Jesus is so politically correct that he condemns no one and no behavior. Well, not quite. This politically correct Jesus condemns only Christians with their “backward” ideas of sin and morality. This Jesus favors abortion and fully endorses the lesbian-bisexual-gay-transgender agenda. What do you know? He even believes in evolution. But wait. That’s not all. This politically correct Jesus has nothing to say about sin because there is no moral lapse called sin. Sin, after all, is simply misdirected energy.
Wait a minute. Sin is misdirected energy? Yes! You mean to tell me that sin has nothing to do with disobeying God’s law? No. Sin has nothing to with morality or any divine law. It’s all about energy, more specifically misdirected energy. This is the sort of theological garbage one encounters from a liberal theological environment.
I was a theology student in the mid 1980s. One of my required courses was called Ministry. In one class session, a female professor stated that sin had nothing to do with morality. She defined sin as misdirected energy. I almost fell out of my seat. I had just graduated from college with a degree in biology. I was no Einstein; (Well, there are reports that Einstein was not a very good student. In that case, I was like Einstein.) but I clearly remembered some of my lessons from college physics. Energy is a quantifiable entity the is measured in calories and joules.
When the professor defined sin as energy, I immediately tuned out of the class as my mind raced back to college physics. If sin is misdirected energy, then how many misdirected calories is adultery? How many misdirected joules is incest? What about lying, stealing, prostitution, and murder? Do we calculate them in calories or joules? I could imagine a whole new scientific discipline called scientific theology with theologians, like theoretical physicists, trying to work out some grand formula for sin. After I finally directed my attention back to the course at hand, I shook my head and wondered, “What the heck am I doing in this place?”
The Jesus who believes in sin as misdirected energy is the Jesus that critics of Christianity want Christians to be like. This Jesus has nothing to say about sin, repentance, grace, and salvation. He takes care of the poor and needy and loves everyone. He is pro-choice, pro-LBGT rights, and pro-evolution. No wonder Christians aren’t like this Jesus. Sadly, too many people want this kind of Jesus because he provides a refuge from morality. He is not the biblical Jesus, but for the perverse and politically correct culture, he will suffice.
Those who disparage Christianity are the same ones who say that Christians should just be like Jesus and the world would flock to Christianity. Their conception of Jesus is obviously myopic and naive. In their conceptualization, Jesus only took care of the poor and needy and he loved everyone. Their Jesus is not judgmental and moralistic. He condemns no one and no behavior. He is the paragon of political correctness. The only problem with this Jesus is that he is not the Jesus of the Bible.
Society loves people who are politically correct. Such individuals are the cheerleaders of society’s values, whether or not those values are immoral, misguided, and/or destructive to society. So then, if Jesus was such a model of political correctness, he would have been fully embraced by his society; instead, he was crucified - executed. When the crowd had the choice to choose between a murderer and Jesus, it chose the murderer and called for Jesus to be executed. This is no different from the so-called new atheist, Sam Harris, claiming that if he had a magic wand that could make him eliminate rape or religion, he would eliminate religion. If Sam Harris was in that 1st Century crowd, he too would have chosen the murderer and say of Jesus, Crucify him!
The politically correct mentality that embraced a murderer and spurred on the crucifixion is the same politically correct mentality that has embraced homosexuality and is condemning Christians. In their blinding hypocrisy, the politically correct crowd has failed to see how much real Christians are just like the biblical Jesus. The PC inquisition doesn’t like it. The Jesus they want us to imitate is more like Chandra Mohan Jain, aka Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, a sexual degenerate and purveyor of perversity masquerading as a spiritual guru.
Lately, it has become nearly impossible to get on the internet without having some pro-LBGT opinion piece shoved into your face from the Huffington Post or some other sub-scholarly website. I would usually read the first few sentences, or the first paragraph at most, to get a sense of what’s being expressed. A few weeks ago, I came across such an article and I could not get beyond the first words of the first sentence. The piece began: In this enlightened 21st Century, ... I have seen this trend in sub-scholarly dregs where people simply insert reason, science, and this enlightened 21st Century into their opinions to convince themselves that their views are rational, scientific, and enlightened.
When I encountered the phrase, In this enlightened 21st Century, I shook by head in disbelief. I questioned the claim that this 21st Century is enlightened. Are we really in an enlightened century when society cheers on a man who doesn’t know that he is a man but claims to be a woman and dresses up like a woman? Is it enlightened when a woman thinks her sexual partner should be another woman? How does that even work? Just the thought of it is nauseating. What is enlightened about a man who confuses another man’s excretory organ (the anus) for a sexual organ? Could a man be more debased than to think that he can have sex with either a man and a woman?
When Christians speak out against these behaviors, our critics want to know why we are so hung up on sex. They miss the point. Christians are not hung up on sex. As a Christian, I don't care about who anyone's sexual partner is; however, when you decide to make that the Church's business by seeking ordination or marriage within the Church, then expect the Church to have a say. It is the teaching of Christ that for the purpose of marriage, a man leaves his father and mother and unites with his wife (Matthew 19:5). Any marriage that does not involve one man and one woman is not Christian and does not belong in the Church. Other forms of union may be a civil right, but when they are brought in the Church, the civil right becomes a moral wrong against which the Church has every right to take a stand.
This enlightened 21st Century seems to be the century when, in rejection of God, humanity slips into the cesspool of moral depravity. Oh, maybe this is where I am wrong because, for the enlightened 21st Century humanity, there is no such thing as morality. Morality is supposed to be for the backward thinking superstitious people who still believe in God. The modern world has been liberated from that kind of medieval mentality. In the morality-free 21st Century enlightened United States, according to the latest (2014) crime statistics from the FBI, every 60 seconds two persons are either murdered, raped, robbed, or assaulted. The CDC most recent (2011) abortion statistics shows that 2000 babies were aborted every day. What a liberated morality-free enlightened world! When Christians speak up, we are told to stop being judgmental and just be like Jesus.
If you want to disparage Christianity in order to protect your immoral agenda, go ahead and do so. If you want to condemn Christians because their moral principles are an impediment to your perverted sexual proclivities, you are free to do so. If you want to discredit religion because you are a disgruntled atheist with no recognizable intellectual achievement, please go ahead and do so. But spare us your hypocritical nonsense and theological garbage by telling us to be like Jesus. After all, you christianophobes know nothing about the real Jesus.