Modern Christianity Has a Serious Problem

Clete

Truth Smacker
Silver Subscriber
Modern Christianity has a serious problem. Churches today are more concerned with entertainment, emotionalism, feel-good messages and experiences than with sound doctrine, serious theological study and an honest exploration for the truth. Most Christians are content with an intellectually shallow faith and have no interest in actually thinking through what they believe. Worse, many don’t just fail to seek the truth, they actively avoid it, as is exemplified on this website every few minutes. They cling to their assumptions without ever asking whether those assumptions hold up to scrutiny, and if something threatens their beliefs, they shut it down instead of engaging with it. The result is a cycle of willful ignorance where theology is built on psychological comfort rather than truth. That, and a propensity toward accusing people like me of doing what I'm here lamenting in spite of reams of evidence to the contrary.

A big part of the problem is just plain and simple bad theology that’s been ingrained for centuries. Classical Theism, especially Calvinism, presents a God who is so immutable that He can’t genuinely interact with His creation and covenant confusion leads churches to take Old Testament promises and prophecies and apply them where they don’t belong. Many Christians have also bought into the idea that faith and reason are at odds, so they stop thinking critically and settle for slogans and clichés. On top of that, a lot of churches downplay human responsibility by promoting fatalistic views of divine sovereignty, which leads to passivity and a distorted view of God’s relationship with us. Then when people read the bible, folks are confronted with a God who loves people and reacts to their actions and who's priority isn't showing power but in being just and who loves those who embrace their duty to act righteously. They then find themselves confronted with trusting their own mind vs. trusting the professional theologian that preaches at their church. To often, the result is glazed over eyes and a shut bible that collects dust on the nightstand.

So, on the one hand you have dogmatic thinking on the part of leadership and mental passivity on the part of laity. This situation didn’t just come out of nowhere. Augustinian theology laid the foundation for deterministic views that have dominated church history. The Enlightenment pushed reason, but instead of engaging with it, most of Christianity embraced one form or another of anti-intellectualism. Revivalism and emotionalism shifted the focus from solid teaching to personal experiences, making faith more about feelings than truth. And now, modern church growth strategies put numbers over doctrine, resulting in a severely watered-down, consumer-driven Christianity, where most churches these days don't even want you to know what their denominational affiliation is because such things do not help them achieve the fatuous goals they are attempting to achieve.

The difference between dogmatic, blind beliefism and a rational, biblically grounded faith is simply huge. One is emotion-driven, blindly follows tradition, and passively accepts whatever is taught by the so-called theological expert behind the pulpit. The other examines doctrine like the Bereans did, actively engages with theology, and values biblical exegesis over mysticism, personal revelation and emotional experiences. One treats faith as predetermined and static; the other sees it as a dynamic relationship with God. But as long as people refuse to question their own beliefs, they’ll never recognize the vapid shallowness nor the self-contradictory nature of their theology, and, as a result, the self-deception will keep spreading.

The consequences of all this are numerous and intuitive. Christianity loses credibility when it’s inconsistent and irrational, which is why so many people turn to skepticism or secularism. Without sound doctrine, believers stay spiritually immature, at best, and are easily influenced by false teaching. Churches become fragmented, divided and ineffectual because there’s no solid foundation. Worst of all, intellectual dishonesty becomes the norm, and people get so used to ignoring contradictions that they can’t even recognize when they’re being deceived or when they're deceiving themselves and don't seem to care. Indeed, the longer it goes, the more entrenched they become in their false doctrines and protect their self-deception as if it were their very life. They cling to it as a child clings to a favored pet

So what’s the way forward? First, churches and individual believers need to prioritize real theological study and critical thinking. Of course, teaching Mid-Acts Dispensationalism would clear up a lot of doctrinal confusion by properly distinguishing between Israel and the Body of Christ and Open Theism offers a far more coherent and relational alternative to deterministic theology but that's several steps down the road. Since mainstream churches are mostly resistant to any sort of change, smaller groups committed to rational faith might be the best solution, but none of this matters unless Christians are willing to be honest with themselves. Christians being willing to challenge their own beliefs, recognize their biases, and actually care more about truth than comfort seems to be a necessary first step. Without that, nothing changes.

It’s frustrating to watch so much of Christianity fall into total nonsense and abject stupidity, but that’s no reason to give up. On the contrary! I take it as a call to action! The truth has always been the minority position. If we stand firm, dig into Scripture with a critical eye, and build communities that value both reason and faith, we can maintain a Christianity that’s actually grounded in truth. Just because most people refuse to engage in serious theological inquiry doesn’t mean we should stop pursuing it. If anything, it means we need to be even louder in proclaiming the truth, calling out false doctrine, teaching people how to think clearly, to detect cognitive biases and to embrace reality by rejecting the irrational in favor of the truth.
 
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Nolan

New member
Churches today are more concerned with entertainment, emotionalism, feel-good messages and experiences than with sound doctrine, serious theological study and an honest exploration for the truth. Most Christians are content with an intellectually shallow faith and have no interest in actually thinking through what they believe.

Too many people don't understand why they believe the things they believe or understand why they do the things their "pastor" tells them to do. Do they ever stop and ask themselves, "does this thing I'm doing line up with the Bible or am I just going through the motions because I'm blindly following what someone told me to do?"

A big part of the problem is just plain and simple bad theology that’s been ingrained for centuries.

Yes! The mistake that too many people make is to try to figure out the best way to interpret the Bible first before actually reading the Bible itself.

And now, modern church growth strategies put numbers over doctrine, resulting in a severely watered-down, consumer-driven Christianity, where most churches these days don't even want you to know what their denominational affiliation is because such things do not help them achieve the fatuous goals they are attempting to achieve.

I have found that 80% of the so-called "churches" in my area are run more like businesses. They contradict themselves in their own statement of faith because they are too liberal or they leave out things like teaching repentance so as to make their congregants only ever have to hear what they want to hear and feel warm and cozy. In reality, the people don't realize that they are nothing more than customers to the CEO standing up there at the pulpit. It's a sad thing.

Christianity loses credibility when it’s inconsistent and irrational, which is why so many people turn to skepticism or secularism.

This is why church attendance has been on the decline. Yes, secularism has played a part in that, but remember, Darwinism came on the scene in 1859. In 1959, 100 years later, more than half of Americans were still attending church on a regular basis. I would argue that the majority of churches today have shot themselves in the foot by trying to fit in with our secular culture. You also have the Harold Camping and the Benny Hinn type of people doing nothing more than creating a major turn off.

So what’s the way forward? First, churches and individual believers need to prioritize real theological study and critical thinking. Of course, teaching Mid-Acts Dispensationalism would clear up a lot of doctrinal confusion by properly distinguishing between Israel and the Body of Christ and Open Theism offers a far more coherent and relational alternative to deterministic theology but that's several steps down the road.

There absolutely needs to be unity on the subject of soteriology, there’s no question about that. Perhaps eschatological issues should come after, but back to your original point, in order to do that we need to be able to back up what we believe with scripture and reason so that we can have a productive back and forth. Simply saying, “I believe this because someone told me this is true” is not good enough.

It’s frustrating to watch so much of Christianity fall into total nonsense and abject stupidity, but that’s no reason to give up. On the contrary! I take it as a call to action!

The best thing we can do is to try to explain to some of these people why they need to move on to more conservative churches that actually teach Bible and not listen to some philosopher up there giving a TED talk. Now, that’s easier said than done, but if they are willing to listen, we can keep chipping away at it. Most people aren’t willing to listen, unfortunately, and part of the reason could be where our outreach is. In my case, I live in a majority Catholic, hyper-liberal area so the challenges are greater. Because the options out here are limited, I could only recommend a church affiliated with the SBC or Calvary Chapel and even then I have to make sure that what they are teaching is Biblically sound and if the leadership has credibility.
 
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Clete

Truth Smacker
Silver Subscriber
Too many people don't understand why they believe the things they believe or understand why they do the things their "pastor" tells them to do. Do they ever stop and ask themselves, "does this thing I'm doing line up with the Bible or am I just going through the motions because I'm blindly following what someone told me to do?"



Yes! The mistake that too many people make is to try to figure out the best way to interpret the Bible first before actually reading the Bible itself.



I have found that 80% of the so-called "churches" in my area are run more like businesses. They contradict themselves in their own statement of faith because they are too liberal or they leave out things like teaching repentance so as to make their congregants only ever have to hear what they want to hear and feel warm and cozy. In reality, the people don't realize that they are nothing more than customers to the CEO standing up there at the pulpit. It's a sad thing.



This is why church attendance has been on the decline. Yes, secularism has played a part in that, but remember, Darwinism came on the scene in 1859. In 1959, 100 years later, more than half of Americans were still attending church on a regular basis. I would argue that the majority of churches today have shot themselves in the foot by trying to fit in with our secular culture. You also have the Harold Camping and the Benny Hinn type of people doing nothing more than creating a major turn off.



There absolutely needs to be unity on the subject of soteriology, there’s no question about that. Perhaps eschatological issues should come after, but back to your original point, in order to do that we need to be able to back up what we believe with scripture and reason so that we can have a productive back and forth. Simply saying, “I believe this because someone told me this is true” is not good enough.



The best thing we can do is to try to explain to some of these people why they need to move on to more conservative churches that actually teach Bible and not listen to some philosopher up there giving a TED talk. Now, that’s easier said than done, but if they are willing to listen, we can keep chipping away at it. Most people aren’t willing to listen, unfortunately, and part of the reason could be where our outreach is. In my case, I live in a majority Catholic, hyper-liberal area so the challenges are greater. Because the options out here are limited, I could only recommend a church affiliated with the SBC or Calvary Chapel and even then I have to make sure that what they are teaching is Biblically sound and if the leadership has credibility.
Excellent post, Nolan!

The problem, it seems to me, is a cultural one and it isn't going to get fixed by any conventional means except on a very local level and even then only sparingly. On the macro level, the church has always been a reflection of the society. It's policies, practices and preaching all flow downstream from (i.e. in reaction to) the society, not the other way around. (This is true of all macro scale institutions including politics, entertainment, education, clothing styles, etc.) This is a product of human nature and cannot be avoided. Nor can it be reversed to any meaningful or lasting degree on the macro level by incremental improvement. It requires wholesale changes to the society itself which only happens catastrophically (i.e. in BIG leaps), in the direction toward righteousness and justice. In short, one form or another of revolution (i.e. spiritual, political, maybe both) is required to see any substantial and permanent large scale change. The slow methodical and incremental changes in society are very much biased in the direction toward godlessness, injustice and tyranny. The best we can realistically hope for is to be an instrument for change around the fringes and usually even then it's very local and involves one or two individuals who manage to gather perhaps as many as a few dozen believers around them in their home town.

That isn't all bad, by the way! First of all large scale, macro level "revolutionary" change starts on the local level and no one can tell when, or if, such large scale change is going to happen. In other words, just because wholesale change in unlikely, isn't an excuse to do nothing. In fact, on the individual level, what the unlikeness of macro level change means is that individual believers have to take responsibility for their own understanding and their own communities. Ultimately, we as individual believers are responsible for ourselves and the impact we have on our own circle of influence and we should be primarily focused on what God is doing in us and let God worry about what He is doing through us. Too often those priorities are reversed and peer pressure, along with the enormity of the task, is allowed to paralyze us into doing nothing at all.

What’s frustrating, and I’m saying this to myself as much as to anyone else, is that people are eager to follow anyone who is bold enough to take a stand and do so loudly. Maybe you’ve noticed this too, but it seems like those who actually take the time to dig deep and truly understand why they believe what they believe are often introverted theology nerds who couldn’t fill a thimble with charisma. That certainly describes me! Meanwhile, the people overflowing with charisma; the ones naturally inclined to influence others; rarely seem interested in putting in the effort to develop sound doctrine. So, we end up with a situation where the people with the right answers keep to themselves, while those out leading and shaping opinions don’t know up from down when it comes to substantive theological issues. It's a real problem!
 
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