How Did We Get Here?

What has happened to the Church? To our Christian culture?

How did we get to this place of brokenness? Where it’s no longer a shock when well-known believers publicly leave the faith? Where pastors and leaders are regularly exposed for sexual assault and harassment? Where spiritual abuse and church hurt are familiar words?

The state of our American Church breaks my heart.

This article has been simmering for two months now. Really ever since I heard the truth come out about Ravi Zacharias. If you want more thoughts and info than I write here, I’ve been digging into each issue that I mention on my podcast, Looking for the Real God, starting with episode 67.

Friends, we cannot afford to keep silent anymore. We cannot afford to put our heads in the sand or under our pillows and pretend that everything is fine. Because it’s not. The corporate church is a mess. It needs an overhaul. I know that only the Spirit of Jesus Christ can truly give the overhaul it needs, but since the Church is made up of people I think we also need to recognize where we’ve gone wrong so that we can repent and move in a different direction.

So back to the initial question: How did we get here?

Looking at our modern Christian culture I find it interesting that so many of the biggest problems are familiar ones. Growing up in my cultic subgroup of Christianity these issues/lies were far more exaggerated, but they were similar none the less. Either the ultra-conservative Christian movement of the 90s and 2000s was actually as influential as we wanted it to be, or we weren’t as far from mainstream as we thought we were.

Here are seven serious problems I see in our Christian culture/churches.

#1 Misunderstanding of Biblical Authority: The word authority is often confused with power. People claim to have authority when all they really want to do is control people. If we look at the life of Jesus Christ and use Him as an example of someone who had genuine authority (Matthew 1:22) and then we contrast that with the power hungry leaders who are being exposed in our churches and Christian organizations, the differences are shocking. I love the way my current church defines power and authority. Power is the ability to make someone do what you want. Authority is living a life so genuine that people just want to follow you. I go into this in more detail in Episode 67 of my podcast.

#2 Misuse of the Terms “Unity” and “Gossip”: Power hungry leaders use these words and their own twisted definitions of them to control the people under them. Rather than meaning “oneness centered around Jesus Christ,” unity gets twisted to mean that “no one disagrees with the leader.” Dissenting voices are not allowed. Different opinions or perspectives are shut down. And if you speak up against something that is wrong, abusive, or unethical then you get labeled as a gossip. According to the dictionary gossip is the casual sharing of secret information, but according to many churches and organizations gossip means saying anything negative about leadership or a particular leader regardless if it’s true or not and regardless of your motives for sharing. (Episode 68)

#3 “Literal” Biblical Interpretation: I believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible. But I do not believe that we can always take the words in our English translations at face value and decide that they literally mean what they say without taking other important things into account. The Bible is made up of many different types of literature: history, poems, prophecies, letters, etc. Just as you would not read a biography in the same way you would read a sci-fi novel, we need to read each genre in the Bible differently. Some books are more figurative and some are literal history. We also need to understand context, author intent, cultural norms, and background information. Honestly, the idea that we 21st century Christians can read an English translation of an ancient book and just automatically understand the meaning is both arrogant and ignorant. Fortunately there has never been a time in history when study materials were more readily accessible. (Episode 70)

#4 Suppression of Women: So this next bit is really controversial. And I’m not even sure why it’s so controversial, but the more I talk about it, the more followers I lose. It’s not as though the role of women in the church is central to the gospel, at yet it totally gets people going on both sides. But as I’ve studied the role of women in Scripture over the past few years I can no longer identity as complementarian. I see the idea that men are supposed to be the leaders and women the followers as a tradition of Christianity that isn’t actually Biblical. When I look at the overarching themes of Scriptures I see religion and sin suppressing women as a result of the fall and God lifting them up as co-heirs of His Kingdom. How does the accepted Christian suppression of women contribute to the current state of our church and Christian culture? I think it ties directly into the sexual abuse and harassment we are consistently seeing. Women are not seen as equals or as teammates but instead as objects to be used. Because women’s voices aren’t being heard and their opinions and perspectives aren’t being valued the church is lopsided. (Episode 71)

#5 Focusing on Moralism vs Heart Transformation: Having good morals is great. People who know the difference between right and wrong and choose to do what’s right are an important part of a healthy society. However, too often the church becomes fixated on moralism rather than the gospel. Christians try to control people’s behaviors instead of introducing them to Jesus. There is a fascination with creating a moral utopia here on Earth rather than building the Kingdom of Heaven. People can never be good enough to reach heaven. However, when we come face to face with Jesus and allow Him to transform us from the inside out, goodness is a natural fruit of the Spirit. (Episode 72)

#6 God is a Concept rather than a Being: Within our modern version of Christianity God is more of a concept or an idea than a Real and Living Being. We quickly create Him in our own image instead of recognizing that we were made in His. God is nothing like us. But He chose to make us a little like Him so that we could have a relationship. If God is just an idea than he is free to be debated and changed according to our desires. But if He is Real real, then we don’t get to decide Who He is, we just get to discover Him. (Episode 73)

#7 Motivating with Fear: Fear is a powerful motivator. Just look at the way the media and political powers have used fear over the past year of the Covid pandemic — on both sides of the political spectrum. Unfortunately people in power within the Christian community have figured this out too. Fear has been used to keep us quiet about scandal and abuse within the church. It’s been used to stop us from telling the truth. Fear has also limited us from seeking the truth as we question the traditions of religious Christianity. They warn us that doubt it is a slippery slope. And finally fear keeps us from sharing the truth with others because we are quick to worry about looking intolerant in our post-modern world. (Episode 74)

These are serious issues, friends. And they will take some time to work through. Can I encourage you to seek God? Get in His Word for yourself. Study. Don’t be afraid to question and wonder. It’s scary to realize that things we thought were true might not be. It’s hard to re-evaluate our beliefs. But I promise you that the Real God on the other side of religion and tradition is WORTH finding!

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