Not Going to Church by the Thousands

Now, Religion in the News, a report and comment on religious trends and events being covered by the media. This week’s item is from www.answersingenesis.org, January 24, 2006, with the headline: “Voting with Their Feet. Church-going in Britain is in free fall in the mainline denominations. Membership of the Church of England declined 27 percent between 1980 and 2000. This realization led to a survey in 2003-2004 to find out why. In all, 14,000 people in Britain and Ireland responded to the widely advertised invitation to say why they were giving up on church. People wrote responses rather than answering multiple choice questions. Astonishingly, 91 percent gave very similar reasons for disenchantment with church, which can be summarized in the words of one person: ‘The church needs to give a more robust defense of the reasons for believing.’ People pleaded for the churches to answer the skeptics and defend the faith. 

Many respondents had joined house churches to get teaching that built their faith. Several websites were frequently listed as providing the sort of teaching that people wanted. One was the Answers in Genesis website. Respondents wanted evidence for their faith and teaching that upheld the authority of the Bible. 

The second reason for disillusionment was frustration with church leaders not teaching the holiness of God and moral standards. A huge number of respondents grieved over the ordination of homosexuals by the Anglican Church. One liberal archbishop in Australia, commenting on the hemorrhage of members of his denomination, blamed fundamentalists— that is, Bible-centered churches—for sheep stealing.”

Tom: Dave, this seems positive that there are people out there desiring truth, wanting to have some answers, but when it comes to Great Britain, a place where more people attend mosques than they do the Anglican Church or churches there…I don’t know. I like to be hopeful that there is indeed a hunger for truth, but…

Dave: Well, Tom, it certainly goes against the thinking that has caused this watering down of the faith for so many years. And, of course, you get this liberal archbishop who blames fundamentalists. Well, how could fundamentalists steal sheep, if the sheep don’t want to be stolen? I mean, these are not just sheep now, these are people, thinking minds and so forth, and what would the fundamentalists offer? They offer the fundamentals of the faith, so that really bears out this survey. So that’s not a good argument from this man. 

See, the thought for a long time—well, you could go way back. The beginnings of the liberal movement was that you can’t attract people with a negative message, you know, like Judgment Day. You’ve got to give them something positive, and now take out of there hell, and take out of there, really, God’s moral standards, and sin, and the fact that God is going to bring people into judgment for what they have done—we’re accountable to Him—and let’s just give them kind of a social gospel, a feel-good gospel. Because, after all, poverty, and sickness, and disease, and suffering, and famine, and all of these things (which is true) need to be dealt with. But they began to deal with them to such an extent that they forgot the problem is not in the symptoms, the problem is in the disease in the human heart. And so it is, as you say, encouraging that there are people who recognize, and they really want truth.

Tom: But, Dave, over here in the United States, we seem to be going the other way. Churches that were evangelical now have become (not all of them but many of them) mega-churches on the basis of feel-good messages, on the basis of watering down the gospel, on the basis of introducing entertainment to supposedly promote the gospel.

Dave: Yeah. Well, Robert Schuller, of course, would be a classic example…

Tom: Well, he started much of it.

Dave: …and Norman Vincent Peale, The Power of Positive Thinking, the gospel is not in there. 

Kirby John Caldwell in Houston, pastor that President Bush had his picture taken with, the last I knew they had about 12-15,000 members in the church, and he wrote a book The Gospel of Good Success. I’ve gone through that book very carefully. I haven’t found the gospel in there—not the gospel about getting to heaven, not the gospel about saving people from their sins, and Christ paying the penalty for their sins. But it’s a gospel of, “Yeah, look at all the programs we have: I mean, gymnasiums, and what we’re doing for street people, and how we’re feeding the hungry.” And these are all good, but it’s a sorry situation if what you do what Jesus said: “What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul?” 

If you could solve all the hunger in the world, if you could get everyone living in a mansion, if you could solve all the disease in the world, “What would it profit,” says Jesus, “if you gain the world and you lose your soul?” So people are recognizing that. 

And by the way, Tom, I guess I never do this, and I don’t know if I’m authorized—Gary may cut this right out—but I would recommend Seeking and Finding God, because it just lays it out. We are temporary inhabitants of this temporary planet, but that’s as far as our bodies are concerned. But eternal beings within, our spirit and our soul, will be here, will be somewhere forever, and we had better think seriously about that. People think about their planning for retirement, or whatever, or getting their children in college. What about eternity? Eternity is forever!

Tom: Dave, our listeners can not only get the book, and it’s a terrific book, but we also have it now as an audiobook. So if somebody wants to drive along and listen to it, put the CD in their CD player, that would be great. 

Dave, I’m excited that there are people in Great Britain who have a heart for the fundamentals, for the truth of the gospel and of the faith. And I suppose you could say, in contrast to what I said earlier, there are people in this country who are shunning the mega-churches, the feel-good churches, and so on, and do want—we get letters all the time—people do want the faith once and for all delivered to the saints, so that’s one encouraging note.

Dave: Amen.