Some Big Changes in Christianity in the Last Century

Gary: Now, Contending for the Faith…. Here is this week’s question: “Dear Mr. Hunt, I’ve heard you mention on the program more than once that you’ve been a Christian 60-plus years. I’d be interested to know what you regard as the most significant changes that have taken place during that time period. And as long as you’re reviewing the past, what do you see ahead if the Lord tarries?”

Tom: Dave, this one’s…I’m not 60-plus, here, so… this one’s for you.

Dave: [Laughing] Oh, my goodness! Do we have a few hours, Tom, for this? What do I see in the future? I’m not a prophet—I don’t see anything in the future….

Tom: Well, let’s back up…

Dave: All right.

Tom: Well, I want to tell our audience a little story on you. I remember when we were working on The Seduction of Christianity, and we were doing all this research and collecting all this material. I mean it was just overwhelming! Just unbelieveable. And you were standing…we were in your kitchen, and you were standing there peeling an apple and looking over at me, and you said to me, “Tom, I think the whole world has gone completely insane.” And then you looked at me and you said, “Except you and me.” And then you thought about it a minute, and you said, “And I’m not so sure about you.”

Dave: [chuckling] Tom, that doesn’t sound good for me. It sounds like a deceitful heart!

Tom: No! It was…I hope everybody takes that the way it was intended. But it was just unbelievable, and that was 15 years ago! So that should start you off.

Dave: The world has gone mad, it seems. And when…it has gotten worse, Tom, since then, of course. And when we have evangelical leaders who are compromising—really compromising—joining with Roman Catholics who have a false gospel (there can be no question about it), to evangelize the world, supposedly. You know, we just had the Lutheran World Federation and the Catholic Theologians signed this document, after 30 years of discussion: Joint Declaration on Justification by Faith, and the whole thing began over indulgences. That’s Martin Luther’s 95 Theses that he nailed to the door of the Wittenberg Castle chapel. It was a disputation on the efficacy and power of indulgences. That’s what the whole thing…that really triggered the Reformation! And now they’re signing a document to say “we’re in agreement,” and the pope is offering more indulgences! Opening Holy Doors in Rome, and Pilgrims coming around the world to walk through these doors to get forgiveness of sins. If you give up cigarettes in the year 2000, you get forgiveness of sins… This is what it all began over! It’s like the pope is thumbing his nose at them, and yet, they’re signing this document that we’re now in agreement. And the head of the Lutheran World Federation says what a great day this is, and so forth!

Tom, and then we have…we just had this huge charismatic conference in St. Louis, you remember? The Inn of St. Louis in June 2000. And you had the head of the Assemblies of God, you had so many leading Christians there, joining with Roman Catholics at a conference? When they used to burn us at the stake! This is a false gospel! Look—signing this joint declaration, Evangelicals and Catholics Together, has not changed the fact that Catholics wear scapulars; the pope has worn a scapular all his life. On one end of it, it says, “Whosoever dies wearing this scapular shall not suffer eternal fire…” I mean, I could go on and on about these things. Or, I was just over in Switzerland, and the Dalai Lama preached in Calvin’s pulpit in the Cathedral in Geneva, Switzerland, a few months ago! And the dean of the Cathedral said, “What a wonderful event this was! We’re coming together and embracing one another.” And the pope says to Sri Chinmoy, who leads weekly meditations—he’s a Hindu—at the UN, “Your message and my message are the same.”

And we have leading evangelicals, like Charles Colson, Bill Bright, J.I. Packer, Pat Robertson, and so forth, who signed a document with the Catholics, saying…telling the pope, “Your message and our message is the same.”

Yeah, I think something has gone wrong! It has gotten much worse, and what does the church need? What has gone wrong? I think a failure to stand by the Bible. To earnestly contend for the faith, once for all delivered to the saints. If “justification by faith” is so complex that theologians have to discuss it for 30 years, who could possibly be saved?

So, let’s get back to the simplicity of the gospel. Let’s get back to the clarity of scripture, and let us stand by that—not the traditions of men. And Jesus didn’t say, “Go into all the world and dialog.” But “dialog” is a big word today! We’ve got Catholics dialoguing with Buddhists! And the Southern Baptists are dialoguing with the Catholics! You don’t dialog about mathematics. We don’t dialog… “well, 2 + 2 = 4.” “Well, let’s discuss it. How do you feel about that? Why can’t we let it be 5 at least on Thursdays or something?”

Tom, you do not dialog about truth. The Bible says that this is the truth; this is the way. This is the gospel. Outside of that, there is no salvation. We’d better have the fear of God enough to honor His Word, and stop trying to make alliances with people who do not believe God’s Word. And I think it’s going to get worse, this is what the Bible says.

Tom: Yeah. Dave, just to add one thing to that—Christian media…I mean, here we have, as Christians, we have so many resources with regard to God’s Word. We’ve got computers, we’ve got everything that you’d want to have, or that would make it easy to get into God’s Word all the more, but it’s all going south. The Christian media is really corrupting us rather than encouraging us and helping us to grow.

Dave: It’s doing both. It’s doing both. Yeah, and there are some good, encouraging things—edifying things—on Christian media, but there’s much that is not..