At the very outset, I want to announce that unless the religious establishment—or institutional church—undergoes complete reform, she is on her way out. Unless she’s redeemed, some future historian will write a history on “The Rise and Fall of Western Christianity.” For without regeneration, the organized church will self-abort. If suicide be her lot, she will be her own author and finisher.
Part 1
Testimony Of Our Forefathers
This sect-ridden system called “The Church” is no longer influential or impressive. She has lost her ability to relate to the human predicament. It was Abraham Lincoln who said, “Christianity is not my religion. I could never give assent to the long complicated statements of Christian dogma” (Website, under www.quotedb.com/quotes/2140 ). Lincoln relied heavily on God but leaned away from the religious establishment.
Thomas Jefferson wrote, “The greatest enemies of Jesus are the doctrines and creeds of the church. It would be more pardonable to believe in no God at all than to blaspheme Him by the atrocious writings of the [church] theologians” (Ibid.). He further announced that he had “sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man" (Ibid.). Needless to say, Jefferson included the various institutions of the religious establishment when he referred to “tyranny over the mind of man.”
John Adams alluded to the religious order as so much “baggage” when he wrote, “Nowhere in the Gospels do we find a precept for Creeds, Confessions, Oaths, Doctrines, and whole carloads of other foolish trumpery that we find Christianity encumbered with” (Ibid.).
James Madison spoke of the “fruits” of orthodox religions as ignorance, arrogance and servility in the laity, superstition, bigotry, and persecution. But long before our founding fathers came upon the scene, Martin Luther, the Protestant Crusader, insightfully concluded that the greatest threat to the cause of Jesus always arises from those who lay claim to being his children (Ibid.). Gandhi of India proclaimed that Christianity is the greatest enemy of Jesus Christ (Ibid.).
Our founding fathers looked upon the splintered estate of partisan religion with discontent. Judging from their words, they must have felt that the schismatic plight, the endless rituals, the never-ending symbols, and the clerical jargon of sectarian religion had no meaningful message for a troubled world. If Lincoln could have had his way, he no doubt would have re-shaped, reformed, and even reversed “Christianity” in an effort to rid it of excess baggage.
Her Divisive Dilemma
The institutional church’s “cargo” of division has defeated her. Her “backpack” of jargon has resurrected the “Tower of Babel.” And when the world looks upon the mess she has created, they see a jumbled mass of rival productions. It is not surprising, then, when they conclude their world is more glamorous than the world the religious establishment promotes. If the Christian movement in 70 A.D. had been as splintered as it is today, the resurrection message—the message of salvation—would have had little impact upon the lost world. The first believers went forth as a united front, an army of dedicated recruits whose message was elementary, not loaded down with ecclesiastical garbage or encumbered with divisive dispatches. They communicated “Jesus and him crucified.”
They Won The World Without The “Extras”
The early believers won the world without theological seminaries or missionary societies. They changed lifestyles without throwing a rock, burning a building, drawing a sword, or parading down Main Street in Jerusalem with homosexuals and long-haired losers. Their resurrection message to the unregenerate was simple, “Repent, and turn to God!” The new reign welcomed everyone—yes, even homosexuals and prostitutes and drunkards and thieves and swindlers. In the congregation at Corinth, there were
reformed homosexuals, prostitutes, thieves, drunkards, and swindlers (I Corinthians 6:9-11). They had been washed, sanctified, and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus.
Impacting The Population
If we intend to influence this segment of our population with the message of salvation, we must abandon our divisions and march forth as a united front. To go forth as a divisive facade is to face defeat before we “fire the first shot.” We could not be more divided if the Lord had decreed it. The world will not nor cannot be won to Messiah Jesus as long as the Christian community remains fractured. Nor can the world be conquered for the Captain of our salvation by exerting most of our efforts parroting the party’s clichés or adding more theological waste to our partisan rostrums. The slate must be cleaned, reformed, renewed, and reshaped before receiving our marching orders. Then and only then will we be able and ready to give the battle cry!
Reaching Beyond The Established Order
If apostles Peter and Paul had endeavored to spread the message of the risen Christ while working with and furthering the sects of their day, the new movement would have become stalemated and stagnated. If Martin Luther had burdened himself with the ecclesiastical anatomies of his time and had attempted to advance reform while clinging to their bosoms, the towering Protestant crusade would not have gotten beyond Wittenberg’s city gates. His famous words before the Imperial Diet at Worms, Germany in April, 1521 are descriptive of his restless, truth-seeking spirit of reformation, “Unless I am refuted and convinced by testimony of the Scriptures or by clear arguments...my conscience is bound in the Word of God—I cannot and will not recant anything.” Luther escaped his opponents’ hands on this occasion, but the “Holy See” at Rome hounded and hunted him for decades.
Luther’s Plea Goes Unheeded
It was Luther who begged his followers not to call themselves Lutherans but simply Christians, saying that he had not been crucified for them. And because his disciples did not heed his advice, the Lutheran sect has become an integral part of the divisive dilemma within the Christian community. But this is the history of all noble movements that become entangled in partisan, rival affairs. Their affections are no longer centered on the resurrection account but on building up the party. The world drifts farther into a state of darkness while institutional religion organizes, plans, scrutinizes, and develops new ways to increase the size of her sects and enlarge her church coffers. If we hope to achieve reformation, we must reach
beyond the established order and ecclesiastical structures. We must bypass religious sculptures, theological systems, clerical institutions, religious symbols and rituals.
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The Religious Establishment: Her Blunders
And Digressions
(Part II)
Organizing Out Of Existence
An eagle cannot fly if tied to an anchor. An athlete cannot run while carrying a hundred-pound backpack. A plane will not leave the runway if loaded down with too much cargo. And so it is with the religious establishment. She cannot fly because her yoke is too heavy with structures, organizations, and clerical arrangements. She has truly organized herself out of practical existence. Within her church structures are Missionary Societies, Pulpit Committees, Gospel Outreach endeavors, Evangelistic panels, Board meetings, Deacons’ meetings, Preachers’ meetings, Elders’ meetings, Vacation Bible School programs, Lectureships, Forums, and a host of other scavenger organizations that drain her potentials and efforts and plunder her talents. The yoke is too heavy, preventing her from becoming airborne with the resurrection tidings.
These parasitical organizations extract the very life from the body of believers. In essence, she has permitted her internal organizations to strangle her. There’s no room, no time, and no money for the resurrection message. Her fancy edifices and polished organizations are symptoms of her pride and digression. Hundreds of millions of dollars are wasted on “materialistic evangelism” while millions of the world’s poor go hungry, not only for food but also for the message of salvation. Her priorities are abused and misplaced. She has taken the simple arrangement of communicating the Good News to others and developed it into a complicated mess.
Too Organized And Ritualistic
The activities, movements, and efforts of the first believers were unskilled, ordinary, unsophisticated, and informal—although serious and edifying. Our contemporary arrangement is perplexing, rehearsed, organized to the brim, ritualistic, formalistic, and boring.
As most everyone is elected to some church office, there is no one left to enhance the practical aspect of the program! So the officers go around in circles, involving themselves in paper work, organizing meetings, filling speaking engagements, and otherwise doing nothing to convert the world. The world keeps hanging, if only by a thread, waiting for “Christians” to toss it the lifejacket of salvation. But no! Institutional religion is too busy keeping her churches and organizations afloat to bother with the Great Commission. Millions are waiting for someone to bring them the message of salvation, but she sits around creating more organizations to implement the ones that have already become dormant and stale. Until the modern church becomes more interested in more people, she will remain out of the people business.
Urgency Of The Times
Who can motivate her? She will not be aroused until she discerns the urgency of the times and gets off her butt and out of her organizations and into the world, where Jesus said to go. Her elaborate church structures stand as monuments to her failures and complacency. Her comfortable pews have weakened her, and her Reverends and Pastors and Priests have wrecked her. She demands to be spoon-fed by professional functionaries, even though she has had ample time to acquire the gift of mutual ministry. Where will it all end? The whole mess will culminate in the trash-heap of bygone religions unless the entire system is reformed. And that is what this message is all about.
Oh, For The Courage!
Oh, for the courage and enthusiasm of the first believers! Oh, for a community of Spirit-filled, God-fearing men and women to cut across sectarian lines to take the resurrection message to the masses! The institutional church and missionary societies cannot do it. Our theological schools and colleges cannot accomplish it. Our religious parties cannot attain it. The clergy can’t and won’t do it. Allow me to express it in this manner:
These can never substitute for individual Christian action.
It was individual Christian action that brought results 2,000 years ago, and it will take individual Christian action today to achieve the same results. When we, too, begin where the early believers began, we will turn the religious establishment and her clergy upside down, just as the early believers turned the first century establishment and its clergy upside down. We can do likewise by abandoning our comfortable pews, ceasing to demand that professional ecclesiastics spoon-feed us with their warmed-over “sermons,” and “going out into the byways and highways.”
Going Where The Action Is!
Instead of trying to get the world into our church structures, let the Good News of the resurrection take believers out of our church structures and into the world. The “world” is next door, down the street, over the hill, at the supermarket and office, and on the bus and plane. Wherever people are, we will find the “world.” As it is not necessary to be specially trained and schooled to go next door to tell a neighbor about gardening, it is not required that one be specially instructed and educated to tell the same neighbor about the Man who came forth from the grave after three days.
Those common, uneducated saints who fled from Jerusalem in the face of persecution “went everywhere preaching the word” (Acts 8:1-4). They had a simple but stirring story to tell, and they told it! If Jesus’ special envoys, the apostles, had insisted that they first attend a school of theology, the message would have stopped dead in its tracks—as it has in our present age. The early believers were already enrolled in the school of Jesus Christ, and the resurrection was their theology!
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