Professing Christianty is in some pretty bad shape right now. Specifically, professing evangelical Christianity is in pretty bad shape right now. Writers like Phil Johnson (and a good many others) have noted this. Phil has begun to weigh in on the subject with posts like this. I look forward to his thoughts in the upcoming days.
I had the misfortune today to experience firsthand a little of the doctrinal ignorance and compromise that seems to be indemic to much of evangelicalsim today. I had just purchased "Through the Gates of Splendor" at the local Christian bookstore when a kind lady that has worked there for years struck up a conversation with me. She attends another church in the area which church two of my sisters and one brother-in-law attend. I have some differences with certain pragmatic philosophies espoused by the church, but there is still much that is good about it. I told the lady that I was happy to know that the pastoral staff had cancelled a speaker they had scheduled recently. The lady said that she did not understand the reason for the cancellation. I told her that the man had been asked not to come because he had recently returned to the Roman Catholic Church.
The woman still expressed some confusion about why they would not have the man. "After all, he seems pretty good to me, and my husband enjoys his radio broadcast." I pointed out that the man now espouses an unbiblical, damnable view on justification. I reminded her of the Bible's teaching on justification in the books of Romans and Galatians. She considered that for a moment and said, "Well, I am sure that there are many Catholics who really love God." My reply was that if they truly do, they are not good Catholics! They cannot truly hold to the church's theology and be lovers of God in truth.
She seemed a little troubled at this point pointand brought up the recent death of Pope John Paul II. She mentioned that Dr. James Dobson had spoken of the pope in glowing terms and said that he was a godly man. She also mentioned something about Dr. Billy Graham's comments which unequivocably numbered the former pontiff among the redeemed. I told the lady that I was extremely disappointed with the doctrinal compromise and error expressed by these men regarding the apostate Roman church. The lady seemed very shocked by my reply and quickly said, "Well, we don't know these people's hearts." I told her that the beliefs they express both in word and action surely mean something. If what they are saying and doing is what they believe, then they are unregenerate. They must be lovingly corrected and pointed to a Christ Who saves and satisfies completely apart from the deeds of the law. At this point the woman began returning to what Graham and Dobson had said, and how we must not judge. As we continued speaking it seemed that Paul had nothing on these guys! (OK, I am overstating things a bit!) She seemed so hesitant to contradict these men, even when confronted with very plain Scripture.
One could write this off as coming from a person within a compromising church, but the church elders had taken the right stand on the issue. I am finding this mindset in churches across the evangelical spectrum. I even recently had an individual in an ostensibly Reformed Baptist church say something similar!
May God give us the grace to say with Luther, "My conscience is bound to the Word of God."
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