There is a religious implosion that is devoutly to be prayed for. That is those who are pagans: those who are not people of the Almighty, those who are not of the promises of God, need to repent and convert and seek Christ. For he is the only way forward.
This secular state cannot provide a continuity. It worships itself: its idols are tribal, and they will fail. We can learn from those who have fallen into the pit of despair in their liberalism, which enfeebles the people.
For they lose vision, and perish.
Since I’m a completely secularized non-believer (granted, one that spent his school years attending a modern orthodox yeshiva) I can sympathize with the idea of the Cultural Jew. But while Woody Allen or Philip Roth or Adam Sandler may be a reflection of the American Jewish experience, they certainly aren’t fundamental to its existence. Faith helps many people make sense of the world around them. Faith gives them a spiritual connection to something larger. And tradition molded by the faith is what’s transferable from one place or time to the next. Whether you’re religious or not, it’s clear that orthodoxy offers all this. A religion without rules or God isn’t sustainable. But that’s exactly what American Jews are left with. … The actively leftist Reform movement has proven that when you water faith down enough it becomes useless. Among Jewish denominations, Pew found that 35 percent of American Jews identify with the Reform movement, 18 percent identify as Conservative and 10 percent as Orthodox (another 6 percent fall into alternative groups like the Reconstructionist and Jewish Renewalists.) The entire denominational system is one slippery slope towards a ham sandwich. The survey finds that around a quarter of people raised Orthodox have become Conservative or Reform; 30 percent of those raised Conservative have become Reform and 28 percent of those raised Reform jump the ark.
There is still a witness. I’m not sure about Jonathon Cahn’s discussion of prophecy, but this message is needed. The USA was founded by Prots. It was based on the faith of the Prots: on scripture alone, faith alone, God alone, faith alone, and for the Glory of God.
The Jews who forget this are akin to a branch of a vine that has been cut from a vine. It has no use but to heat us. In a fire.
And note that the church is not a creature of democracy, nor parliamentary procedure. If the church votes apostasy in, it is schismatic, and it is time to leave.
First, they are mistaken about the nature of the church. They seem to envision the church as a sort of parliamentary system in which one party is in power and the other party is the loyal opposition. In such a system, the church eventually arrives at the truth through conflict and compromise, by “arguing, debating and voting.” While this makes sense from a worldly perspective, this view of the church is utterly foreign to Scripture. Jesus did not intend for his church to be a political body divided into factions and endlessly at war with itself. These are not signs of a healthy church but one that is sick, immature and worldly and that has lost its way (1 Cor. 3:1-3).
Second, Wheeler and Wilkinson are mistaken about what it means to “leave” the church. Usually, when we talk about someone “leaving” the church, we mean that they’ve transferred their membership from one place to another. However, this is a false and worldly definition. To “leave the church” in the spiritual sense means that we are apostate. It is those who jettison their faith for various forms of idolatry and immorality who leave the church and are apostate.
When Adolph Hitler was rising to power in Nazi Germany, those who signed the Barmen Declaration were criticized for being schismatic and causing division and disunity. In response, Dietrich Bonhoeffer countered that it was the Nazi-controlled Reich church that was schismatic. Bonhoeffer correctly understood that it was the Reich church that was guilty of idolatry for bowing the knee to Adolph Hitler. In every age, it is those who break away from the Apostolic, orthodox, confessional faith who “leave” and separate themselves from the one true church.
Also, Wheeler and Wilkinson are wrong in believing that “religious diversity” is the panacea for our problems. They seem to think that religious disagreement is the highest good and that the desire to “think alike and act alike” is a bad thing. It’s a good thing the early Christians didn’t share this view. For example, when Tertullian was battling against heretical teachers in the 3rd century A.D., he did not issue an appeal for religious diversity. Instead, Tertullian blasted those who “perverted” the Scriptures and abandoned the apostolic faith. In his “Prescription Against Heretics,” Tertullian repudiates these false teachers by asking: “Who are You? When and whence did you come? You are none of mine, what have you to do with that which is mine? Indeed, Marcion, by what right do you hew my wood? By whose permission, Valentinus, are you diverting the streams of my fountain? By what power, Apelles, are you removing my landmarks? This is my property. I have long possessed it; I possessed it before you. I hold sure title-deeds from the original owners themselves, to whom the estate belonged. I am the heir to the apostles.” To our modern ears, these words may sound “self-righteous,” but Tertullian was contending “ … for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). Religious diversity is not the solution to our problems in the PC(USA): it is the problem. When the church cannot agree on basic points of doctrine, the result is dysfunction, gridlock, discord and decline, which is exactly what we’ve experienced for the past 30 years.
Finally, Wheeler and Wilkinson are wrong about how we build the church.
To build the church requires more than exchanging clever “techniques” with each other. To build the church, first we need a solid foundation: “But each one should be careful how he builds. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.” (1 Cor. 3:10-11). Like the parable of the wise and foolish builders, we can build on the rock — hearing Christ’s word and putting it into practice — or we can build on the sand of cultural relativism, in which case whatever we build will fall with a great crash.
The liberals have hubris as their idol. But he is broken.
Sixty years ago the pre-eminent historian was Arnold Toynbee. He is not so well regarded by the current crop of postmodernists because he believed there are patterns to history, and therefore in the existence of meta-narratives.
He used analogies from Greek mythology, and said that modern Western man, in abandoning his Christian heritage, was like Hybris, the god of arrogance and insolence, and like Hybris, could not escape his Nemesis, and would consequently suffer the same fate: utter destruction.
I believe that the main reason that the concept of transcendence is rejected is the arrogant refusal prevalent today to accept the inevitability of accountability. In other words, the meta-narrative of creation to judgment is sneered at.
We have fallen. It is time to turn from this path. For otherwise, we are heading for the fate of Tyre, Carthage and Gomorrah.
Well said. I might note that in the last years of her life, while she was fighting colon cancer, my mother not surprisingly became a lot more interested in the Scriptures.
That said, it was interesting that even as she remained in the United Methodist church, the books she got were overwhelmingly NOT from Methodist sources. It was as if Asbury House and The Upper Room had conceded that there are only so many ways to say “I don’t believe that”, and that they’d run out of steam, theologically speaking.
[…] I might note that in the last years of her life, while she was fighting colon cancer, my mother not surprisingly became a lot more interested in the Scriptures. […]