The Evangelical Cancer Killing Churches
Since the 17th century, Protestantism has been in an ongoing battle against theological liberalism. For decades the war was fought at the academic and pastoral level to protect the average churchgoer from the theological and philosophical turmoil that many are unfamiliar with. However, as the digital landscape expands and the ease and access of information is readily available for many, the shadow war is now in plain view for all to see. Pastors, Professors, and other key leaders have been betraying the love they first had and are compromising at an alarming rate. This slow cancer comes from the leaders and trickles down into those sitting in the pew, and has slowly been indoctrinating the evangelical world to accept, support, and even fight for theological issues that were once deemed contrary to the faith and harmful to the preservation of the Word of God. In our current Christian climate, pastors willing to preach God's whole counsel are now marginalized as being divisive and even accused of being unloving. Those sitting in the pews and those in leadership positions across America are now attacking men who proclaim, correct, reprove, admonish, and take an authoritative stance on the Word of God (2. Tim. 3:16; Titus 1:11).
“The palate of what is acceptable for pastors to preach is now dictated to them by committee members, denominational affiliation, and church attendees to tickle their ears and give them more of what they want to hear and less of what Scripture says concerning critical doctrines of the Christian faith.”
The palate of what is acceptable for pastors to preach is now dictated to them by committee members, denominational affiliation, and church attendees to tickle their ears and give them more of what they want to hear and less of what Scripture says concerning critical doctrines of the Christian faith. Take a look at any sort of pastoral ministry position job ad and you will quickly discover what it is that a particular local church has chosen to prioritize. While many have the requirements cloaked in Christian and biblical jargon, the truth is the level of importance of teaching doctrine, expositional preaching, and God-centered leadership is either not listed or vaguely hinted at in the job description.
Each church lists requirements and essential features desired by the church's search committee. While many have the requirements cloaked in Christian and biblical jargon, the truth is the level of importance of teaching doctrine, expositional preaching, and God-centered leadership is either not listed or vaguely hinted at in the job description. Consider this list from one church’s “pastor profile” that they are looking for:
Maintain a servant-leader approach to lead by influence rather than job title.
Model integrity, interpersonal skills, situational awareness, and 360-degree leadership.
Pursue organizational self-mastery and begin every day with a clear plan of action.
A strong gift of story-telling in order to captivate others with biblically-based messages.
Strong leadership skills, including situational awareness and strong communication skills.
A high proclivity towards being detail-oriented, with a track record of follow-through.
The ability to lead through relational influence and balancing people and tasks equally.
Notice what is completely lacking in this church’s “qualifications and desires.” No emphasis or words indicate qualifications for elders/overseers or the centrality of the gospel and authority of God’s Word. The focus is on self, entertainment, and crowd-pleasing rather than the intentionality and purpose of preaching as modeled by Jesus and the Apostles.
This is no new phenomenon as Paul addresses this to Timothy, one of his proteges, in 2 Timothy 4:1-5:
I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
The warning for Timothy is evident in our era as this is occurring in the American church. We have become inoculated and dull of hearing; we are seeking our desires for what we deem to be true to fit and meet the mold we desire to hear, and what we do not wish to hear, we have itching ears. We have accumulated for ourselves teachers to suit our passions. When a Pastor does not preach in the method or mode of our desire, we stir up controversy and gossip and are false witnesses accusing the man called by God of being divisive. The members of the evangelical church are not sober-minded, have no taste for suffering, and have shallowed the work of evangelism and discipleship to be something that it is not; we desire easy-believism and moralistic Christianity, not transformative. As A.W. Tozer states:
“ The fashion now is to tolerate anything lest we get the reputation of being intolerant. The tender-minded saints cannot bear to see Agag slain, so they choose rather to sacrifice the health of the church for years to come by sparing error and evil; and this they do in the name of Christian love.[1]”
The fashion now is to tolerate anything lest we get the reputation of being intolerant. The tender-minded saints cannot bear to see Agag slain, so they choose rather to sacrifice the health of the church for years to come by sparing error and evil; and this they do in the name of Christian love.[1]
Tozer wrote this shortly before his death in 1963 and was a prophetic statement of events leading us to the position the church finds itself in currently. Instead of the church being the gathering of believers centered on the Word of God, as one body, created to give glory and honor and praise to God in one accord (Acts 2:42-47; Rom. 12:4-5; Heb. 10:24-25; 1 Cor. 3:9; Col. 3:15-16; Eph. 2:10;19-20; 1 Cor. 12:12.), we have become self-seeking and unwilling to obey the truth (Rom. 2:8). We have exchanged the matchless unsearchable riches of Scripture (Romans 11:33) and exchanged them for a culturally acceptable knock-off, muted, dull version of Christianity.
Christian, we must go back to our first love, repent, and heed the warning to Israel in Ezekiel 16:14-15:
And your renown went forth among the nations because of your beauty, for it was perfect through the splendor that I had bestowed on you, declares the Lord God. But you trusted in your beauty and played the whore because of your renown and lavished your whorings on any passerby; your beauty became his.
It is not too late for us to all repent and turn to Christ like the children of Israel. We do not need one person to stand up and take charge to rally the church, Christ is the King, and our loyalty is to Him, and we must all in one accord rally around Him, as this was the reason we were called into His marvelous light, and being transformed into His glory for what He has done for us and is seated at the right hand of the Father (2 Cor. 3:18; 1 Peter 2:9; 3:22; Heb. 1:3; 12:2; Acts 7:55-56). God is and will always remain on the throne; He is still Lord. We must recognize this, submit to Him, and offer our bodies as a living sacrifice (Rom. 12:1).
The church can do this if we seek to become a light in dark places (Matt.5:14-16), remain steadfast and faithful to the Word of God and what we have heard (Heb. 2:1), and be discerning on who we allow stepping into the pulpit and what we consume for spiritual growth (Eph. 5:10; Eph. 4:14; Rom. 12:2; John 15:19 Acts 17:11). We must stop Americanising Scripture and forcing it to fit the narrative we desire and allow the entirety of the Word of God to be proclaimed boldly even when it “hurts our feelings.” We must allow Scripture to teach and train us, to correct us, and reprove us in righteousness, a righteousness that did not originate from ourselves, righteousness that came to us through His son Jesus for the redemption and forgiveness of our sins (Rom. 6:13;22-23; 2 Tim. 2:2; 3:16; Isaiah 48:17-18; Rev. 19:7-8).
[1] J.L. Snyder, In Pursuit of God: The Life of A.W. Tozer (Camp Hill, PA: Christian Publications, 1991), pg. 128.