I’m now a bi-weekly contributor to OnFaith, a sort of inter-faith dialogue webzine. Here is a column from a few weeks ago.
You may have missed it in the run up to the election, but a different set of results are in: Evangelicals are heretics.
Or at least hold beliefs that are heretical. Look at a few of the results from a survey conducted by LifeWay Research as reported by Christianity Today:
- While nearly all evangelicals believe in the Trinity, a quarter say God the Father is more divine than Jesus. Further, 16% say Jesus was the first creature created by God.
- 51% say the Holy Spirit isn’t a personal being, but a force. Only 42% affirm the 3rd person of the Trinity is a person.
- 68% say that a person becomes right with God by seeking God first, and then God responds with grace. A similar percentage believe people can turn to God through their own initiative.
So Arianism, Pneumatomachianism, and Pelagianism—oh my!
How has this happened? More importantly, what can Church leaders do about it?
First, let me tell you an ancient Hebrew story about a book, a lost book that was missing for two generations. This was no ordinary book. It was a very important book, actually—the foundation of Israel’s spiritual life and practices.
While this important book was missing, 2 Kings tells of several kings who ascended the throne and introduced idolatry and pagan worship practices into Israel’s spiritual life.
Manasseh was one such king who built altars to Baal, worshiped the stars and moon, and practiced witchcraft. Amon continued his father’s practices several more years.
The story of the lost book is much bigger than a story about a misplaced religious artifact; there is something deeper going on here.
You see, Israel lost the plot to their religious story as much as they lost a religious book.
I wonder if Israel ever thought something like this could happen. I mean, how could something so central to who and what Israel was as the people of God become nothing more than a distant memory, forgotten and forsaken for generations?
We’re not talking about a set of keys or that annoying missing sock pair, here. We’re talking about the Book of the Law, complete or large portions of Deuteronomy. It contained all of the requirements for their relationship with Yahweh and their central creed, the Shema (Deut. 6:4-9). Yet instead of loving, serving, and believing in the one true God with all of their heart, soul, and strength, they ran after false religious beliefs and gods.
It wasn’t until an eight year old boy came to the throne that things changed. Early in his reign King Josiah purged the lands of all idols and altars dedicated to false gods and beliefs. And after the Book of the Law was discovered stuffed away in some dark, dusty cupboard in the Temple, he retrieved its central story and re-communicated it again to his people.
The Church needs Josiahs! As evidenced by the above poll results, like Israel the Church seems to have lost the plot to our own story.
In the same CT article, theologian John Steakhouse explains how this happened and what you can do about it: “We continue to hold adult Christian education in low regard. A sermon on Sunday morning and a conversational Bible study during the week won’t get the job done of informing and transforming people’s minds along the lines of orthodox Christian belief.”
Doing what Josiah did starts with three things:
- Catechize early and continue it well into adulthood;
- Regularly visit (and re-visit) the fundamentals of vintage Christian orthodoxy through sermon series;
- Digest the central creeds each time you worship to remind your people who they are, why they worship, and what they believe.
Israel’s story serves as a warning for what happens when a people forsake the foundation of their identity. Like Israel, the Church needs Christian leaders to do what young Josiah did: Retrieve and re-communicate the vintage faith for a new generation losing the plot.
