According to recent polling, the U.S. could see as many as 15,000 churches shut down this year. One of the reasons this is happening is because a record number of Americans now identify as religiously unaffiliated. However, that is not the only reason, and perhaps not even the main one. To get at the real issue, we must look at exactly what churches are shutting down.
As it turns out, liberal mainline Protestant denominations, such as Methodist, Presbyterian, and Lutheran, represent nearly all of the church closings. In fact, evangelical churches are growing. Not all, of course, but it appears that the vast majority of people who were previously affiliated with a church but are now unaffiliated come from these mainline Protestant churches.
So the question is, “Why mainly those churches?” And the answer is actually pretty easy to tease out.
I recently saw an article about a new children’s Bible story book that has just been released. The book is called The Just Love Story Bible. You can read about it at https://www.foxnews.com/media/progressive-publishers-launch-childrens-bible-stories-social-justice-diversity-themes. Actually, this is not the only one of its type. There are numerous new books coming out in this space.
The purpose of these particular books is “to reach progressive Christians who are turned off by traditional presentations of Scripture” (meaning books based on traditional Christian theology). Rather than sharing the gospel message, these books focus on diversity, inclusion, and social justice. The publishers say that “the projects are meant to reflect the faith values of a changing audience – and to fill what they describe as a gap in faith resources for progressive believers.”
So just what are the beliefs these “progressive believers” are advocating? When we drill down to look at that, we not only get a handle on their beliefs, but also the reason why such massive numbers of liberal churches are closing down.
To begin with, the beliefs and values of the people producing these books are not based on biblical teachings. Their foundational beliefs are based on naturalistic worldview assumptions, and the use of the Bible is simply an attempt to validate their non-biblical beliefs. They don’t believe the Bible as written. Rather, they begin with their naturalistic beliefs, then cherry-pick Bible verses out of context to proof-text their beliefs. This is not a legitimate approach to biblical interpretation.
Another important thing to understand is that since their foundational beliefs are based on naturalistic worldview presuppositions, they don’t acknowledge the existence of objective morality. Their moral foundation is necessarily relativistic. That is, they create their own morality based on personal preference.
While this progressive contingent claims to be Christian, their foundational worldview beliefs are essentially no different from the “religiously unaffiliated.” The only difference is that they have chosen to remain within the fellowship of their traditional church structure as they follow a theological system that pretends to be based on the Bible. The main reason people stay in these churches is for social reasons. The religiously unaffiliated, on the other hand have decided they would rather exit the church and not play that game.
So how does this play out in real life? Interestingly, liberal Christians and the religiously unaffiliated mostly end up on the same side of social issues. Let’s look at a couple of examples (though many more could be given).
Most people in this arena are pro-abortion. They look at the nature of a human being through a naturalistic lens. Regardless of how they try to frame their argument, they begin with the belief that a human is nothing more than a naturally evolved animal. Based on that belief, human beings are no more special than any other animal species, so human life is not considered ultimately valuable. Thus, killing a baby in the womb is not considered murder.
Another example can be seen by looking at the modern day protest movement. You will generally find both liberal Christians and the religiously unaffiliated on the same side, and making the same arguments to support various causes (pro-abortion. pro-terrorist, pro-illegal immigration, pro-soft-on-crime, etc.).
Human beings require something to give meaning to life. Traditionally, Americans have found that meaning in a personal relationship with God. However, as American society has become more secular (basing their worldview beliefs on Naturalism), many have turned away from a personal relationship with God to find meaning in life. They look to temporal, non-biblical social and political engagement. For them, since they don’t look to a personal relationship with God, their personal meaning in life must come from personal desires. Unfortunately for them, that is not the place where objectively real meaning in life comes from.
Genuine Christians have a real opportunity in our current societal environment, as a new openness to Christian beliefs is emerging. The key to making that happen is to become equipped, stand strong in the face of anti-Christian hostility, and actively share the truth of the gospel to those who don’t know Christ. What will you do to become a part of that?