SECULARIZATION OF THE CHURCH

Perhaps the greatest threat to the church of the twenty-first century is secularization. Many will blink as ask what is that?

Webster defines secular as, “a. Of or relating to the worldly or temporal concerns; b. not overtly or specifically  religious.” Secularism is defined a, “indifference to or  rejection or exclusion of religion and religious considerations.” Vergillius Ferm defines secularization as, “The taking over of church property by the state for secular purposes...” (Dictionary of Religion). Under secularism, Baker’s Dictionary of Theology says, “Today secularism is the integration of life around the spirit of a specific age, rather than around God. It is living as if the material order were supreme and as if God did not exist...Secularism places the emphasis on temporal social enjoyment rather than on eternal spiritual values.”

Secularization is not being forced upon the church by the state or by any mortal enemy from without. Rather it is a matter of the church gradually absorbing the spirit of the age and forgetting its mission and purpose under Christ.

Given the sinful nature of a world in rebellion to heaven and a church designed to “be holy and without blemish” (Eph. 5:27), God expects his church to be different.  We are said to be “a holy nation” (I Pet. 2:9). The word holy is from hagios, the basic meaning of which is different (Wm. Barclay). Concerning the sinful world we are command to come ye out from among them and be ye separate saith the Lord” (II Cor. 6:17). While we must live in a wicked world, we must not be “of the world” (John 17:16).  The world will “think it strange that (we) run not with them...” (I Pet. 4:4). 

Twenty yeas ago, Michael Weed in the Christian Chronicle that, “many church leaders are actually cooperating with and even accelerating the process of secularization within the church.” He points out five prominent areas where this process is visible.

1. It is seen in the attempt to be up-to-date and effective; infatuation with modern communication; and the use of advertising techniques in their attempt to promote or “sell” Christianity to the world.  This often results in “cutting the product to fit the market.” They reduce the Christian message to “flashy advertising slogans and catchy cliches...which substitutes for basic Christian beliefs.”

2. It is evident in the pursuit of an empty, hollow unity with other bodies of people.  In the words of Malcom Muggeridge, “It is the ecumenicity of those who, believing less and less, disagree about very little.”

3. It is seen in “the production and sale of Christian literature whose basic quality is not that it is biblical, but that it is innocuous. Bible teaching and traditional Christian views are so diluted that these materials can be marketed to the broadest possible clientele.

4. It is demonstrated in the determined efforts of congregations “to prove (themselves) useful and relevant and to ‘meet needs’...” Many of those laboring under this obsession are meeting needs in terms of society’s own values and standards rather than God’s. Thus this has become a substitute for meeting the spiritual needs of lost men and struggling saints. Health spas and lawyers meet needs but not those the church should be supplying. Some of the needs set forth are trivial and others are no business of the church at all.

5. The education program of some congregations reflects a confusion about the church’s mission. When class discussion centers on things of “the world;” when the greater emphasis is on recreation and social activities rather than searching the Scriptures, the progress is at work. Bro. Weed well says, “The education ministry of the church should not be a vestibule through which Christians are comfortably ushered into the secular world views...of modern society.

In this writer’s judgement, the trend toward secularism is further seen in the following cases:

1. Declining interest in and emphasis on the public proclamation of the Word.

2. A disproportionate emphasis on social activities and recreation in the life of the church.

3. The trend of congregations towards providing schools for general education, with only token spiritual training.

4. The willingness of our churches and Christian Schools to allow the worldly attitudes and practices of members to go unchallenged, thus lending tacit approval thereof.

5. Loss of interest in evangelism to win souls and the substitution of programs of social service.

6. A movement away from serious study of the Scriptures and doctrinal emphasis, while greatly emphasizing, psychology, counseling, family therapy and self-improvement. While all of the latter things are useful and have a place in our teaching, it is over emphasis of them to the neglect of the gospel that is dangerous.  We can have happy, well-adjusted individual and families who will be destroyed for lack of divine knowledge (Hos. 4:6).

7. Virtual silence in the face of the never ending attacks by the promoters of humanism, evolution, and hedonism through our public schools and media.  While our people are being corrupted and led away into these errors, their church leaders stand mute watching them go!

• Many Christians accept and live by the world’s code of dress, conduct and moral behavior while elders and preachers say nothing to call them back to God’s standards.  Some even seek to defend the way of the world as harmless.

Satan could not destroy the early church by the sword of persecution (Rev. 12:2-11). He was able to swallow up the church by absorbing it into the pagan culture or Rome.  This was done in the name of liberty and freedom from persecution, via Constantine’s edicts.  It occurred in a climate of unprecedented growth in numbers, prestige, recognition, and power for the church.  So euphorious were the triumphs of the fourth century that the Christians never realized that the cause they loved and for which their fathers had died was being reshaped into an apostate, counterfeit church, now know as the Holy Roman Catholic Church.

Awareness of the problem is not enough.  There must be a workable knowledge of the Scripture and unswerving faith and loyalty thereto if we are to survive this modern onslaught against the faith once delivered (Jude 3).  May God grant us wisdom to correctly read the signs of the times and to apply the divine remedy to every problem.  Let us never forget our charge, “Be not conformed to this world” (Rom. 12:2).  One of the major objections to the program of the change movement it that secularizes the Lord’s church.