The Crisis of the Church

The Church is flying distress signals today. How did it get into this dire predicament? Although any answer given is bound to be incomplete, there are some factors we can point to with assurance that they provide substantive clues to how we got where we are. The current crisis in the Church has resulted from powerful forces that have been operating for some time but in recent years have accelerated and coalesced. The result is a crisis not only in the Church but in all of culture and the world as well.

Two centuries ago there began a very rapid increase in knowledge in the physical and social sciences that has so mounted in intensity in recent decades that we now call it an explosion. This expansion of knowledge has brought with it a challenge to Christianity because of the apparent contradictions between the presuppositions of the physical and social sciences and those of Christianity.

In astronomy man has discovered anew the vastness of the cosmos. He now knows that, rather than being small and limited, this world is exceedingly large and apparently expanding. To some degree the largeness of the world was known to the Greeks, but only to the few; today it is the possession of the multitudes through education and the communications media. In the light of this knowledge man seems to shrink into relative insignificance. Against a backdrop of stars that are ninety million light years away from our planet, man is seen by some as virtually a cipher, a non-entity.

In physics the obedience of matter to physical law as conceived by Newton seemed to prove determinism, a naturalistic philosophy in which cause and effect are seen as inexorably related. Every event or act or decision is considered the inevitable consequence of its antecedents. This leaves little room for man’s freedom to exercise his will, thus depriving him of ultimate responsibility. Deterministic thought has been carried so far in our day that certain scientists tell us that some men are not responsible for the acts of murder or rape or robbery they commit—they are the “criminal type,” because of hereditary factors beyond their control, and what they do is not determined by moral choice.

In biology scholars have widely adopted the evolutionary hypothesis, which attempts to prove man’s continuity with nature and thus undermines the Christian belief that man is a specially created being. Some in the Christian tradition have adopted evolution in principle by attaching “theistic” to it in the hope that science and Scripture could be reconciled to the advantage of both. The evolutionary views of Darwin, who started as a theist and ended as an agnostic or atheist, led to social Darwinism; this has drawn the social sciences away from Christian presuppositions and helped to produce the Church’s crisis.

In sociology men now suppose generally that all cultures and all societies are time structured and environmentally determined. Thus all are temporal, all are relative. No culture and no mores partake of the absolute. No society is based upon notions of what should be; all are based upon conditional transitory ideas in which what was right yesterday becomes wrong today and vice versa. Man proceeds upward from primitive to developed cultures.

These sociological views have influenced jurisprudence considerably. Thus the Supreme Court of the United States, starting with a moral and ethical relativity first articulated by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, has come to accept as normative the codes and conduct common to the community. In effect this means that if the community finds nudity, pornography, and homosexuality acceptable, these things are juridically legitimate. There are no absolute standards that are controlling at all times and under all circumstances. What the community accepts today is the rule of life. If it changes to something else tomorrow, this new thing becomes normative even if it is the exact opposite of what was in force yesterday.

In history, all man’s work has been subjected to critical scrutiny, and so has the Bible. Higher criticism of the Bible seems to reduce it to a merely human book of history, myth, and legend. The conclusions of the critics often undermine its position as a special revelation from God. The result has been that men regard the Bible as they regard all other books. Consequently the study of comparative religions has flourished, and the sacred books of other religions are often looked upon as paths leading to a saving knowledge of God in man’s search for ultimate reality. In this perspective, no religion is unique, none is a special revelation from God himself, and all are helpful as we distill from each whatever it can add to man’s stock of religious knowledge.

Christianity has been no enemy of learning, scientific knowledge, or the scientific method; indeed, it has encouraged them. But when findings of the physical and social sciences appear to contradict Christian beliefs, men are quick to insist that the Bible and Christianity must reflect scientific opinions even though science has had to revise its findings a thousand times over. When science speaks, men weigh the Bible on the scales of science and find it wanting. They have ruled out the supernatural. They rule out the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead—science knows of no resurrection of dead people; they rule out the virgin birth of Christ, since science knows only natural birth resulting from the union of the two sexes; gone are all miraculous occurrences—water turned into wine, sun standing still, blind men receiving their sight, axeheads that float, rain that falls in response to prayer.

As if this assault from outside were not enough, the Church has in our day been plagued by harsh critics from within. Many of its own scholars, grounded in the learning of the world, have attacked the Church on philosophical and religious grounds. They have charged the traditionalists who believe the Bible with dogmatism, intolerance, anti-scientific attitudes, and the like.

Among the movements that have challenged the Church from within are humanism, liberalism, syncretism, and universalism. The humanist is one “whose belief consists of faith in man and devotion to human well-being.” Faith in man is substituted for faith in God. For the humanist there are no biblical absolutes. He will not concede that some things are objectively and forever true. He is a relativist as well as an anti-super-naturalist, and he stands on shifting sands at all times. He has no Gospel to proclaim, nor does he know man as a sinner in need of redemption. He slips easily into the role of social engineer.

Humanism has affected the mission and ministry of the churches more than people generally realize. Richard Shaull of Princeton Theological Seminary has written: “It is already evident that, as Christians accept their responsibility for building the city of man, they become quite impatient with all ecumenical encounter which consists primarily of academic discussion of differences” (“The Christian World Mission in a Technological Age,” The Ecumenical Review, XVII, 3, p. 213). Missions professors in Germany, expressing themselves in the Frankfurt Declaration (see CHRISTIANITY TODAY, June 19,1970, issue) made the problem clear. Alluding to statements emanating from the World Council of Churches, they said: “We therefore oppose the assertion that mission today is no longer so concerned with the disclosure of God as with the manifestation of a new man and the extension of a new humanity into all social realms. Humanization is not the primary goal of mission.… A one-sided outreach of missionary interest toward man and his society leads to atheism.”

The churches are also afflicted with theological liberalism, which is well on its way to becoming pure humanism. Liberalism is essentially negative, known more for what it does not believe than what it does believe. It is essentially anti-supernatural. It does not accept the deity of Christ, his vicarious atonement, the bodily resurrection of Christ, his virgin birth. The extent of liberalism in the churches can be seen from the Glock and Stark survey, parts of which were highlighted in The Gathering Storm of the Churches by Jeffrey K. Haddon. Haddon says that of the respondents, 87 per cent of the Methodists, 95 per cent of the Episcopalians, 88 per cent of the Presbyterians, 67 per cent of the American Baptists, and 77 per cent of the American Lutherans did not believe that the “Scriptures are the inspired and inerrant Word of God not only in matters of faith but also in historical, geographical, and other secular matters” (p. 4). In answering the question whether “Adam and Eve were individual historical persons,” 82 per cent of the Methodists, 97 per cent of the Episcopalians, 84 per cent of the Presbyterians, 55 per cent of the American Baptists, and 51 per cent of the American Lutherans said no (p. 40). Sixty per cent of the Methodists, 44 per cent of the Episcopalians, 49 per cent of the Presbyterians, 34 per cent of the American Baptists, and 19 per cent of the American Lutherans did not “believe that the virgin birth of Jesus was a biological miracle.” Fifty-eight per cent of the Methodists, 60 per cent of the Episcopalians, 54 per cent of the Presbyterians, 35 per cent of the American Baptists, and 22 per cent of the American Lutherans agreed that “Hell does not refer to a special location after death, but to the experience of self-estrangement, guilt, and meaninglessness in this life” (p. 46). The churches have been overtaken by liberalism and by repudiation of the Bible as the Word of God.

Along with humanism and liberalism has come syncretism. The syncretist believes that conflicting beliefs can be reconciled and that a union of the good to be found in all the ethnic religions is possible and desirable. Perhaps the most eloquent testimony to its influence in the churches is the book No Other Name, written in 1963 by W. A. Visser ’t Hooft, the former general secretary of the World Council of Churches. His purpose was to stress the finality and exclusiveness of Jesus Christ and to oppose syncretism. But his efforts have by no means removed the danger. Colin W. Williams, dean of the Yale Divinity School, recently remarked: “This doesn’t mean that I don’t make distinctions but only that I hold open that what is true for the Buddhist in his situation may be as valid for him as mine is for me” (CHRISTIANITY TODAY, November 7, 1969, issue, p. 41). At the New Delhi meetings of the World Council of Churches, Max Thurian said:

In Islam there are reflections of the truth and charity which are in Christ. Islam, it is true, rejects the fundamental trinitarian and christological dogmas, but Christ is recognized as Master and Prophet, and, on that point, Islam is not much further from the truth than some Christian liberalism.… We may well ask whether Islam is further removed from Christianity than some Christian sects and heresies.… Thus the Church is not asked to assume an attitude of conquest but rather one of “presence” and friendship [“The Visible Unity of Christians,” The Ecumenical Review, XIII, 3, p. 315].

Another force assaulting the churches from within is universalism, a doctrine that teaches that at last all men everywhere will be saved. This sweeping affirmation abolishes hell and brings into the presence of God those who have died denying Jesus Christ, and includes even the apparently unrepentant murderers of millions, Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. According to the universalist, men do not need to be reconciled to God; they have already been reconciled. They do not need to be regenerated in order to be “in Christ.” They are “in Christ” now and need only to be told what is already true. Paul Verghese, former associate general secretary of the World Council of Churches, has said:

Will the unbaptized man be saved? God wills that all men be saved. Christ wills that all men be saved. And He wills as He ought to will. And His will is: “When the hour of destiny strikes, to gather together into one the whole Universe in Him” (Eph. 1:10). Can that will be thwarted? No, for His will is commensurate with His power. But how is His will to be fulfilled? That is a cosmic question. Our task is to learn the answer slowly, by the tragic method, by laying down our lives for the life of the world [“The Finality of Christ in an Age of Universal History,” The Ecumenical Review, XV, 1, p. 25].

Nels Ferré says that if one does not believe in universal salvation, “the logic of the situation is simple. Either God could not or would not save all. If He could not, He is not sovereign; then not all things are possible with God. If He would not, again the New Testament is wrong, for it openly claims that He would have all to be saved. Nor would He be totally good. The total logic of the deepest message of the New Testament, namely that God can and wants to save all, is unanswerable.”

Norman Pittenger, former dean of the General Theological Seminary in New York City, has said: “It is God’s will, as the New Testament puts it, that all men shall be saved, and that God’s will is in the long run bound to accomplish that for which it sets out.… How to hold this ‘universalist’ doctrine without destroying man’s sense of moral responsibility is another question.”

The penetration of humanism, liberalism, syncretism, and universalism into the churches has had disastrous results. Missionary zeal has diminished and the mission of the Church has been obscured. The churches have sounded no clear and unambiguous note to the world. Rather, the world has understandably concluded that what one believes makes little difference, since antithetical views that clearly contradict each other are found acceptable in the churches and propagated openly in pulpit, seminary classroom, and denominational magazines and books.

There are a few signs that true believers are awakening to the crisis of the Church and are willing to express their concern through personal involvement. Let us fervently hope that this ripple of concern will become an irresistible tide in the days ahead. Only if the churches are purified will they find renewal and new life and a new dynamic.

INSIDIOUS, THE SLOW LINE SLITHERS

Insidious, the slow line slithers

around, around and into the brain;

and instinct, quick-reacting, smothers

the alien light, the serpentine

column of truth which, choked, compacted,

flung on the highway, breathes anew,

this worm of delight which, trodden, bisected,

resumes two paths with a dual glow.

Twice I have wrestled monsters. One

(he must have been a half-truth) died.

The other won. Now I know only

a sun where caverns gloomed inside.

FRANK MAGUIRE

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