At what cost?

As objective as statistics that do not lie even though they may not tell the whole truth, the signs of decay that surround mainline churches are unmistakable.  What is not always clear, however, is why these congregations and their denominational structures are so empty.  It is not because they are too conservative or because they have too narrowly defined themselves or the faith.  It is because they have abandoned creed and confession and the faith once delivered to the saints for an alien gospel not about Christ at all.  Without truth and the story of God's saving work in Christ, they have no mission either.  Those who do not speak Christ crucified and risen to the sinner marked for death have nothing much to say to the rest of the world.  So what do they talk about?  They talk about themselves and about sex.

At what cost have the liberal and progressive leaders taken over the mind and heart of their churches?  Well, take a look.  Most of them have bled out members until it is hard to find even a pulse left in them.  Most of them have turned the focus inward and pursued feelings over facts.  Most of them have left in the dust the Biblical stories of where and why all things were made and God's purpose for breathing into dust the breath of life.  Most of them have turned history into allegory or example and so have failed to see Christ in the prophets, people, and their Scriptures.  It is a sad story but what makes it even more pathetic is how this has effected missions.

While The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has closed its foreign mission agency, it is not nor can it ever be simply a matter of money.  It was and is a matter of will and desire.  What does a liberal mainline church have to say to those who have not heard?  Without Christ crucified and risen, there is nothing really left to say except to be an echo of what secular society and wisdom apart from Christ has to say.  That is, much to my regret, what the mainlines have done and why missions is getting such short shrift from them.  The progressive version of the Gospel is not simply aggressive toward such causes as white guilt, sexual freedom, gender fluidity, social justice, climate change, etc., it is hostile toward the real Gospel of Christ the incarnate Son of God who suffered and died to redeem sinners and rose so that they might accompany Him into everlasting life.  It might be one thing if such liberals added to the true Gospel but the fact that they hold the cross in such great contempt only betrays the emptiness of their cause.

The same could be said of seminaries in such churches.  Without a compelling truth in the form of the real and true Gospel of the cross, there is little need to uproot people and force them to move to a seminary campus in order to hear what they have already been hearing in the secular world.  A few online courses and some doctrinaire instruction on the sacred causes of the progressive left is about all that anyone would need to know what liberal Protestantism has to say.  Suffice it to say that liberal Lutherans find more of a home in these quarters than they do in anything that might approach or reflect the reality of the Confessions.  

All of this is being financed on the backs of the faithful generations who supported congregation and ministry when they thought both had a Gospel to tell.  Their largess of real estate, endowment, and contributions are now being reaped like the disciples passing a grain field.  They have taken asset upon asset to prop up the weakening foundations of their churches but we all know the day of reckoning may be temporarily postponed but it shall not be eliminated.  On that day such leaders and servants of their causes will face the eye of God whose scrutiny over their service and faithfulness will neither excuse nor ignore what they have done to empty the churches and leave the whole estate in poor repair.  Just as Israel found themselves on the losing side of God's favor for refusing to repent from their abuse of the promise given them to guard on behalf of all, so do the modern versions of a complacent church find themselves vulnerable before a God who will not shrug His shoulders to the unfaithfulness of those who had been entrusted with the sacred deposit.