Churches Have Become Places to Help People Avoid Reality
by Stuart DiNenno
Attending church today is like transporting oneself into the television make-believe world of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. Churches have mostly become places for people to help one another persist in a fantasy land existence, where the unpleasant realities of the society outside the four walls of the assembly’s meeting place are nearly entirely ignored, and almost no thought is given to overcoming the ungodly world. It is as if they believe that the Christian’s duty in an apostate society is to keep his head down and his mouth shut, getting along the best he can while trying to avoid offending the wicked so as not to incur their disapproval, rather than exposing their evil and calling them to repentance. Of course, the appeal of such a religion is that it enables the professing Christian to continue living a comfortable, peaceful, and prosperous life, rather than having to endure tribulation and persecution for righteousness’ sake.
Long gone are the days when Christianity was a militant religion that sought to bring all nations, and all their institutions, under the dominion of Christ. The modern-day form of it has largely been reduced to a personal improvement and judgment avoidance program. Even in its best manifestations, it teaches its disciples no more than accurate theological doctrines regarding individual salvation and how to apply biblical principles in a very limited family or church sphere. And in its lesser forms, its practice has been almost entirely reduced to a brief period of entertainment disguised as the worship of God, along with an “everything is going to be alright in the end” feel-good message with very little doctrinal substance.
What all the various expressions of “Bible-believing” Christianity today have in common is this: there is little or no attempt to expose and contravene the God-hating zeitgeist, and reveal and overturn its intentionally destructive code of pseudo-morality, much less is there any talk of rising up and toppling the Satanic “powers that be” who are destroying everything we hold dear, including our own flesh and blood. Rather, today’s churches teach their adherents how to best fit in, and even thrive in, the current anti-Christian Judaic matrix, through passive obedience, submission, and even complicity with it and conformity to it, and by being kindly toward, and cooperative with, the devil’s disciples, instead of standing against them and insisting that they turn from their wickedness.
What are the best adjectives to describe such a religion? Compartmentalized. Dualistic. Reductionist. Escapist. Retreatist. Cowardly. Conformist. Compromising. Spineless. Defeatist. Effeminate. Judaized. Worldly. Apostate.
Whatever it may be, it is certainly not the religion of the early church, as expressed here by John Chrysostom (349-407):
“Let both Jews and Hellenes [Greek pagans] know that Christians are the guardians, protectors, rulers and teachers of the city; and let the reprobates and libertines learn the same thing, that they should be afraid of God’s servants, and that if they want to say anything blasphemous or mocking, they look around and fear even the shadows, fearing that a Christian might overhear.”