"The Impact of Modern Christianity on the Depth and Effectiveness of Believers"
God the Father is sovereign and He providential is involved in the world and in our lives. Christ Jesus a physical human stands at his right hand and discusses the US, our lives, and our sins and intercedes for humanity, the Person of the Holy Spirit is busily at work. Your prayers are heard by God and acted upon per his wisdom.
Yet God requires our involvement, through worship, Prayer, through action in our lives and the world around us wherever we may be. He knows our deepest thoughts. He knows what we are capable of.
Dr. Bruce G. Charlton (Retired Academic) makes these observations,
“Modern Christianity as experienced by converts tends to be incomplete – precisely because modern Christianity has nothing to build on [i.e., a basic understanding of the nature of reality, natural law, the existence of immaterial realities, etc.]. This means that incomplete modern Christianity lacks explanatory power, seems to have little or nothing to say about what seems to be the main problem of living. For example, modern Christianity seems to have nothing to do with politics, law, art, philosophy, or science; to inhabit a tiny, shrinking realm cut-off from daily concerns.”
The Gospel, God’s Holy Word is not a quick fix for life’s emergencies. The Christian Way of Life is just that, a way of thinking, doing, and living modeled on Christ. It is not a weekend activity or a hobby, many self-proclaimed Christians have made it that way and many secular Americans think of it as just something you do with no real value.
Dr. Charlton goes on to say,
“Modern Christianity often feels shallow – it seems to rely on diktat of scripture and the Church – this is because [as noted above] moderns lack a basis in the spontaneous perceptions of Natural Law, animism [i.e. the belief in a supernatural power], the sense of active supernatural power in everyday life. Modern Christianity (after the first flush of the conversion experience) thus feels dry, abstract, legalistic, prohibitive, uninvolving, lacking in purpose.”
We need to admit that for the most part, our Post-Modern Christianity is shallow and incomplete. Christians are ill-equipped to talk about their faith. Church has indeed become an activity for many, another place to meet and nothing more.
Now we cannot lay this situation totally on the church and those who are there attempting to do what has been divinely commanded. Christians themselves (all of Us) must own up to neglecting God’s Word, the Gospel message in favor of entertainment and other worldly pursuits. When have you encouraged your Pastor or church elders to expand Bible Study and teaching? Would you give up a trip or an evening of fun for bible study and prayer?
Recently we have seen several prominent Christians disavow their faith. And of course, you read about Atheists becoming believers.
Ephesians 3;17-19 points us to the need in our lives for depth of faith:
17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Our culture has elevated feelings and emotions above intellect and expertise. In a culture where everyone is an expert vis-a-vi the internet, no one really knows anything. If you feel like your faith is ok but never really engage it intellectually you will falter and be unable to talk to people about Christ or the Gospel.
Our feelings are not affirmations of our faith. Your feelings are fickle and flawed.
If we attempt to understand the problem of evil, hell, and the resurrection for example using your feelings as a measure with no intellectual engagement alongside Bible study and prayer you are doomed to doubt. This is a shallowness we find in many people of our day, many so-called Christians of our day.
So, do you have a shallow faith? Can you discuss your faith, and the Bible, go to the scriptures, and pray with strangers? If not, then there is a huge problem!
To correct that PICK UP YOUR BIBLE! Read the bible, find friends to read and study with. Read books about God. Pray to God, He is personal, he wants to hear from you. There are no good excuses for not doing these things.
Attend church in whatever way you can during the pandemic, virtual or otherwise. Seek out other like-minded seekers of God’s wisdom and meet monthly.
Without a foundation of understanding your faith is a distant view of a far-off and disconnected God, impersonal and uncaring. There is no application to life and no view of life and death.
There is truth and biblical faith is an active trust in the authority of what God has revealed because we have reason to believe He is trustworthy. Salvation through Jesus (the Gospel) is a revealed truth to which we cannot apply logic, it lies beyond our cognitive ability to understand. Nevertheless, it is not unreasonable, and we have excellent reasons (historic and otherwise) to believe it is true. Being a revealed truth is what makes the Gospel an article of faith to which we ascend and act through the power of the Holy Spirit. Only then will we find ultimate meaning and healing.
We as individuals must seek remedial education in our faith so we can be prepared for the graduate-level work provided through divine revelation.
We must make progress in this area so that every parent, grandparent, Sunday School teacher, pastor, and missionary has moved beyond grade school into a more complete and life-changing understanding of God and Christ.
Only then can we effectively follow the Great Commission of Matthew 28:16-20
The Great Commission
16 Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely, I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”