A Form of Godliness

In the previous article I introduced the idea that the practice of organized religion has in a broad variety of ways taken the place of authentic Christian living before a watching world.  The result has been a steady decline in church attendance and loss of influence by the church on the moral direction of our society over the past several generations.

This is not a new trend.  I grew up in a small town and my family was regularly involved in church.  We attended all services regularly and had some strict rules that we followed. 
Unlike most of the kids I grew up with, I did not “join the church” and get baptized until my early teen years – partly because I was very shy and intimidated by the process, but partly because I did not see that it made any difference in the way people lived, either my peers or the adults in the church. 

When I finally took the step and officially became a member, I remember the great relief that I had.  Now I could take communion, say “Aye” when the church was voting on something, and not feel like an outsider all the rest of the time.  I was a member of the club, so to speak.  There was a part of me, however, that also wanted to make sure that I wouldn’t be guilty of denying Christ by failing to make a public testimony. 

On that occasion when some of the members came to shake my hand, I’ll never forget the comment that one adult church member made to me whose lifestyle did not reflect a genuine Christian walk.  “I thought you already were a Christian,” she said.  In her mind, it was clear that I needed to be a member of our church to be a Christian.

Outside of church no one ever talked about Jesus or what the Lord was doing in our lives, even among fellow church members.  The Sunday School class for high school boys that I attended was a farce.  The teacher basically talked with us about sports and, if time permitted, we would read something for a few minutes out of the lesson book for that week.  Not being into sports, I eventually convinced my parents that it was a waste of time attending and dropped out.

We had become cultural Christians, going through the motions.  In spite of that, in those days we often thought and talked of America as a Christian nation and even added the wording “under God” to the pledge of allegiance to the flag.  But it was a veneer. 
There have been times of spiritual resurgence through the Billy Graham and other evangelistic campaigns, the rise of the Jesus People in the 70’s, and expansion of the evangelical church.  Yet, all the while the moral direction of our country as a whole continued to slip further and further from the truth and has all but ejected God from public life.

Even way back in the early years of the church, the Apostle Paul wrote about the trend of religious form without substance.  In what was probably his last epistle he warned Timothy, whom he had mentored as a father would his own son, about cultural Christians.  He said that a time was coming when there would be in the church those who held on “to a form of godliness…but denied its power” (2 Timothy 3:5).  If it was true then, it is also true today.

What then, should the response of true followers of Jesus be?  Three things, I think. 
First, as God gives the opportunity to make a difference in the direction our country is moving or to take a stand for what is right, to do so. 
Second, not to be surprised or dismayed at the evil that is happening, knowing that “in this world you will have tribulation” until the Lord returns.  

And third, to continue to reach out in love to those around us as God puts them in our pathway, to speak life and truth into their lives and to do good to them as true representatives of the Lord Jesus, not the empty god of the cultural Christian. 

I believe the direction of a nation is changed one life, one heart, at a time.