The Elephant in the Room

This is the second in a series of "rants" about the state of the evangelical church today.

The “the elephant in the room” of the evangelical church is this--In spite of sincere efforts to convert the culture to our side, we have managed to alienate most of it.  This group includes a sizable number of our own children, friends, and neighbors. We are focused on converting the culture, but at the moment the culture seems to be doing a far better job of converting us. 
I’ve been an evangelical for roughly half a century. My experience has encompassed Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, and Salvation Army churches. I cannot tell you how many sermons and articles I have read about the need to tell others about the Gospel. Even so, there is far less practice of Christian virtues among evangelical Christians than there were fifty years ago.  The moral, ethical and spiritual teachings of the church have much less impact on the way people live today, in and out of the church. It does not take a prophet to foretell a future of evangelical churches if these trends continue. Millennials are the least religious generation in American history, and the ones coming after them will be even less interested, if this trend continues. 
The elephant in the room is this—that modern evangelicalism is still about five miles wide, but it is only about an inch deep.  Most people in church leadership acknowledge this, but there is great debate as to what to do about it.
Speaking of elephants, do you remember the old story about the four blind men who stumble across an elephant on the road?  Each one touches a different part of the beast and comes to a different conclusion.  One blind man touches the ear and thinks it is a banana leaf; another touches the leg, and thinks it is a palm tree; a third touches the tail and thinks it’s a rope, and the fourth, touches the side and thinks it is a house.   Each one, seeing part of the beast comes to a logical conclusion it’s nature, but none of them see the whole.
Let me suggest that when it comes to the shallowness of modern evangelical Christianity, we fall into the same kind of trap. Each of us, coming at the problem with our preconceptions and perceptual biases, recognize the need for change in the church, but none of us see the whole picture.  We see a part of the elephant, but not the whole.
One tradition within the modern evangelical church examines the head of the elephant and concludes that there isn’t much there.  They perceive the problem to be the modern Christian mind.   They look at the theology of the modern evangelical church and see it as woefully inadequate.  In appealing to the broadest possible common denominator of people, we have dumbed down Christianity to the point where it loses all appeal to people above junior high school level. 
Mark Noll once writes that the problem with the evangelical mind is that there isn’t much of an evangelical mind.  For more than a hundred years, evangelicals have not been known for the depth of their intellectual thought.  Most evangelicals know very little about the faith or history of the church beyond the basics. Many hunger for the greater intellectual depth. This I believe is the reason for the growth in interest in Calvinism, Puritanism, the early church Fathers, and even Thomas Aquinas. There is a growing hunger for a deeper grounding in the rigorous thinking of older generations.
Another tradition touches the heart of the elephant and finds it barely beating. These are the pietists, Pentecostals, and charismatics. They aren’t worried much worried about the mind as they are the passion of the church. The evangelical church concerns itself with doctrinal conversion and skips heart conversion.  The Holy Spirit has been replaced by business-school planning techniques.  The church talks endlessly about developing leaders but hardly at all about following the leadership of the Spirit.  Modern evangelicalism has bought into a practical deism that says God gave us commandments but left us alone for us to come up with our own practical plans on a daily basis.  We have no faith in a real, living Christ who can lead us day by day by the power of the Spirit. We would rather trust in our own planning an cleverness than to rely on a daily leadership and power of the Spirit.
We know God through His word. But His Word was given two thousand years ago. We fail to recognize the living presence of God in our lives right now. 
A third tradition stumbles upon the trunk of our elephant—the practical, working part of the animal—and realized it is weak.  They conclude that there is too much talk and not enough action. They conclude that evangelicalism has concentrated more on souls the souls of people, but neglected the poor and needy.  Our outward lack of human concern seems to be the problem.  Not only that, but evangelicals have failed to recognize that their own lifestyles are heavy on consumerism and consumption and short on simplicity and sacrifice. If we are not willing to live like Jesus, we will never be able to attract people to Jesus.
The fourth tradition stumbles on the elephant and notices that its feet are not rooted in the ground. If our desire to be contemporary and new,  we have lost sight of the importance of history and tradition.
One valid criticism of the modern megachurch movement is that megachurches frequently do not last for more than one generation. That is because they are usually based on the personality and initial vision of their founders. Once the church leadership passes, there is nothing to sustain it.
Traditional churches are no nearly so personality-driven. They are rooted and grounded in the past, freeing them from the tyranny of the present.  They are like oak trees instead of flowers. Flowers are prettier, more attractive and fast-growing, but they don’t usually last for more than a season. Oak trees last for a long, long time.
I once asked a class of students to trace their church historically back to Christ and the apostles.  One student wrote that Christ founded the church and passed it on to the apostles.  Then the true church was lost for nineteen hundred years until her pastor came along and rediscovered it.  I wanted to ask her if that meant that Luther, Calvin, Francis of Assisi,  Mother Theresa and Billy Graham were all going to Hell.  I fear would be.
People seek connections with something larger than themselves, that will last for more than a generation. That is why a growing stream of believers are leaving evangelical for Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican. Traditional Reformed and Messianic Jewish groups.  There is a longing in many evangelicals to connect with something classic and timeless, that was not invented yesterday.
Regarding these four traditions, it is not my intention to condemn or criticize them, any more than it is to criticize those who are not part of any of them.   But the elephant in the room remains, and each of these four traditions has correctly discerned a part of the problem. I am just not convinced though that any of them see the whole picture, any more than I claim I do myself.  The shallowness of modern evangelicalism is not in one area of life but affects the head, heart, actions, and traditions.
Maybe it’s time to stop thinking about evangelicalism as a culture that is complete in itself, but as a piece of a larger mosaic called the Body of Christ, which includes many perspectives and approaches. In our day,  it is not one part of the church that is threatened by secularism but all of it.
The elephant in the room is this—that we have forsaken the imitation of Christ, and made Christ into an imitation of ourselves.  We have not focused upon the totality of life built around Him and made our own interests primary in our lives.
The process of sanctification or theosis is the process of becoming like Christ in every way, in our head, heart, hands, and habits.  It isn’t a question of where we have failed be like Jesus, but whether we are seeking to succeed. We will never be perfect, nor should we expect to be. But that doesn’t mean we should stop seeking to be like Him in all ways. If we lose sight of Jesus and just focus on our own failings, we will continue to do them over and over again. But if we keep our eyes on the totality of Christ, we are in a better place to become more like Him in every way. 
This blog, the Faith Matrix, has been making the case that we need a balanced approach to the Christian life cannot just grow in one place--we must grow at all.  We need to study pray, work, and seek the wisdom of the past. Instead of emphasizing our distinctive, it is time to start learning from one another, if we ever see the whole of what it means to follow Christ. 

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