ARE WE HAVING A REVIVAL OF TRUE RELIGION (Part 5)
Were a resurgence of the true faith of Christ to occur anywhere in the civilized world we would have every right to expect those affected by it to become more spiritual, more saintly, in the best sense of these words. The present wave of religion is having no such effect. Indeed the whole concept of saintliness is absent. The yearning to be holy can scarcely be found among the busy religionists of the day.
Christianity once set out to convert the world and ended by undergoing a reverse conversion. The world converted the Church, and after the passing of sixteen centuries we are still suffering from the disgraceful surrender. Rome introduced her pagan ways into the pure stream of the Christian faith and the waters are still muddy after how many noble efforts to purify them. And that great half-Christian, half-pagan institution, the Roman Catholic Church, which took its rise at the time of that historic reverse conversion, moves on from victory to victory and continues to spread itself across the face of the whole world.
The rise of a new religious spirit in recent years is marked by disturbing similarities to that earlier revival under Constantine. Now as then a quasi-Christianity is achieving acceptance by compromise. It is dickering with the unregenerate world for acceptance and, as someone said recently, it is offering Christ at bargain prices to win customers. The total result is a conglomerate religious mess that cannot but make the reverent Christian sick in his heart.
Without the remotest intention to accept the authority of Christ many religious leaders nevertheless use His name as an attractive front to give them entree to the masses. Whether or not it is the fulfillment of that odd passage in Isaiah, still it reminds one of the words, In that day seven women/ will take hold of one man/ and say, `We will eat our own food/ and provide our own clothes;/ only let us be called by your name./ Take away our disgrace (Isa_4:1). Doctrines wholly foreign to the Scriptures are being taught in the name of Christ (as, for instance, the strange humanistic hodgepodge of Norman Vincent Peale); and His name is being pronounced over deeds as carnal and earthly as any ever performed under the sun. The Man Upstairs of war days is now being invoked to bring success to the selfish schemes of unregenerate men.
One movie star, after a half hour of fighting, shooting and general mayhem closes his radio show with the folksy benediction, May the good Lord take a likin to you. A night club gossip monger ends his broadcast with the exhortation, And go with God. A disc jockey who broadcasts from a saloon has been known to interview religious persons on his program and to draw them out to tell of the power of prayer. A famous night club comedian publicly testifies that he became a thousand-dollar-a-week success after praying to a statue and promising to contribute generously of his income to humanitarian purposes. The sight of the Virgin and the Holy Child in a tavern window surrounded by whisky bottles is not uncommon at the Christmas season in the large cities.
The sum of all this is that religion today is not transforming the people; rather it is being transformed by the people. It is not raising the moral level of society; it is descending to societys own level and congratulating itself that it has scored a victory because society is smilingly accepting its surrender.
What too many religious leaders are overlooking is that the faith of Christ makes no concessions, accepts no compromises, allows no terms and makes no deals. Christ offers Himself to men as Lord and Savior and receives returning sinners only when they turn against themselves and come fully over on Gods side. Fallen men escape the judgment of the world as Lot escaped the destruction of Sodom, by forsaking it altogether, not by getting adjusted to it.
The current vogue religion never says, Thou shalt not; that would be negative thinking and contrary to the best psychology. It does not command men; it smiles and cajoles and suggests and ends by letting the man have his own way. Anything goes as long as a sop is tossed to God in the form of devotions after the unreconstructed rebel has had his fun. God thus becomes a servant who stands ready to help in a pinch but who will not make any embarrassing demands or expect anyone to live a life much different from the customary easy life made familiar by the radio and the public press.
Undoubtedly here and there a happy exception may be found. The Holy Spirit has His few, as indeed He has always had, and their holy walk and tear-drenched prayers may yet save the day.
(A.W. Tozer, The Price of Neglect)