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[RyanS]

Hello:

I had a conversation with a family member recently, and the contemporary state of the Church was a reason given to put into question the value of Christianity. While I wholly object to emotional blockades being a valid objection to the veracity of an idea, it is the case that many people refuse to follow a system that is subjectively distasteful, even in the face of arguing against such a notion. How can one respond to someone who rightfully evokes the problems within the Church, but uses that as a reason against submitting themselves to God or even genuinely considering the truth of Christianity?

Thank you,
-Ryan

[jimwalton]

Hey, great question. Many of us are saddened by the state of the Church today. I think the most honest answer is that Jesus, Paul, Peter, and the book of Revelation predict that the Church will be weak and apostate, especially in the End Times (which there is no way to know if we are there or not). Here are some of the texts about it:

• Lukewarm. Rev. 3.14-22
• Faithless. Lk. 18.8
• Perilous times. 2 Tim. 3
• A falling away. 2 Thes. 2.3
• Evil men and seducers. 1 Tim. 4.1; 2 Tim. 3.13.
• False teachers, judge-worthy heresies. 2 Pet. 2.1-3
• They will not endure sound doctrine. 2 Tim. 4.3-4.

I'm trying to think if there is any text telling us that the Church will be strong. About the only one that comes to mind is Matthew 16.18: "on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it." But that doesn't really say the Church will be strong, only rather that the true Church will never disappear from the Earth.

Jesus Himself said that there would only ever be a few faithful and truly committed ones (Mt. 7.14; Lk. 13.24)

When we think back to ancient Israel, we remember that only 2 of the Exodus generation entered Canaan. All of the others were apostate. When we think to the divided monarchy, the northern kingdom of Israel didn't have a single godly king, and apparently rather godless people, and the population is lost to history at the hand of God's judgment. The southern kingdom of Judah did a little better, but not much.

The real strength of Israel was in the remnant that God promised to preserve in the midst of all the nominal God-worshippers and the hypocrites. So today, the real strength of the Church is in the remnant of true believers, not in the vast pool of cultural Christians.

Think through Church history, and we are hard-pressed to think of many times when the Church was strong. They endured times of intense persecution in the first few centuries, struggling for survival while they grew. When Constantine approved of Christianity, the Church became culturally acceptable, and therefore also weak and compromised. During the Islamic invasion of the latter half of the first millennium, the Church went underground, so to speak, in the monastic movement. Then there's the era of the Crusades ('nuff said), followed by the atrocities of the Medieval Church for several centuries. So when has the Church ever been strong?

Even today, the Church in Europe is failing. The Church in Africa seems to be large, but at the same time unable to overcome one terrible dictator after another. The Church in America is fat and lazy. The Church in China is persecuted and underground.

The question at hand is: Is this evidence of the false value of Christianity or of the falseness of its teachings? I think not, though it would seem such to an outsider. For the true remnant, Christianity has peerless value and is the very expression of foundational and objective truth. And that is what is fundamentally true about Christianity. The fact that Christianity predicted its own weakness and apostasy shows that this is no ruse or failure, but is part of its very fabric. It's part of the very nature of Yahwism (including its fulfillment in Christianity) that it will be grasped only by the dedicated few despite its general widespread generic appeal. An illustration of this is the large crowds who came to "follow" Jesus at the feeding of the 5,000. Great widespread generic appeal. But when Jesus explained what his movement was truly about (John 6), they all bailed except a few (Jn. 6.66). This has always been the teaching of Christianity: Truth will only be recognized by a relative few—those who truly seek it.

I think the Bible's brutal and authentic honesty about such things gives it credibility, not ill-repute.

[RyanS]

Hello:

That answer makes abundant sense and does so in acute clarity. Thank you very much. How does one respond to someone that refuses to entertain Christianity due to the shortcomings of those who are the fulfillment of the prophecies that you have mentioned? I find quite frequently that, even if one can provide a suitable defense for the existence of wrongs from the members of the Church, some will still leverage those wrongs as reason to not bother with the Church at all. It is fairly disheartening to see emotional obstacles preventing someone from the pursuit of truth.

Thank you,
-Ryan

[jimwalton]

For me, the refutation is in the undeniable fact that truth is narrow and that historically speaking, people are observably reticent to accept truth.

First, truth is narrow. There are infinite numbers, but 2+2 equals only one of them: 4. On the piano, there is only 1 middle C. With regard to JFK's assassination or Amelia Earhart's disappearance, there are many theories, but once we know the truth, there will be only one explanation. It's the nature of truth. In science, new ideas are fought and ridiculed until proven, and even then, sometimes, acceptance is slow. Is a virus "alive"? What is dark matter? We're not free to make up something; we work to discover the truth—the narrow but verifiably objective truth about anything.

Secondly, historically speaking, people are observably reticent to accept truth. It's something we humans are not good at. People simply love to speculate, fabricate, exaggerate, and theorize. We seem to have a reluctance to recognize and conform to truth. People are set in their ways, obstinate, proud—and even take pride in being the rebel skeptic. As Jesus said, even if someone were to rise from the dead, they would not believe it.

We saw this last night on the news. A paraplegic man at the RNC stood to salute the American flag, and one commentator accused him of doing that just to rebuke BLM, and thereby endorsing police brutality. It was an outrageous accusation that is being lambasted on social media. It's an illustration of human nature and how difficult it is to recognize truth (was the man endorsing white supremacy or respect for the concept of America as the land of the free where there is liberty and justice for all?)

When it comes to disciplines like philosophy and theology, and even at times history, psychology, economics, etc., of the making of arguments and the staking of theoretical positions, there is no end. The Church is no different than anything else at this point because humans are involved in it. Despite what God says, people, well, do what they want.