Culture Rot Update: Church Edition
The world’s ever decaying culture is now seeping, no… flooding into the so-called “Christian” church. This is not limited to one denomination...
The world’s ever decaying culture is now seeping, no… flooding into the so-called “Christian” church. This is not limited to one denomination, as many Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist, or even Evangelical churches are not resisting this worldly influence, but in many cases embracing it with open arms.
Here is just a quick sampling of the heretical views, news items, and foolishness that have come to my attention in just the last week. My comments are in italics…
On June 21st, U.S. Catholic Bishops announced there will be 'no national policy on denying communion to pro-abortion politicians. Opponents of the lack of policy have expressed concern that Joe Biden and other Democratic politicians like Nancy Pelosi… who not only support abortion but openly and shamelessly advocate for it… are not in a position to receive Communion. They were voted down. Why would the Catholic Bishops take such a position you ask? Follow the money… Catholic Charities receives many millions of federal dollars for the care of illegal immigrants and wants to keep the cash register ringing.
The conference of the Methodist Church of Great Britain recently backed same-sex marriages taking place in their churches, claiming in a new standing order “that marriage can be between ANY two people”. This represents open rebellion against God’s definition of marriage.
Some members of Northern California’s popular Bethel megachurch, including the senior pastor’s wife Beni, continue to engage in the practice of “grave soaking” which involves lying on a person’s grave to “soak up” the deceased’s “anointing.” In an interview, Pastor Bill Johnson says they don’t encourage the practice… however they don’t denounce it either. Anointings come from God, not from dead bodies six feet underground. Any attempt to communicate with the dead through occult practices is forbidden by scripture. (Leviticus 19:31, Isaiah 8:19, Deuteronomy 18:10-12 and 1 Timothy 4:1) In England, the Methodist church revealed on Wednesday that a resolution was approved by a large margin approving the marriage of same-sex couples. This new resolution removed “it is God’s intention that a marriage should be between one man and one woman” and replaced it with “two people who freely enter it”… rejecting the fact the Biblical marriage is to be between one man and one woman. Either the Methodist Church doesn’t know what marriage is or they haven’t read the Bible.
In another majority resolution, the same Methodist Church in England voted to celebrate couples living together who are not married, claiming the Church had an “important calling” to “point to the presence of God’s love within such relationships”. Whatever happened to the Biblical notion of living in sin?
The Anglican Church in England is falling all over themselves to celebrate their members’ sex changes. Their House of Bishops advises clergy to use their “Affirmation of Baptismal Faith” to mark gender transitions. Going full wacko in terms of its policies, they are okay with the idea of gender fluidity, the idea that God is gender-neutral, and that the children attending the Church of England schools should be free to explore their “gender identity”. Adult gender identity confusion is one thing, but the mental abuse of children in their schools is an abomination before God.
Just one year after reporting the largest single-year membership decline in more than 100 years, churches in the Southern Baptist Convention, the U.S.’s largest Protestant denomination, lost a staggering 435,632 members in 2020 setting a new record for the single-year decline. The Annual Church Profile report shows membership in SBC congregations membership decline in 2020, was over 50% higher than the 287,655 members the denomination reported losing in 2019. The SBC’s promotion of Social Justice, Critical Race Theory, the acceptance of unrepentant homosexuality, and the approval of women in the pulpit are at the root of this membership disaster.
Sarah Jones, the Church of England’s first first-ever transwoman priest says that God is non-binary. This is similar to 2018 claims by the Church of England’s senior Archbishop, Justin Welby, that God is “not male nor female”. Jones goes further, saying “When you really think about it, does God really have a body? I don’t think so, so could God really be ‘He’, just genuinely like a guy? I don’t think so and I think if God created everything, God’s beyond all of these boundaries so whatever God is, I really don’t think God is a standard ‘He’. I would absolutely say that God is non-binary in the sense that God is neither male nor female and I think it’s helpful.” In the Bible, God clearly refers to Himself using masculine pronouns: “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27). In the Bible, God does not refer to Himself using gender-neutral terms… He uses only masculine terms.
It seems that many so-called churches are trying to fit God into a convenient little box that suits the sins of their attendees. What’s the upshot of all this? What is happening in England is coming to the U.S. A recent study from the Pew Research Center reports that only 65% of Americans now identify as Christian. In England, it’s even worse, with the proportion of those who identify as Christian hitting its lowest point in over thirty years, with only 38% of the respondents identifying as Christian… a far cry from the 66% in 1998. People are not only leaving these churches but rejecting Christianity all together rather than moving to another church. How long until we catch up with the British?