The times are turbulent,
And the Holy Church is rent,
And who tremble or repent?

_{---Christina Rossetti}

I have said that religion has become a nest of private desires and political expectations; it fails as a consolation for our sorrows or an affirmation of our hopes.

I found someone else to help Dave Hayward explain this to you. You might remember the tender place Spencer Burke has in his heart for heretics. Here the simpleton host asks for help from his simpleton guest.

(And if you happen to be drinking a sticky beverage while viewing this, I strongly recommend you throw a towel over your keyboard.)

Burke:

Seems that all religions have these doomsday scenarios at the end, which seems kind of the antithesis to at least the Christian message of love, care, compassion, you know, versus fear, suspicion. Help me out. Why do you think many religions kind of fall into that angle?

King:

If we would take on a persona of saying, "Look, since our belief systems are merely pointers to that which is beyond and unnamable and unknowable, let's meet beyond our belief systems in this area of mystery and humility. And I think if the world started coming together and the world religions started coming together to celebrate the dignities of each sacred narrative, all meeting beyond our belief systems at the feet of mystery, then I think you've got phenomenal potential to really begin to create this tipping point toward celebration instead of doomsday."

"If we would take on a persona of saying..."?

I really can't tell you if Tim is using persona in its literary or Jungian sense. I can't even tell you if he knows the difference. I cannot explain in any way the appalling Babel of his brain.

Sorry.

Either way, this reminded me of a helpful editorial written long ago and far away by A. W. Tozer. When he wrote it he was talking about evangelism. I'll suggest that today it takes on ominous significance. I don't know who was responsible for little Timmy's religious instruction, but I think he should be fitted with a millstone and taken for a boat ride.

The task of the church is twofold: to spread Christianity throughout the world and to make sure that the Christianity she spreads is the pure New Testament kind.

Theoretically the seed, being the Word of God, should produce the same kind of fruit regardless of the spiritual condition of those who scatter it; but it does not work that way. The identical message preached to the heathen by men of differing degrees of godliness will produce different kinds of converts and result in a quality of Christianity varying according to the purity and power of those who preach it.

Christianity will always reproduce itself after its kind. A worldly-minded, unspiritual church, when she crosses the ocean to give her witness to peoples of other tongues and other cultures, is sure to bring forth on other shores a Christianity much like her own.

Not the naked Word only but the character of the witness determines the quality of the convert. The church can do no more than transplant herself. What she is in one land she will be in another. A crab apple does not become a Grimes Golden by being carried from one country to another. God has written His law deep into all life; everything must bring forth after its kind.

Tozer ended the same column with:

Evangelical Christianity...is now tragically below the New Testament standard. Worldliness is now an accepted part of our way of life. Our religious mood is social rather than spiritual.  We have lost the art of worship. We are not producing saints. Our models are successful businessmen, celebrated athletes and theatrical personalities. We carry on our religious activities after the methods of the modern advertiser. Our homes have been turned into theaters. Our literature is shallow and our hymnody borders on sacrilege. And scarcely anyone seems to care.

We must have a better kind of Christian soon or within another half century we may have no true Christianity at all.