Why 'the church isn’t perfect' line has become a cop-out; Christians cannot use this as an excuse to ignore sin.

A few months back, some guy began flirting with my 19-year old daughter via her Instagram account. This is (unfortunately) pretty common, but much to my delight she does a great job with slamming the door in their face.

However, this particular guy was more persistent than usual and wouldn’t back off. His tenacity led my daughter to use her excellent technical sleuthing skills to find out exactly who he was.

My daughter found him, his church, his wife, and other details. That presented us with the dilemma of whether we should contact his church and wife and inform them of the guy’s problematic pastime.

The experience also led my daughter to open up to my wife and me about the continuing disappointment she has with other supposed Christians. She and my older daughter have stopped going to church because they found those in the young adult groups to be far less kind, welcoming and authentic than those in their secular college crowds.

We got story after story from her of young Christian guys going on mission trips who end up attempting to molest the girls in their group. Witnessing first-hand episodes of drug use, outlandish lying and deception and similar behaviors from their peers (and their peer’s parents) have both my girls thinking that people in the church cannot be trusted in any way, shape or form.

But wait – aren't we told that Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven? That if you ever find the perfect church, you shouldn’t join because you’ll spoil it (said Billy Graham and Charles Spurgeon)?

We say these things in hopes of convincing non-Christians that they shouldn’t let mistakes they’ve made in their life keep them from pursuing Christianity nor expect perfection from Christians when evaluating the faith. After all, the Bible tells us we all have a sin nature that causes us to fall short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23) and that, even after being born again, the same sin nature remains active and causes us to do wrong (Rom. 7).

But what if our critics are more right than we like to admit? What if hypocrisy and a spirit that is anything but Christlike typifies the Church’s behavior these days?

The best argument against Christianity

Studies done by David Kinnaman and his Barna group, which you can find summarized in books like unChristian and You Lost Me, show that the best argument against Christianity isn’t the problem of evil or any other apologetics-styled objection. Instead, it’s the lives lived out by professing Christians.

It’s what caused the German philosopher Nietzsche to say, “I might believe in the Redeemer if his followers looked more redeemed” and Gandhi to declare: “I like Christ, but I don’t like the Christians. The Christians are so unlike their Christ.”

We read in Scripture statements like, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come” (2 Cor. 5:17) and “Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4).

If this is true, why is it that the “new things” and “newness of life” in professing Christian’s lives either seem completely absent or appear so seldom?

It’s at this point that many church leaders throw out the ‘church isn’t perfect’ line in hopes of blunting the accusation. Frankly, I’m tired of hearing it.

We’ve gotten to the point where this excuse uses Paul’s admissions of struggling with sin in Romans 7 like some kind of permission slip; it goes beyond admitting that we sin to almost justifying persistent sinful behavior. Plus, it does nothing to address the very real problem of incongruent behavior that exists between Christ and His Church.

I’d like to suggest a couple of possible root causes for what Kinnaman and others observe along with some cures for the issues.

Pregnant with unbelief

I believe the biggest source of this problem to be the fact that today’s Church is 9-months pregnant with unbelievers. I say this not judgmentally, but rather because I used to be one.

There’s nothing wrong with unbelievers being in Church. But, there’s everything wrong with them staying unbelievers.

So many who sit in the pews think that because they believe in God, they’re saved and safe. So, you believe in God, do you? Big deal.

The Pharisees believed in God and Jesus rhetorically asked them how they would escape the sentence of Hell (Matt. 23:33). James told his readers if that’s all they possessed then they had nothing more than the demons (James 2:19).

When you combine a reluctance from the pulpit to offend audiences about the truth of their sin with nothing more than a general acknowledgement from that crowd that God exists, you have everything needed for a false faith, false assurance, and a life that in no way will live out the teachings of Christ because, simply put, it lacks the power to do so (e.g. Rom. 8:7).

Instead of services that resemble a comfy group Youtube session, the Church needs straightforward teaching that speaks the truth in love about sin in a way that makes an unbeliever’s conscience and soul uncomfortable to the point where they seek help. Only then will the unbeliever in the pew become a true Christian and start exhibiting the fruit and changed life that confirms a true conversion has taken place (James 2).

A Bad Diet

Lately I’ve noticed a very bad trend in my own life. When frustrated or angered, in the heat of the moment, I’ve started to let foul language fly.

This hasn’t been something with which I’ve ever really wrestled, and it’s bothered me greatly because Jesus said: “the mouth speaks that which fills the heart” (Luke 6:45). After some contemplation, I think I know what’s going on.

My wife and I have been consistently streaming various drama series that, while containing good story lines and acting, are overloaded with bad language. I’m convinced my new problem with expletives is related to that which I’ve been constantly letting in my ear-gate.

The battle with our fallen nature is real. Paul confirms this when he says, “For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please” (Gal. 5:17). Ingesting a constant, bad diet through the eyes, ears, wrong relationships and actions will result in ungodly habits forming, just like the old Church proverb says:

This is why we’re told: “sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it” (Gen. 4:7). Disregarding this truth and immersing oneself in the world is a recipe for disaster where Christlikeness is concerned.

Live up to your name

The letters of Paul are full of admissions about the struggles with sin and our spiritual war. But let’s not forget that the same Paul who wrote those things also wrote:

Paul didn’t let the reality of Romans 7 keep him from pursuing the goal that is in front of you and me each morning: Christlikeness. In fact, Paul was so confident of his behavior that he exhorted others to mimic him.

No, the Church isn’t perfect, but if we’re not careful, we’ll use that reality as a green-light to sluff off sin and before you know it, you’re a married youth pastor who makes sexual advances over the Internet to 19-year old girls.

If Protestant Christians claim that their doctrine,”sola scriptura” states the Bible is the sole authoritative source of God’s Truth and that the teachings are clear for each person, then why are there so many different versions and interpretations of God’s Truth?

A parroted polemic which you have been reproved for resorting to before, yet you persist in it, testing that you are one who being often reproved, ignores it in order to justify Catholic error. For "Protestant" is so broad that includes those who do not even believe the Bible to be the wholly inspired and accurate word of God, nor does SS mean that all its teachings are clear for each person. And thus your polemic that different versions and interpretations of God’s Truth disallows SS as being true is invalid.

In addition to which are the problems with your alternative to SS, that of sola ecclesia, under which you also have different versions and interpretations of what is claimed to be God’s Truth.

What is true is that the more strongly persons believe in the Bible as being the wholly inspired, substantive accurate and authoritative word of God then the more unified they are, in contrast to the fruit of Catholicism today.

God desires unity of His followers to believe in His revealed Truth and accept His love for us, but allows each person with their ‘free will’ to either choose God and follow His way or reject God and follow the ways of the world.

And as even one of your fellows RCs posts, in Catholicism you have,

1. Church Militant who chastise the Bishops but not the Pope
2. The Wanderer supporters
3. The Remnant led by the brother of the publisher of The Wanderer who now disowns The Wanderer
4. The SSPX
5. Those that believe the SSPX is a valid Catholic organization but aren't members.
6. Those who believe the SSPX is in apostasy
7. Those former members of the SSPX that believe Fellay is too deferential to the Pope
8. Sedevacantists who believe Francis is the first anti-Pope or non-Pope
9. Sedevacantists who believe John XXIII was the first anti-pope or non-Pope and that the Second Vatican Council is invalid
10. Those that believe in various conspiracy theories that the Church is now completely controlled by: The Vatican Bank, Gays, Masons, Space Aliens, the Illuminati or some combination of the above
11. Various groups of reasonable Catholics who either quietly or on record disagree with the Pope but are unwilling to go all the way and call him a heretic
12. Various groups of reasonable Catholics who are willing to call the Pope a heretic but are also willing to wait for the process of replacement to unfold in an orderly manner

(NOTE: Church Militant may have changed its position recently to be more directly in opposition to the Pope but I haven't kept track.)

6 posted on 6/7/2019, 7:56:17 PM by who_would_fardels_bear

A web site popular among “RadTrad” RCs who reject Vatican Two is https://novusordowatch.org and which sums up the situation the way they see it by saying,

In response to the phenomenon of the Vatican II revolution, there are three essential lines of thought that have been proposed as “solutions” to understanding the situation. This is not now the place or time to critique or justify any of them. For now, we want to just describe them: (1) despite appearances, nothing has really substantially changed, and any interpretation of Vatican II that arrives at the conclusion that there has been a substantial change must be incorrect; (2) we must oppose (resist) these substantial changes and stick to the traditional, age-old teaching instead and ignore the Vatican II novelties while recognizing, however, that the authorities in the Vatican are legitimate and genuine Roman Catholic authorities — we just cannot agree with them on these points; (3) because it is impossible for the Catholic Church to change substantially, and because Vatican II constitutes such an impossible substantial change, it is necessary to conclude that the authority which gave us Vatican II is not in fact the legitimate Catholic authority; that is to say, the “Popes” which gave us Vatican II are not true Popes, nor are their successors, who have implemented and expanded this new religion that has its roots in the council. In fact, the entire religion that now occupies the Vatican and the official structures of the Catholic Church throughout the world is false — it is not the Catholic religion at all, and its putative authorities are not Catholics but heretical usurpers.

Are protestant churches based on man’s doctrines and not God’s Truth, based on heresy and rejecting the Church that Jesus founded?

What "protestant churches?" What we do know is that distinctive Catholic teachings are not manifest in the only wholly inspired substantive authoritative record of what the NT church believed (which is Scripture, in particular Acts through Revelation, which best shows how the NT church understood the gospels).

As true followers of Christ, we need to accept God’s Truth and His love as a community of followers, The Body of Christ, members of Christ’s true church with our love for God and neighbor.

The only one true church which the Lord promised to overcome the gates of Hell was and is not one organic organization outside of which no believers were to be found, but the one true church was and is the body of Christ that the Spirit baptizes every believer into, (1Co. 12:13) and to which He is married. (Eph. 5:25) For it uniquely only and always consists 100% of true believers, while organic fellowships in which they express their faith inevitably become admixtures of wheat and tares, with Catholicism and liberal Protestantism being mostly the latter.

And remember, you started this exchange by provocatively exaltation your church, maybe to get an indulgence (which you never denied) even though, as before, your parroting of prevaricating propaganda is an argument against being a Catholic. .

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