What tasks does God set for us today?
Step by step, the world is steadily taking revenge on today’s church for past crushing defeats. And before the irreversible process of degradation sets in, while there is still time, a process of renewal and revival is necessary. Revival of the church! This has always been and is a missionary service. Revival without trust in the church is unthinkable! All disappointments in relation to the church stem from the loss of trust in the ruling church elite, which is not free from earthly vices. Why is the church losing trust and influence today? Because the church authorities are unable to reflect in themselves what they preach – that is, Christ! Therefore, the modern church does not go into the world and change the world, but the world goes into the church and adapts it to itself – so that it is already difficult to mark the boundary where the world ends and the church begins!
Matt. 5:20; 6:34.
Luke 18:9.
I will not now present proofs and arguments, and there are so many that it would be time to write a book! But I will point out the main criteria and the scope of the crisis.
First. (So-called “Traditionalists”)
This is a deformed and frozen church. It has the form of a set of traditions and rituals – and… this is presented as the Gospel teaching?! As a rule, rituals and traditions never lead to the solution of the spiritual tasks set before the church, but reduce the church to the level of an ordinary public organization! Such a church is far from its true purpose – to be salt and not lose its power, in order to preserve the surrounding environment from decay and corruption. In churches that have lost their power, Holiness is replaced by hypocrisy, sanctimony, Jesuit-like feigned humility, which can turn into outright boorishness, under the guise of fighting for the purity of the church, but in reality – for human traditions and local church “culture.” Such churches, as a rule, lack apostolic appeal and simplicity, but are politicized in their own way and based on clans and a mafia-like strict hierarchy. There is no influx from the world into such a church; parishioners attend church out of tradition. In such an environment, opportunism flourishes, the sense of reverence for the church, for the faith, for service dissipates. Responsibility before God, conscience, family, people, the state becomes dulled!
Second. (So-called “Charismatics”)
This is, as it were, the opposite point of the spectrum – the antipode. This is the leveling of the church to the world. Such a church is adapted by the world. And it does not hinder the world from carrying out an aggressive, deforming invasion into the church. Anti-cultural manifestations are encouraged, to please the worldly lusts of this age. Under this ideology, the Word of God is vulgarly adapted. In such churches, as a rule, there are many new parishioners, but also a similar turnover.
The “shepherds” of the world-adapted churches are personalities without complexes, pushy and aggressive. Dilettantism in the spiritual sphere is easily compensated for by oratorical, artistic, and organizational abilities. Success grows in them into leaderism and confidence in their own exceptionality. But these are falsifiers, rogues from adapted religion! What they have, they give. Adapted world religion, in the person of its pastors, has invented and perfected measures of spiritual influence on the individual, by isolating and disconnecting the mind from participating in the assessment and control of one’s emotional manifestations; this brings parishioners into the state of an adept, zombified “under” and “for” the pastor-shaman of the modern formation.
Spiritual drug, surrogate of emotions, sacrilege and outrage! With a confident hand, skillfully packaged and stamped with Biblical slogans and shamelessly presented as the actions and gifts of the “Holy Spirit.” During such sessions, some problems of the adepts are “solved,” but in reality they are anesthetized, put to sleep with a spiritual drug, which creates the illusion of a militant character of the church in the world for the salvation of souls. Under this, human problems are well adapted to modernity. But behind all this, as time has shown, stands the pastor’s own “I”! Phil. 2:21. Their ultimate goal is to turn the parishioner’s pocket inside out. Money! Money! Money! God is Almighty! God is Omnipresent! God can do everything! He heals! He fixes! He takes all your problems upon Himself! But with money, He has an eternal problem. And… it is cleverly instilled to exchange the material for the spiritual! At that time, miracles happen – people give away even what they do not have! They go into debt on credit. And this has become a science, instead of theology, for the ministers-businessmen of the modern world-adapted religion. Under the influence of the spiritual drug, the parishioner becomes an adept and quickly parts with money and personal time. But when the person-adept emerges from this lethargy, as a rule, he does not go to any church and no longer believes anything! His sense of responsibility becomes dulled, followed by disappointment, depression, spiritual downfall. For the ministers-businessmen, this is no trouble! Others will come. For this, new bait is constantly invented and applied.
Without exaggeration, it can be said that now we have again returned to the state of the first missionaries, making contact with people. People in need of support, of protection, people lost in the labyrinth of contradictions of real life and unjustified hopes – promised by modern spiritual guides, sellers of air, and even worse, of spiritual surrogate. And how not to get lost, not to go astray, not to be disappointed?
The Gospel of Christ, the teaching and instruction of the apostles – was confirmed by their lives, their deeds: serving God through serving people! Selflessness, moderation, self-sacrifice, lack of love for money, evident guidance by the Holy Spirit. So what should we do? How should we act? Has the salt lost its savor? No! And again, no! Let us begin revival with ourselves, through genuine consecration. God led us, spoke to us, directed us. He performed miracles before our eyes; we saw the Glory of God and the true manifestation of the Holy Spirit! Our silence and inaction are false humility! It is capitulation before the spirit of modern deception, which gives rise to loss of trust in the church. Who can and should take up the burden of responsibility in this difficult time? Of course, it should be done by those who have walked the path of testing and have been tested. Those who have gained proper experience in deprivation, struggle, humiliation, humility. To whom can God entrust His work? To those He has led through the valley of humiliation, and in testing stripped them of their “self”!
Revival and trust in the church depend on our genuine missionary spirit, i.e., the desire to seek access to people’s hearts in order to draw them to our Lord Jesus Christ, to meet their expectations and hopes. But in order to become heralds and warriors of the Living God in the modern world, we need the flame of the true ideal of Christ’s disciples and apostles to burn brightly and powerfully within us.
Boris Perchatkin.
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