12 Steps to Identifying Your Functional Saviors On this point, John Calvin wrote in The Institutes:

Every individual mind being a kind of labyrinth, it is not wonderful, not only that each nation has adopted a variety of fictions, but that almost every man has had his own god. To the darkness of ignorance have been added presumption and wantonness, and hence there is scarcely an individual to be found without some idol or phantom as a substitute for Deity. Like water gushing forth from a large and copious spring, immense crowds of gods have issued from the human mind, every man giving himself full license, and 60devising some peculiar form of divinity, to meet his own views.

Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion (2 Volume Set)

Following the attacks on New York and Washington D.C. and the failed attack that ended in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, many Americans darkened the doors of our churches, some for the first time in years. Now, as far as I am aware, church attendance has returned to pre-September 11 levels. Maybe it returned to those levels in 2002, I’m not sure.

This morning, I heard a good message from an Army general about the state of the world today, specifically related to radical Islam, and what Christians can do about it, if anything. He briefly mentioned that he wished more Americans would go to church in light of the Barna survey stating 84% of us claim to be Christians. But I suggest that many have gone to American churches and found no reason to return. What they found was self-referential moralism and messages on God helping those who help themselves or on love without morality being the path to true peace. Hope from the Creator of the world and Redeemer of the forgiven they did not find. They can get the self-help on their own.

A self-referential faith will not offer lasting hope. It will not understand how men can do evil things, and when faced with rage, addiction, adultery, and greed, it will offer only platitudes or rejection. It will not believe in the supernatural enemy we face, the Morgoth/Sauron-type character who stalks the earth looking for those who will believe his lies, those who will look inward and blame others for their pain or disappointment.

I fear this is the message many churches communicate in and out of the pulpit, even churches in which there are many genuine believers. They have missed the life-transforming gospel by focusing on their own efforts to better themselves and the world (thus the affection many have for political success). In doing so, they will tell non-believers that God will not accept them until they clean themselves up. They say they don’t care how broken or sinful they are, they had better present themselves as clean in church or God won’t accept them. Of course, God the Father, who knows everything from begin to end, will not reject the sick or the broken, the abusive or the abused. He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins when we repent of them, even when we repeatedly repent of them.

I wish it were true that 84% of Americans were genuine believers, but I’m afraid they claim that label out of mere cultural comfort, and if these are the ones going to 60-70% of American churches, I don’t worry that many people stopped after the fear of the attacks diminished. Perhaps there were a couple rescuers inside those frames meant at one time to reflect the glory of a greater kingdom, but maybe they had left too, tired of finding people who were unwilling to be saved.

The gospel is what our churches are meant to preach. It is not merely a pass for the bad stuff we do or a term for our 12 step self-help guide; it is divine liberation from the crushing bonds of sin and a new life of service on the Lord’s estate. The Lord asks us to believe who he claims to be in the Bible and live accordingly, grieving past failure, embracing future grace.