Spiritual Decadence of the Churches
By Prof. George W. Rine
THE approach of no other event in the history of the church foretold by inspired prophets is heralded by so many and diverse omens as is that of the second advent of the Redeemer. One of the striking signs of this crowning event foretold by our Lord, as well as by nearly all of the New Testament prophets, is the mournful fact that in the days when the Son of Man is about to be revealed, spiritual declension and apostasy would be deplorably prevalent in the nominal Christian church. After enunciating the great truth illustrated by the parable of the importunate widow, Jesus gave expression to the significant question, “Nevertheless when the Son of Man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?” This question was not asked for information. No answer was expected. Jesus expressed this terse prophecy in the form of a question for the express purpose of setting it forth with emphasis and distinction. It is the strongest possible form in which the Lord could assert that at the time when His second coming should be near, faith would almost have perished from the earth. Note the startling prophecy of the same import given by the Holy Spirit through the apostle Paul, as recorded in the first part of 2 Timothy 3: “But know this, that in the LAST DAYS grievous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of SELF, . . . unthankful, unholy, . . . no lovers of good, . . . LOVERS OF PLEASURE RATHER THAN LOVERS OF GOD; holding a FORM of godliness, but having denied the POWER thereof; . . . ever learning, and never able to come to a KNOWLEDGE OF THE TRUTH. And even as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also WITHSTAND THE TRUTH; . . . REPROBATE CONCERNING THE FAITH. . . . But evil men and impostors shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.” A.R.V. The Churches Have Lost Their Power.
In his latest book, “Christianity and the Social Order,” the Rev. R. J. Campbell gives the following vivid pen-picture of the decay of church influence in England and on the Continent: “We are to-day confronted by the startling fact that in practically every part of Christendom the overwhelming majority of the population is alienated from Christianity AS REPRESENTED BY THE CHURCHES. In our own country nearly seventy-five per cent of the adult population remains permanently out of touch with organized religion. . . . On the Continent this falling away of the people from the churches is more marked than in this country. Educated Germans frequently express their astonishment on coming to England at the fact that so many people go to church. . . . Spiritual religion is being choked today by ecclesiasticism in its various forms.” We are told by no less an authority than the Catholic Quarterly Review that in the cities and large towns of France, hundreds of thousands of persons are little better than heathen. Country churches are becoming more and more empty; there is one parish in France containing 161,000 people in which only two chapels and one church can be maintained. The masculine intellect of the nation is almost wholly untouched by the influence of the church. Even Australia sends its mournful echo round the world in the same key: “Much complaint is heard that churches are forsaken and that in the sphere of religion the young do not take the places of their fathers and mothers.” In our own country (declared by the U. S. Supreme Court to be a “Christian nation”) the decadence of organized religion is equally accentuated. “If the gain of the churches on population during the first half of the century [nineteenth] is represented by eighty,” says Dr. Josiah Strong, “during the last half it is represented by twenty, during the last twenty years it is represented by four, and during the last ten years it is represented by one.” A very striking fact is revealed by the study of the denominational year-books. This fact is the large and growing number of barren churches; that is, those which do not report a single addition on confession of faith. Last year the number of barren Congregational churches was 2,390, against 1,632, in 1895. The number of barren Presbyterian churches was 2,270, against 1,699, in 1895. The number of barren Methodist churches was 2,276, against 1,134, a decade earlier. For one who can read between the lines, some highly significant information was given regarding the country church situation by the Hampden County (Mass.) Conference of Congregational Churches in its last year’s report. “At the annual conference . . . pessimism was the key-note. The tendency on the part of the community to get along without the church is conspicuous. The summer business knocks the spiritual activities of the church deader than a door-nail. There is general indifference to missionary enterprises. A general failure on the part of the members to take part in the prayer-meeting. The only striking event was when the steeple was struck by lightning.” “Every one,” says the Rev. Madison C. Peters, “who knows the emptiness of the pews in nearly all the Protestant churches in New York, knows also that, so far as Protestants are concerned, New Yorkers have ceased to be a church-going people.” Rev. Peters declares further that the failure of the church to reach the people is not only a failure in numbers, “but it is a failure of quality as well as quantity.” He avers that by far the vast majority of the people of the metropolis never enter a Protestant church except possibly to attend a funeral or witness a wedding. Only three eighths of the American people are church-members, and of that fraction the great majority are only nominally so, with neither faith nor interest in the church. The fact has become notorious that, in order to induce people to attend the services of the churches, ministers everywhere are supplementing their sermons with stereopticon views; giving musicales every Sunday night instead of sermons; reading sermons from fifteen to twenty minutes in length; providing facilities in the church building for athletics, for billiards, for checkers and cards, for ice-cream parties and oyster suppers; and the newspaper despatches tell us that one enterprising Chicago preacher has gone so far as to supplement all these with an apartment “fitted up for courting.” It is evident that one of the prime causes of this awful spiritual decline in the churches is their fabulous wealth. “The church is plethoric with material wealth,” says a writer in a recent number of the Arena. In New York City the churches own at least $204,000,000, which is exempt from taxation. But now that the church is gorged with riches, it finds that it no longer has a hold upon the masses of the people. “They reject its call and its forms; they give little attention to its teachings. . . . The church is now vastly richer in property than it ever was. Never were there such splendid edifices of worship; the accompaniments, equipment, style, and clerical salaries are more sumptuous and commanding than ever before.” But just as the church has bounded forward in material wealth, its power over the religious feelings of the people has correspondingly declined.5 Lack of power, LACK OF POWER, is the major key of all the criticisms launched against the churches. How exactly is this in keeping with the prophetic declaration that “in the last days,” the nominal church would have “a form of godliness, but denying [in practise] the POWER thereof.” Did Jesus have power to influence the common people? Did the disciples? Did Luther and his colleagues? Did Wesley? Did Whitefield? Did Moody? Why?—Ah, they were men of faith, of consecration. Through faith they experienced in their own lives the “power of God unto salvation,” revealed in the Gospel. But the churches have fallen upon “grievous times.” They have, as a rule, forsaken their Lord, are in league with the world, and are “lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God.” This deplorable fact is only one of scores of proofs, according to the express declarations of divine prophecy, that this world has reached its last days, that the “glorious appearing of . . . our Saviour Jesus Christ” is drawing near, and that the prayer, “Thy kingdom come,” is about to be answered in all its measureless fulness.