Mick Turner
You might want to brace yourself because right out of the chute I am going to make a statement that is either blasphemy or apostasy personified or perhaps both. Chances are, these words are going to tick a few folks off but I hope at least some readers will look beyond their conditioned responses and see that perhaps I am making a valid point here. What I want to say is this:
Far too many Christians worship a false, triune God. This three-part Godhead that is quite popular, especially among evangelicals, is not the same as the one revealed in scripture nor the God defined in the creeds of the ancient faith. Far too many Christians worship the Father, the Son, and the Holy Bible.
If you are still with me, let’s continue.
When you get right down to it, what I just said about Christians worshipping the wrong trinity is, in fact, accurate. Don’t believe me? Well, ok, ask yourself this question: During the last year, how many sermons have you heard on the Holy Spirit? How many on the authority of God’s Word? Or ask yourself this: How often do you and your Christian friends discuss the importance of daily Bible study? How often do you discuss the importance of daily communion with the Holy Spirit? And please, don’t cop out by trying to answer that reading the Bible is the same as communing with the Holy Spirit, because He wrote the Bible because, as they say here in the Holy Spirit Belt, oh, I mean, the Bible Belt, that dog won’t hunt.
Do you get my point? The truth is, unless you happen to be Pentecostal or Charismatic, chances are the Word of God (notice this is traditionally capitalized, just like the Father and the Son) has replaced the Holy Spirit in terms of actual worship and focus. It is much easier to engage in Bibliolatry than in true communion with the Holy Spirit. Granted, when we study the Bible we hopefully do engage the Holy Spirit, but my point remains the same. In all honesty, many Christians have elevated the intended status of God’s word (I did that on purpose) and neglected the Holy Spirit.
The result of this transposition of the Holy Bible and the Holy Spirit in terms of our focus has been an increasing number of dead churches and spiritually dead Christians. I say this out of genuine love and concern for the Body of Christ and admit that I, too, have been guilty of the same apostasy. I finally realized this about ten years ago and have worked hard, with the help of the Holy Spirit, to overcome this in my own walk of faith.
I first realized I was guilty of putting the Holy Spirit below scripture (I did that on purpose, too) after reading a book by Paul Tillich. Tillich, as you may know, has been very influential in liberal theological circles and, while he is far more liberal than I, I gained much from reading his work. Tillich once defined God as “the object of our ultimate concern.” Whatever we give most of our time, energy, and attention to is our God, at least in practical, every day terms. I think this is true. At the time I read these words, I reflected on this issue in many areas of my life and I became acutely aware that my faith walk centered on the Father, on Jesus, and on the Bible. I paid lip service to the Holy Spirit, but beyond that, gave him little thought or traction in my life. If God was the object of my ultimate concern, then in my life the Bible was more God than the Holy Spirit. Think about this and see if it is true in your life as well.
I personally think it is a tragedy that we have so consistently ignored the Holy Spirit in our churches. Jesus left earth, ascended back to the spiritual realm, and sent the Spirit to continue his work in and through us. But, for many reasons, we have not really received the gift. It is like we turned off the source of power in our house, and now wonder why it is dark all the time. Again, I am not speaking of the Pentecostal/Charismatic element here, they have focused mightily on the Holy Spirit, but the ways in which this has manifested itself is sometimes questionable. As I said earlier, the result of our exiling the Holy Spirit has been a general disempowerment of the Body of Christ and I suspect that somewhere Satan is reclining in victory with a satisfied smile on his face.
I am far from an authority on these issues but can only speak from my own experience with the Christian church over the course of many years. If you need an authoritative voice expressing similar concerns, how about A.W. Tozer?
…..about a century ago the theological liberals in our country committed a great blunder. That blunder took the form of neglecting or denying the deity of Jesus. They either did not talk about it at all, or else they explained the deity of Jesus away, and neglected to mention His lordship over the church. This was a stupid and dangerous blunder, which brought inner blindness to thousands and spiritual decay and death to greater thousands…..The evangelical church made up of gospel Christians such as you and me, people who believe the Bible, have committed a comparable blunder. That blunder took the form of neglecting or denying the deity of the Holy Spirit…I need to modify that, for I doubt whether any Evangelical ever denied the deity of the Holy Spirit. However, we certainly neglect Him and His lordship within the Church. This failure to honor the Holy Spirit has resulted in much desolation within the Church.
If those words by Tozer are not convicting enough, consider what he says in continuation of this theme:
For one, the fellowship of the Church has degenerated into a social fellowship with a mild religious flavor. For me, either I want God or I do not want anything at all to do with religion. I could never get interested in some old maids social club, with a little bit of Christianity thrown in to give it respectability.
As you can see, Tozer was not a man to mince words. Still, his point is a valid one. And if one looks at the trends in 20th Century Christianity, you see the dominance of liberal theology, which was strongly embraced by the Mainline denominations in America, steadily decline over the last thirty years of the century. Conservative and even fundamentalist denominations either held their own or grew substantially. Yet where did the real explosion in growth occur? In the charismatic churches and we can see this trend continuing right up until today. Interestingly enough, these churches with explosive growth seem to be the ones with the most extreme and at times bizarre manifestations of what is claimed to be Holy Spirit activity. While I don’t hold to the validity of “holy laughter” or getting down on all fours and barking like Rin Tin Tin, I think there is a point here. People are so starved for the Holy Spirit they will seek him under every rock and bush. Of course, there is an obvious danger with this.
To be continued…..
© L.D. Turner 2008/All Rights Reserved
