OPINION:
Sixty-nine percent of Protestant pastors in a Lifeway Research survey said they see a “growing sense of fear” among their congregants, and another 63%, that their pews are also filled with people who feel “dread” about the “future of Christianity” in America and around the world.
This is not from God. That’s Satan.
That’s a show of the success of Satan to infect the churches with feelings and outlooks that are decidedly unbiblical, ungodly and moreover, weak. No wonder America’s taken such a sharp turn down the path of socialism, secularism and immorality in recent times. Christians have been afraid to fight.
The good news is these numbers represent a downturn from 2010, when 76% of Protestant pastors said to this same Lifeway Research firm they saw a growing fear among their flocks about the future of the nation and the world. The bad news is: significant numbers are still fear-filled. Today’s churches are still filled with nail-biting, anxious, fearful Christians.
“Compared to a decade ago,” said Scott McConnell, executive director of Lifeway Research, “a few more churches today are avoiding the impulse to fear changes and adversity around them. But a large majority of pastors see their congregations moving toward fear rather than away from it.”
Fear is not of God.
Faith cannot coexist with fear.
And the biggest problem with a fear-filled batch of church-goers is they don’t fight. They don’t fight for the culture; they don’t fight for the political system; they don’t fight for education. They don’t fight for American Exceptionalism, the concept that says rights come from God and governments are put in place only to protect those God-given rights. How to have a nation of God-given liberty if God is removed? Impossible. Government steps into the void and fulfills the role of provider — of savior — of God. Satan and his minions step into the void and pretend to fulfill the role of provider — of savior — of God.
The battle of principalities wages.
Absent from the battle field are those who are supposed to be best-equipped to fight on the side of God. ‘We live in this world, not of this world’ — the fearful Christian tells himself, so as to avoid responsibility for fleeing the battlefield.
But thing is, when the churches cede the battleground; when the churches grow quiet; when church-goers grow weak and fear-filled and complacent — the churches themselves eventually become just as rotted and rotten as the rest of the world.
“The Episcopal Church approves religious weddings for gay couples,” The Washington Post reported in 2015.
Immorality thrives when the moral lose hope.
“’T]he Presbyterian Church (USA) voted to redefine marriage as a ‘commitment between two people’ … formally allowing same-sex marriages within the church,” Time wrote in 2015.
Ungodly principles and unbiblical beliefs spread when the supposedly godly and biblical fail to godly proclaim their faith.
“Here are other major churches in the U.S. that allow same-sex marriage: The Evangelical Lutheran Church of America … The Episcopal Church … The United Church of Christ,” Time went on to list.
The open mocking of God becomes the norm when those who supposedly know God best — and love Him most — refuse to stand tall for His truths.
Some modern churches have more LGBTQ rainbow flags and Black Lives Matter signage displayed on their grounds than Christian crosses. Some modern flocks push harder for socialism — under guise of preaching and teaching skewed, false ideas about Jesus — than even the public schools that have been openly infiltrated by card-carrying socialist teachers and union representatives. Some modern church leaders preach on the right of women to abort — they call it abortion justice.
“Unitarian Universalists have the highest level of support for abortion rights among denominations, with 90 percent saying abortion should be legal,” NBC News wrote in 2022, citing Pew Research.
That’s a condition of a sick society.
That’s an outcome of a church world that’s been swept into the clutches of a sickened society.
“The United Church of Christ,” NBC continued, “a mainline Protestant denomination, has released statements and passed resolutions supporting abortion rights since the 1970s. It ‘has supported reproductive justice issues since the 1960s,’ according to its website, when some of its clergy members joined rabbis, Protestant ministers and dissident Catholic nuns and priests to form the Clergy Consultation Service,” a group of 2,000-plus faith leaders who’ve assisted a quarter million or more women obtain abortions between 1967 and 1973.
That’s a tell of a fear that’s been allowed to go forth and spread for far too long — because of a cowed, silenced, intimidated church community.
Today’s world is this: Those who should fear, aren’t. Those who shouldn’t fear, are. Evil is having its way in this nation and world because the godly have gone silent. The solution is remember the war has already been won.
Yes, fear is a natural human trait. Even Moses had to deal with it. God promised the Israelites the land of Canaan as a home, but when Moses sent 12 spies to scope the area, only two — Caleb and Joshua — recommended possessing it. The other ten were too afraid of the giants; they were too afraid of losing their lives; they were too fearful of following in obedience what God had told them to do.
So ten, and their generations, never made it to the promised land.
Only the generations of Joshua and Caleb were permitted to experience the fulfillment of God’s promises.
So yes, absolutely, fear is a very human condition.
But as one lesson of the Israeli occupation of the Promised Land shows: God won’t excuse inaction because of fear.
God’s people must stand firm for God, no matter the fear, or God won’t stand tall for the people. And that’s what we’re seeing take place in America right now.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “Lockdown: The Socialist Plan To Take Away Your Freedom,” is available by clicking HERE or clicking HERE or CLICKING HERE.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.