SOME APPALLING CHRISTIAN STATISTICS

In a recent televised broadcast of his weekly show Christ in Prophecy, Dr. David Reagan of LambLion Ministries presented some shocking statistics that he had acquired from Jim Garlowe, pastor of Skyline Nazarene Church.

Dr. Garlowe, who is an acknowledged expert in the field of Church history, sources the following appalling information regarding the practices and beliefs of evangelical Church constituents:

19% are living with partners outside of marriage

37% do not believe the Bible to be totally accurate

45% do not believe that Jesus was sinless

52% do not believe that satan is real

57% do not believe that Jesus is the only way to eternal life

57% believe that good works play a part in gaining eternal life

Note that these figures pertain to evangelical Christians, those most noted for their obedience toward the Great Commission defined by Jesus Christ in Matthew 28:18-20:

“And Jesus came and spoke unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you; and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.”

These horrifying statistics come on the heels of an Internet edition of Prophecy News Watch that addressed the severity of another problem associated with the modern Church.

It was estimated in that article that almost eighty percent of Christian men regularly indulge in the viewing of pornography. It’s not difficult to imagine where that behavior leads. The number of actual pornography addicts is about half of those. That’s a very distressingly large portion of the Church. In effect, the cleansing of God of sexuality has not led to the cleansing of Christians from sexual deviation. To the contrary, it has had precisely the opposite effect. Not only have women been degraded in this monstrous misrepresentation of the Godhead, but Christian men have allowed themselves to be degraded as well. It doesn’t end there – degradation, whether or not it is perceived as relevant to God, leads directly to alienation from God.

Alternatively, this drift away from God may have less to do with a misunderstanding of the nature of God than a more basic indifference to God resulting from a complete devotion to the secular world.

The lack of interest in things godly represented by these statistics corresponds distressingly close to the description of the last of the seven Churches addressed by Jesus in Revelation. His message to the Laodicean Church in Revelation 3:14-19 reads as follows:

“And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write: These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God. I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot; I would thou wert cold or hot. So, then, because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing, and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked, I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anount thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten; be zealous, therefore, and repent.”

It appears that Jesus already has lit the fire by which the Church shall be refined as gold, for, in his A Prophetic Manifesto, Dr. Reagan outlined three steps toward a nation’s destruction as it turns its back on God. These steps (paraphrasing Dr. Reagan’s treatment) follow Paul’s presentation in Romans 1:24-32:

First, as a nation turns from God, God Himself politely steps back, allowing evil to flourish in the form of sexual deviation from the Biblical standard of monogamous male-female marriage (Romans 1:24, 25). This roughly corresponds to the sexual revolution of the 1960s.

Second, God unleashes a plague of explosively rampant and ubiquitous sexual deviation (Romans 1:26, 27). This began in the 1980s.

Third, society at large is delivered unto a depraved mind. At that point, as described in 2 Chronicles 36:15, 16, there is no remedy – no return and no healing (Romans 1:28-32). We seem to be there.

Returning to Dr. Reagan’s presentation of Dr. Garlowe’s historical information, Christianity in America appears to be adhering to the following event timeline:

1607-1833 (236 years): Christianity represented the establishment

1833-1918 (85 years): Christianity was the dominant force

1918-1968 (50 years): Christianity represented a sub-dominant force

1968-1988 (20 years): Christianity became a sub-culture

1988-1998 (10 years): Christianity became a counter-culture

1998-2008 (10 years): Christianity devolved into an antithetical culture

2008-present: Christianity has become a persecuted culture

Keep in mind that persecution of the Church actually performs a healing function: the superficial are removed, leaving behind the fully-committed, within whom the light of Christ shines ever brighter against a darkening world.

[Note to the Reader: Carolyn and I will be heading out on vacation for 2+ weeks. Be back with you when we return!]