Let’s Clean Our Own Houses

You have set our iniquities before You, our secret sins in the light of Your countenance (Psalm 90:8)

For Roman Catholics the secret is out, and now we realize it involves the most revered in Church leadership. Last week in a National Review article Michael Dougherty concluded that there will be no “biological solution” to the spiritual crisis in Catholicism. Michael Dougherty and others see the older generation of leadership in the RCC as lax and accommodating. The hope for change for some was a “biological solution.” The old corrupt generation had to “age out” for real change to happen.

But Daugherty goes on to explain why waiting for a “biological solution” does not work. First, the damage that can be inflicted by a dying generation on their way out can be insurmountable. Second, just waiting is a form of cowardice that seeks to take an easy way out and encourages its own form of corruption. He ends his article with this startling quote.

There is no biological solution to a moral, spiritual, and liturgical crisis. The only solution is the very thing Catholics used to pray for after Mass. We didn’t pray for generational turnover. We didn’t pray for “orthodox” priests. We prayed for many holy priests.

We have monumental differences with Roman Catholicism. The Roman Catholic Church does not communicate the true gospel and therefore is robbed of the supernatural sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit that makes true holiness possible. But let’s get off of our spiritual high horses for a moment and learn a lesson as we observe others. Just like Daugherty stated among Catholics, many of our problems within fundamentalism are not theological or positional, they are spiritual and they are secret—for now.

We need to deal with these secret sins in our own houses before God, in His wisdom, chooses to expose them to the world. There are more sin issues than I will mention here, I am sure, but dealing with these is a good place to start.

Arrogance.

It is not as “secret” as we think it is.  The arrogance can rise from several sources. For some it is an exalted view of the pastorate that misses the point that ministry is humble service. We also have a rising educational/intellectualism that views educational accomplishments as a source of status. This results in pastors who will not listen to simple godly people because those people are not as educated.

Spiritual lethargy.

There is clearly a lack of passion for souls, for personal holiness, and for Great Commission ministry in much of professing fundamentalism. We seem to accept the lack of God’s blessing, the lack of Great Commission impact as unproblematic. Going years without seeing souls saved is NOT normal. It is NOT what God planned the New Testament Church to be. Something is wrong. The “secret” here is that many have simply given up the cause of the Great Commission but are unwilling to admit it to themselves or others. We ought to be on our knees begging God to show us ourselves so that we again might be used of Him to reach and disciple souls for His glory.

Distraction.

Fundamentalists are as distracted by the lures of our entertainment-based culture as anyone else. Whether its sports, movies/tv, hobbies, youtube videos, or interacting with virtual buddies on an internet forum, we tend to become obsessed with our play. Self-evaluation is in order here. Let’s be brutally honest about how much time we spend on the internet and entertainment (phone, computer, whatever device, hobbies) NOT doing things that make for good stewardship.

Prayerlessness.

All of the above leads to the prayer problem. We will not spend much time in personal fellowship with God when we are in habitual sin against Him—it’s too convicting, the cognitive dissonance is too great. But if we force ourselves to our knees before a holy God and spend more than just minutes in truly fellowshipping with Him and interceding for others, we will confess our wickedness and He will forgive. Prayer makes a difference both in our own spiritual lives and in the matters we bring before God. He is a prayer answering God and ultimately the solution to our spiritual crisis will be met at His feet.

There is no “biological solution” to these problems—we cannot just ignore them and wait them out. We need many more truly holy pastors and Christian leaders. We need repentance and true personal spiritual revival.