The Waning Authority of Christ in the Churches - A. W. Tozer
This article appeared in The Alliance Witness May 15, 1963, just two days after the death of Tozer. In a sense it was his valedictory, for it expressed the concern of his heart. Since this condition existed in the 1960s, one can only wonder what he would say of the evangelical churches in the 21st Century.
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HERE
IS THE BURDEN of my heart; and while I claim for myself no special
inspiration I yet feel that this is also the burden of the Spirit.
If
I know my own heart it is love alone that moves me to write this. What I
write here is not the sour ferment of a mind agitated by contentions
with my fellow Christians. There have been no such contentions. I have
not been abused, mistreated or attacked by anyone. Nor have these
observations grown out of any unpleasant experiences that I have had in
my association with others...
Let
me state the cause of my burden. It is this: Jesus Christ has today
almost no authority at all among the groups that call themselves by His
name. By these I mean not the Roman Catholics nor the liberals, nor the
various quasi-Christian cults. I do mean Protestant churches generally,
and I include those that protest the loudest that they are in spiritual
descent from our Lord and His apostles, namely, the evangelicals.
It
is a basic doctrine of the New Testament that after His resurrection
the Man Jesus was declared by God to be both Lord and Christ, and that
He was invested by the Father with absolute Lordship over the church
which is His Body. All authority is His in heaven and in earth. In His
own proper time He will exert it to the full, but during this period in
history He allows this authority to be challenged or ignored. And just
now it is being challenged by the world and ignored by the church.
The
present position of Christ in the gospel churches may be likened to
that of a king in a limited, constitutional monarchy. The king
(sometimes depersonalized by the term "the Crown") is in such a country
no more than a traditional rallying point, a pleasant symbol of unity
and loyalty much like a flag or a national anthem. He is lauded, feted
and supported, but his real authority is small. Nominally he is head
over all, but in every crisis someone else makes the decisions. On
formal occasions he appears in his royal attire to deliver the tame,
colorless speech put into his mouth by the real rulers of the country.
The whole thing may be no more than good-natured make-believe, but it is
rooted in antiquity, it is a lot of fun and no one wants to give it up.
Among
the gospel churches Christ is now in fact little more than a beloved
symbol. "All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name" is the church's national
anthem and the cross is her official flag, but in the week-by-week
services of the church and the day-by-day conduct of her members someone
else, not Christ, makes the decisions. Under proper circumstances
Christ is allowed to say "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy
laden"
or "Let not your heart be troubled," but when the speech is finished
someone else takes over. Those in actual authority decide the moral
standards of the church, as well as all objectives and all methods
employed to achieve them. Because of long and meticulous organization it
is now possible for the youngest pastor just out of seminary to have
more actual authority in a church than Jesus Christ has.
Not
only does Christ have little or no authority; His influence also is
becoming less and less. I would not say that He has none, only that it
is small and diminishing. A fair parallel would be the influence of
Abraham Lincoln over the American people. Honest Abe is still the idol
of the country. The likeness of his kind, rugged face, so homely that it
is beautiful, appears everywhere. It is easy to grow misty-eyed over
him. Children are brought up on stories of his love, his honesty and his
humility.
But
after we have gotten control over our tender emotions what have we
left? No more than a good example which, as it recedes into the past,
becomes more and more unreal and exercises less and less real influence.
Every scoundrel is ready to wrap Lincoln's long black coat around him.
In the cold light of political facts in the United States the constant
appeal to Lincoln by the politicians is a cynical joke.
The
Lordship of Jesus is not quite forgotten among Christians, but it has
been relegated to the hymnal where all responsibility toward it may be
comfortably discharged in a glow of pleasant religious emotion. Or if it
is taught as a theory in the classroom it is rarely applied to
practical living. The idea that the Man Christ Jesus has absolute and
final authority over the whole church and over all of its members in
every detail of their lives is simply not now accepted as true by the
rank and file of evangelical Christians.
What
we do is this: We accept the Christianity of our group as being
identical with that of Christ and His apostles. The beliefs, the
practices, the ethics, the activities of our group are equated with the
Christianity of the New Testament. Whatever the group thinks or says or
does is scriptural, no questions asked. It is assumed that all our Lord
expects of us is that we busy ourselves with the activities of the
group. In so doing we are keeping the commandments of Christ.
To
avoid the hard necessity of either obeying or rejecting the plain
instructions of our Lord in the New Testament we take refuge in a
liberal interpretation of them. Casuistry is not the possession of Roman
Catholic theologians alone. We evangelicals also know how to avoid the
sharp point of obedience by means of fine and intricate explanations.
These are tailor-made for the flesh. They excuse disobedience, comfort
carnality and make the words of Christ of none effect. And the essence
of it all is that Christ simply could not have meant what He said. His
teachings are accepted even theoretically only after they have been
weakened by interpretation.
Yet
Christ is consulted by increasing numbers of persons with "problems"
and sought after by those who long for peace of mind. He is widely
recommended as a kind of spiritual psychiatrist with remarkable powers
to straighten people out. He is able to deliver them from their guilt
complexes and to help them to avoid serious psychic traumas by making a
smooth and easy adjustment to society and to their own ids. Of course
this strange Christ has no relation whatever to the Christ of the New
Testament. The true Christ is also Lord, but this accommodating Christ
is little more than the servant of the people.
But
I suppose I should offer some concrete proof to support my charge that
Christ has little or no authority today among the churches. Well, let me
put a few questions and let the answers be the evidence.
What
church board consults our Lord's words to decide matters under
discussion? Let anyone reading this who has had experience on a church
board try to recall the times or time when any board member read from
the Scriptures to make a point, or when any chairman suggested that the
brethren should see what instructions the Lord had for them on a
particular question. Board meetings are habitually opened with a formal
prayer or "a season of prayer"; after that the Head of the Church is
respectfully silent while the real rulers take over. Let anyone who
denies this bring forth evidence to refute it. I for one will be glad to
hear it.
What
Sunday school committee goes to the Word for directions? Do not the
members invariably assume that they already know what they are supposed
to do and that their only problem is to find effective means to get it
done? Plans, rules, "operations" and new methodological techniques
absorb all their time and attention. The prayer before the meeting is
for divine help to carry out their plans. Apparently the idea that the
Lord might have some instructions for them never so much as enters their
heads.
Who
remembers when a conference chairman brought his Bible to the table
with him for the purpose of using it? Minutes, regulations, rules of
order, yes. The sacred commandments of the Lord, no. An absolute
dichotomy exists between the devotional period and the business session.
The first has no relation to the second.
What
foreign mission board actually seeks to follow the guidance of the Lord
as provided by His Word and His Spirit? They all think they do, but
what they do in fact is to assume the scripturalness of their ends and
then ask for help to find ways to achieve them. They may pray all night
for God to give success to their enterprises, but Christ is desired as
their helper, not as their Lord. Human means are devised to achieve ends
assumed to be divine. These harden into policy, and thereafter the Lord
doesn't even have a vote.
In
the conduct of our public worship where is the authority of Christ to
be found? The truth is that today the Lord rarely controls a service,
and the influence He exerts is very small. We sing of Him and preach
about Him, but He must not interfere; we worship our way, and it must be
right because we have always done it that way, as have the other
churches in our group.
What
Christian when faced with a moral problem goes straight to the Sermon
on the Mount or other New Testament Scripture for the authoritative
answer? Who lets the words of Christ be final on giving, birth control,
the bringing up of a family, personal habits, tithing, entertainment,
buying, selling and other such important matters?
What
theological school, from the lowly Bible institute up, could continue
to operate if it were to make Christ Lord of its every policy? There may
be some, and I hope there are, but I believe I am right when I say that
most such schools" to stay in business are forced to adopt procedures
which find no justification in the Bible they profess to teach. So we
have this strange anomaly: the authority of Christ is ignored in order
to maintain a school to teach among other things the authority of
Christ.
The causes back of the decline in our Lord's authority are many. I name only two.
One
is the power of custom, precedent and tradition within the older
religious groups. These like gravitation affect every particle of
religious practice within the group, exerting a steady and constant
pressure in one direction. Of course that direction is toward conformity
to the status quo. Not Christ but custom is lord in this situation. And
the same thing has passed over (possibly to a slightly lesser degree)
into the other groups such as the full gospel tabernacles, the holiness
churches, the pentecostal and fundamental churches and the many
independent and undenominational churches found everywhere throughout
the North American continent.
The
second cause is the revival of intellectualism among the evangelicals.
This, if I sense the situation correctly, is not so much a thirst for
learning as a desire for a reputation of being learned. Because of it
good men who ought to know better are being put in the position of
collaborating with the enemy. I'll explain.
Our
evangelical faith (which I believe to be the true faith of Christ and
His apostles) is being attacked these days from many different
directions. In the Western world the enemy has forsworn violence. He
comes against us no more with sword and fagot; he now comes smiling,
bearing gifts. He raises his eyes to heaven and swears that he too
believes in the faith of our fathers, but his real purpose is to destroy
that faith, or at least to modify it to such an extent that it is no
longer the supernatural thing it once was. He comes in the name of
philosophy or psychology or anthropology, and with sweet reasonableness
urges us to rethink our historic position, to be less rigid, more
tolerant, more broadly understanding.
He
speaks in the sacred jargon of the schools, and many of our
half-educated evangelicals run to fawn on him. He tosses academic
degrees to the scrambling sons of the prophets as Rockefeller used to
toss dimes to the children of the peasants. The evangelicals who, with
some justification, have been accused of lacking true scholarship, now
grab for these status symbols with shining eyes, and when they get them
they are scarcely able to believe their eyes. They walk about in a kind
of ecstatic unbelief, much as the soloist of the neighborhood church
choir might were she to be invited to sing at La Scala.
For
the true Christian the one supreme test for the present soundness and
ultimate worth of everything religious must be the place our Lord
occupies in it. Is He Lord or symbol? Is He in charge of the project or
merely one of the crew? Does He decide things or only help to carry out
the plans of others? All religious activities, from the simplest act of
an individual Christian to the ponderous and expensive operations of a
whole denomination, may be proved by the answer to the question, Is
Jesus Christ Lord in this act? Whether our works prove to be wood, hay
and stubble or gold and silver and precious stones in that great day
will depend upon the right answer to that question.
What,
then, are we to do? Each one of us must decide, and there are at least
three possible choices. One is to rise up in shocked indignation and
accuse me of irresponsible reporting. Another is to nod general
agreement with what is written here but take comfort in the fact that
there are exceptions and we are among the exceptions. The other is to go
down in meek humility and confess that we have grieved the Spirit and
dishonored our Lord in failing to give Him the place His Father has
given Him as Head and Lord of the Church.
Either
the first or the second will but confirm the wrong. The third if
carried out to its conclusion can remove the curse. The decision lies
with us.
excerpted from: http://www.awtozerclassics.com/articles/article/4938678/86408.htm
This and other excellent articles are found in the book GOD TELLS THE MAN WHO CARES.