Chuck Colson, speaking yesterday at the 19th Annual National Conference on Preaching, hits the nail on the head in describing what’s wrong with the churches today: they don’t know what they believe. (Hat tip: WorldMagBlog)
“Of course we care about the world. Of course we care about everything happening in society, including politics, but we better get our own house in order because what we see in the cultural collapse of America around us today and in the Western world is exactly on our doorstep,” argued Colson, who was a top aide to former President Richard Nixon before being jailed for the Watergate scandal.
Colson believes the root of the church’s problem is that Christians don’t know what they believe in.
“I think that is at the heart of the problem of the church – we replaced truth with therapy,” he said.
“Most people are basically ignorant,” he said referring to believers’ lack of knowledge on their own religion.
It’s time for churches to return to the Bible, examining it, understanding what it says and how each of us need to apply it. As Colson remarked at the conclusion of his speech:
“We cannot defend our faith nor can we live it if we don’t know what it is,” Colson concluded.
He sure thinks a lot of himself, to think he can diagnose the entire "church" and prescribe his particular remedy. What hubris!
I think the problem with xian churches is that they think they really do have the Truth, all the Truth, and nothing but the Truth. The real need is humility, of which I see very little coming from organized religion.
As I see it, the heart of all religion:
"He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?" (Micah 6:8)
Of course, I'm just a gay lib secularist, so what do I know?