Books

Focus On The Fundamentals Of The Faith

By W. Douglass Harris

Church Problems

Church problems are not peculiar to our age. From the first century to the present the church has had problems because of the human element. On the divine side the church is perfect — perfect head, foundation, organization, plan of salvation, and system of worship — but on the human side it has many imperfections. Church members present many problems because of the human element. In this article some of those problems will be considered.

Indifference: Indifference characterized the church at Laodicea (Revelation 3:16). They were neither cold nor hot — just lukewarm or indifferent. Indifference will kill any good work and such will close the doors of any congregation. It will also allow doctrinal corruption and is one of the problems in the church today. “Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference, which is, at least, half infidelity” (Edmund Burke).

Unconverted Members: When Jesus put His disciples to the test during His personal ministry, because they were unconverted many of them “went back and walked no more with Him” (John 6:66). In times of stress, confrontation of false doctrine, and opposing sin, the unconverted waver and depart. Many of those in the church are not there by personal conviction, but because of family tradition or may have been converted to some preacher, or a certain way of doing things. Those converted on the Pentecost of Acts 2 were converted to Christ and His way. Liberalism makes its major inroads with the weak members, or the unconverted.

Hobbyism: Through the years the church has had to deal with the Anti-Sunday School, Anti-College, and Anti-Individual Cup problems. In recent years it has been the Anti-Orphan Home and Anti-Cooperation hobby. Local congregations are disturbed sometimes by brethren who become hobbyist. It has been this scribe’s experience that this has been one of the major problems plaguing the church. Maintaining scriptural balance seems difficult for some brethren to accomplish.

Compromise: When brethren become obsessed with numbers and the desire to be popular with the denominations, compromise is inevitable. The problem we are having today with compromising liberalism is nothing new. It was responsible for the first apostasy following the establishment of the church in the first century, and for a division in the 19th century which resulted in the beginning of the Disciples of Christ. There are signs of compromise throughout the brotherhood today — cooperation in denominational services and seminars, baby dedication services, group singing or choirs in worship, dramatic productions, concerts to raise money, endorsement of mechanical instruments of music in worship, and unscriptural roles for women in the work of the church.

Compromising is condemned by inspiration (2 John 9-11; Galatians 1:6-9). Paul refused to compromise with “false brethren” (Galatians 2:5), and even with Peter when he yielded to pressure at Antioch and compromised his practice (Galatians 2:14).

No problem in my lifetime has threatened the purity of the church more than this one has, and it has become a serious problem in the Caribbean Lectures; no one can yet predict what will be the outcome. But we believe that when the Caribbean brethren recognize compromising liberalism, they will reject it just as they did the Anti doctrines of the 50s and 60s.