American religion today is not what it used to be. Nearly three in ten US adults are religiously unaffiliated. Through mobile devices, the internet and apps; faith has gone high tech, resulting in less church attendance. Increasingly more people these days refer to themselves as “spiritual but not religious.”
That means people today are going in many different spiritual directions. They are being exposed to a wide range of divergent beliefs. That’s where the Christian church must come in. In Paul’s first letter to Timothy, he referred to the church as “the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:15, KJV). That means God intends for the church to be the voice of truth.
Given the state of our world, the church must become a more diligent advocate of the truth. If not, over time the world will find itself so far from God, we won’t know how to find our way back “home.” Ironically, the very truth that the Christian church must stand in defense of is a main reason she has come under growing fire today.
But what’s at stake is important enough that the church must not become deterred.
When the Church Fails to Be the Voice of Truth
I believe that one of the reasons a growing number of Americans are embracing alternative means of faith, religion, and spirituality is because the church has failed to faithfully be the voice of truth on earth.
During my previous pastorate, for seven years, I and members of my congregation took to the streets to share our faith with residents throughout our city. During those seven years, we saw no other Christian bodies out there. We saw Muslims. We saw Jehovah’s Witnesses. But no other Christians.
The problem is that when we fail to be about our Father’s business, alternative religions are out there promoting their own versions of the truth. But truth is not subjective. It’s not a matter of my version versus yours. Truth does not come in many versions. If it does, then it is not truth.
God is the one who defines truth. Jesus said to the Father, “Your word is truth” (John 17:17). Truth is not negotiable. It is not “old school.” But truth endures to all generations. And God has committed truth into the hands of the body of Christ.
We can’t win the world by trying to be like the world. Hence, a vital challenge of the church today is to become a loud voice of truth in this increasingly dark world. We must not cave in to the world’s pressure to conform to it. To do so, would be a disservice to the lost. For the truth is the only means by which men and women can find their way to God.
Copyright © 2022 by Frank King. All rights reserved.