Close Your Church for Good, Chap. 2, Sec. 2. In the previous post, I asked you to imagine what would happen in your community if your chuch ceased to exist. We continue this line of inquiry in this post.

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How about the other people in town? Would the residents even know your church was gone? Again, it probably depends on the size and prominence, but in general, your church closing down would generate little more than gossip and speculation. Would the city council care? The Police Department? The Mayor? How about the gangs, prostitutes, and drug dealers? Would the media notice? Would the nightly news report it? Would the newspaper write an article? Even if they did, would it be a leading story? Would it make front page? They might do a report if your church was an historic landmark, but probably only if your town is small. Old churches close all the time, and the media rarely gives even a few lines of news. The only other time church closures get reported is when it is a mega-church, or when the pastor or staff are caught in some sort of sex scandal or financial crime.

So tragically, for far too many churches, the only people who would really notice that your church closed are the people who attend there and the pastors of the other churches that would receive them. The average person in your community and neighborhood would only know that your church shut down because the “For Sale” sign went up. The brutal truth is that, for most churches, if they were to close, the negative impact on the surrounding community would be next to nothing.

Why is this? You hear some people teach that the church is the hope of the world, but how can this be if the people in your neighborhood and town wouldn’t even know if you were gone? What has happened that the church, which seeks to be light and salt in the world, has become so insignificant and marginalized?

Close Your Church for Good, Chap. 1, Sec. 7. In the previous section, we reviewed the history of the church in which it accepted riches, fame, glory, authority, and power.

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The rationale and justification for why the church did this is easy to understand. The conversion of Emperor Constantine caused persecution to cease and brought in tens of thousands of additional converts. Leaders wanted to protect these new believers from heresy or from other religions. Gaining money, power, and buildings made the training and education of the masses more manageable. Also, being the official religion opened the way for the rapid spread of the Gospel.

And so began what many call the “Golden Age of Christianity.” With the money and power it had gained, it had the resources to provide for its own needs. It became powerful as the official religion of the Empire. It gained authority and glory in the eyes of the people. Its clergy became scholars and philosophers, great men of learning and education. Buildings were constructed and great public works were performed. Laws were written, rulings were made, and control was gained. All of this resulted in the spread of Christianity, and with it, better government, improved education, and increased morality.

What could be wrong with all this? Only one thing. Somewhere along the way, the very things that Jesus had rejected to accomplish His mission—self-reliance, power, authority, glory, riches, recognition by men, and control—these things were adopted in full force by the church. The Golden Age was filled with Fool’s Gold. The very things that Jesus refused, the church accepted.

Close Your Church for Good, Chap. 1, Sec. 6.

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Following His victory over temptation, Jesus began His ministry, gathered and taught disciples, then died on the cross and rose again from the dead. In His resurrection, He gained what Satan had promised, but Jesus gained it according to the will and ways of God, not in selfishness, but in service; not in power, but in humility; not in riches, fame, honor, and glory, but in poverty, weakness, shame, and relative obscurity. Before He ascended to heaven, He instructed His disciples to follow His example, and pass on the training that He had given them.

Over the next few centuries, the followers of Jesus did their best. But it was tough. They faced constant threats from the government and the military. Some of them lost their jobs, their families, and even their lives. They were scorned and ridiculed. And yet, as they served and loved others, gave self-sacrificially of their time and possessions, offered forgiveness and grace when wronged, and lived faithfully to the example of Jesus, the message about Jesus continued to spread and lives were changed.

But then something happened. The temptations came back around. As more and more people became followers of Jesus, the focus of many Christians began to shift. The emphasis began to move away from self-sacrifice, service, generosity, humility, and peace, and toward power, influence, prominence, authority, recognition, and control. This is seen in a variety of ways. Out of pure motives to protect and educate new believers, church leaders began to consolidate power and control. They created a hierarchy of religious leaders who helped develop rules of morality and decide which understandings of Scripture were correct. They tried to increase their influence in society by gaining more followers and defending Christian beliefs against the claims of philosophy and other religions. 

One of the greatest shifts came when the Roman Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity after he defeated his enemies under the sign of the cross. As a result of this victory, he declared Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. Mass conversions followed. Thousands of pagan temples were transformed into places of Christian worship. Almost overnight, Christianity became rich, powerful, and prominent. It also became a tool of the Empire, blessing the Empire’s wars, approving the Empire’s laws, and installing the Empire’s rulers. In exchange, the Empire gave the church land, money, and buildings. The church had gained power.

In his book, The Myth of the Christian Religion, Gregory Boyd describes the transition this way:

Once the Church acquired power over others, everything changed. A movement that began by viewing the acquisition of political and military power as a satanic temptation now viewed it as a divine blessing. A movement that was birthed by Christ refusing to conquer his enemies in order to die for them now set out to conquer enemies—for Christ. The faith that previously motivated people to trust in the power of the cross now inspired them to trust in the power of the sword. Those who had previously understood that their job was to serve the world now aspired to rule it. The community that once pointed to their love for enemies and refusal to engage in violence as proof of Christ’s lordship now pointed to their ability to violently defeat enemies as proof of Christ’s lordship.

Whereas Jesus has turned down selfish individualism, power, control, riches, fame, recognition, and glory as a means of accomplishing His mission, the church fully embraced such things as a means to spread the Gospel, fulfill the Great Commission, and expand the Kingdom of God on earth.

Close Your Church for Good, Chap. 1, Sec. 5.

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In the first temptation, turning stone into bread, Satan wanted Jesus to act selfishly. Satan wanted Jesus to become self-reliant, self-centered, and to seek His own self-provision. When Jesus multiplies the loaves and fish later in His ministry, it is not for Himself, but for others. God’s will is done by putting the needs and interests of others above your own. So the first temptation is about selfish individualism: what I want and getting my needs met.

The second temptation focuses on authority and power. Jesus came to reclaim authority over the nations, but He had to gain it through death and suffering, not through a deal with the devil. And furthermore, the devil’s idea of authority is at odds with that of God. When the devil exerts authority, he does so with money, glory, power, riches, and fame. This is contrary to the quiet and gentle authority of Jesus. This temptation is also about control. Satan wants to control people. He wants to control the world and the universe. He wants to control God. This temptation was a power grab. In offering Jesus power, Satan positioned himself to gain even more power. Jesus is not opposed to power, but knew that it must be gained through sacrifice and service, and used for the benefit and blessing of others.

Finally, Jesus is offered the chance to receive praise and recognition from men. He is taken to the pinnacle of the temple, and told to throw Himself down. God would be forced, Satan suggested, to rescue Jesus by sending angels to catch Him. Since the temple courts were nearly always filled with people, this angelic rescue would take place in the sight of them all. They would be in awe of Jesus. Many would recognize Him as the Messiah. They would praise Him and welcome Him. All would see that God was truly with Jesus, watching over and protecting Him. It was an opportunity to be recognized. It was an opportunity for Jesus to make His name great, and receive His due glory.

So the three temptations were about selfish individualism, power, control, riches, fame, recognition, and glory. These were offered by Satan as a means to accomplish the mission of Jesus. But Jesus turned them all down, knowing that such things would not help, but would only hinder the goals of God on earth.

Close Your Church for Good, Chap 1. Sec. 4. (I concluded the last section with two key questions about the premise of this book. I now begin to defend the premise that there are Satanic influences in the church.)

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The place to start is the Garden of Eden. God created the heavens and the earth, and all the celestial and earthly bodies to fill them. At the pinnacle of creation, God created Adam and Eve. They were given authority over the earth, to tend the plants and animals, and multiply upon the earth. But Satan, in the form of a serpent, was also in the garden. How he came to be present in God’s good creation is a subject for another time. Satan questioned Eve, challenged the instructions and intelligence of God, and ultimately deceived her into eating fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. As a result, they brought death upon themselves, a curse upon creation, and surrendered dominion over the earth to Satan.

For the next several thousand years, the story of Scripture reveals a constant struggle between the plans of God and the perversions of Satan. God sets something in place, and Satan twists and perverts it so that while it still resembles the original plan, it accomplishes the exact opposite of God’s intent. Eventually, the new Adam, Jesus Christ, enters the story. Among other things, He comes to win back dominion. And so, as in the beginning, Satan sets out to turn Jesus away from the instructions and plans of God.

Satan uses against Jesus the same methods and same tactics he used with Adam and Eve. He questions the word of God and challenges the authority of God. And ultimately, Satan brings three temptations before Jesus. According to Luke 4:1-13, the first temptation was for Jesus to satisfy His hunger by turning stones into bread.  In the second, Satan promised to give authority over the nations to Jesus if Jesus would just worship Satan. Finally, Jesus was tempted to perform a great miracle in the sight of the worshippers in the temple courts by throwing Himself from the pinnacle of the temple so that angels would rescue Him before He struck the ground.

The temptations were not just attempts by Satan to get Jesus to do something contrary to the will of God. On the surface of the temptations, there is nothing overtly “sinful” about them. Satan was not asking Jesus to murder someone or commit adultery. After all, if Jesus is hungry, and He has the power to make stones into bread, what’s the harm? Later in the Gospels, Jesus turns water into wine at a party and multiplies five loaves and two fish to feed a hungry crowd. Is this first temptation so different? If Jesus could multiply fish and loaves of bread to feed hungry people, and turn water into wine to give people more to drink, what’s the harm in transforming a few stones into bread to satisfy his own hunger?

The same dilemmas exist with the next two temptations.  One of the goals of Jesus was to regain authority over the nations of the world. And now it was being offered to Him. Finally, during His ministry, Jesus performed many miracles in the sight of people, and one of the reasons was so that they would recognize Him as the Messiah. What’s the problem with one more?

Ultimately, the temptations are not about the action that Satan suggests. They are actually all very good and noble actions. If Jesus were a pragmatist — if the ends justified the means — then there would be nothing to stop Jesus from doing what Satan wanted. But Jesus knew that God’s will must be done in God’s way. And He also knew that there are no shortcuts to accomplishing the will of God. The reason Satan’s temptations would lead to sin is not exactly in the outcome, but in the methods and motives required to reach those outcomes.