• The Timid Preachers Among Us

Ephesians 5:11-13

Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. But everything exposed by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes a light.

In my interaction with the clergy and those in full time religious work, I hear a lot of concerns about the faith becoming irrelevant for the majority of the people.  I think this is and should be a real concern, because this isn’t an idle observation or concern, but the truth.  Religious leaders have become ill, relative to the people in western culture.  The clergy has become a group of people whose sole purpose is to make their people feel good, inflate the membership and teach them abstract doctrines that have no relationship to real life, or sometimes God.

It seems that most religious leaders are quite content with being muzzled by our secular culture that would and has relegated the clergy to second-rate citizens that are not allowed to speak about politics in the public square or in their pulpits.  This seems to be true even though the government and society is corrupt and doing evil things.

I think the thing that bothers me the most about all of this is that the clergy in private seems to think of themselves as great defenders of the truth.  However, the only truth they stand for is truth that is convenient and non-offensive.  This all becomes quite obvious, when you look through Face book and see an amazing absence of any real content posted by preachers.  Most of the posts that are submitted about the corruption of politicians and government are posted by laypeople.  Little is said by the clergy about anything that is controversial.  So the Christian movement has become an army of foot soldiers with its officers hiding behind the wall of  separation  between the church and state.  By the way, that wall was erected by a corrupt politician, Senator Lyndon Johnson in 1954, and then voted in by a bipartisan ballot in Congress. Just think, large corporations can do anything they want politically and yet nonprofits like churches, American Legion and veterans organizations have no say, less they lose their tax-free status.

The consequence of this withdrawal from the real world is that the church and its leadership have ceased being the light of the world and the salt of the earth.  They are more like sugar and spice and everything nice.  The result is; the world, western culture, and the church, are filled with corruption and decay.  My counsel to the clergy is for them to take their heads out of the sand.  Stop speaking platitudes to the choir and get your holy hands dirty and engage the world.  If you haven’t noticed there is a war going on.