The Death of Christianity

The remains of a church

According to biblical prophecy, the decline and fall of Christianity will be one of the prophetic events that will occur in the end times. Here’s what Jesus Christ predicted concerning the last days directly proceeding His return: “At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people.” (Matthew 24:10-11)

With that statement, Christ revealed that not only will many abandon true Christianity, but that many others will be led astray by false prophets. Who are these false prophets and what sort of deception will they promote? Christ continued: “At that time if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or, ‘There he is!’ do not believe it. For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect--if that were possible. See, I have told you ahead to time.” (Matthew 24:23-25)

And so, Christ revealed that many will abandon the true faith for a counterfeit faith based upon supernatural events and religious experiences. The second half of Christ’s prophecy clearly reveals that there is going to be a religious revival that will spread across the world and be fueled by demonic power under the guise of a Christian revival. But before all this happens, the influence of true Christianity is going to decline and millions are going to abandon the faith.

Is this prophecy being fulfilled? In fact it began its fulfillment in the 19^th century when many European Christian seminaries and theology schools began integrating liberal secularism into their curriculums. That was a direct result of the influence that the French Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment had throughout Europe that caused many to question whether God really existed and if he did, then why did he allow evil to flourish? Liberal theologians began to ask those questions and they began to cast doubt on the authenticity of the Bible as the inerrant word of God and such historical scriptural teachings as the virgin birth of Christ, his divinity, sinless life, miracles and his resurrection from the dead.

The logical result of secularism’s influence on the weak minds of European theologians produced a universal, powerless gospel that emptied the cross of its power and reduced Christ to an ancient Gandhi. Christianity lost its power; Christ became just another religious figure and within a century, the church began losing members by the millions. If Christianity was seen as just one of many world religions, then it was reduced to a Sunday morning cultural expression. Today, most European churches are empty on Sundays except for a few hardy old souls that have remained faithful to the end. But many Europeans under the age of 50 either no longer believe in God, or they believe that he’s some impersonal energy source that exists billions of miles off somewhere in outer space. As such, they view Christianity as an outdated religion that’s no longer relevant to the world.

Europe’s secular influence began contaminating American seminaries by the late 19^th century. Like their European counterparts, American churchmen and theologians began to question and doubt the Bible and the divinity of Christ. By the 20^th century, much of Christendom had lost its focus and was promoting social justice and positive, possibility thinking over the lifesaving gospel of Jesus Christ. In fact, one of the biggest false prophets that became one of the patriarchs of the human potential movement was a man named Norman Vincent Peale who taught that man’s greatest sin was poor self-esteem.

When American denominations began ignoring Christ and denied the miracle-working power of His Holy Spirit, American churches quickly died and lost millions of members. According to Mark Noll’s A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada, the membership of America’s mainline denominations declined from 31 million in 1960 to 25 million in 1988. Furthermore, according to Ellen Lindner, (Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches 2009) America’s mainline membership dropped to 21 million by the year 2005. If Noll’s and Lindner’s numbers are correct, America’s mainline denominations lost a whopping 10 million members from 1960 to 2005. And furthermore, according to Barna Research, the total number of American churches declined from approximately 80,000 in the 1950’s to 72,000 by 2008.

While America is still considered to be the most Christian nation on earth, Christianity is waning in the United States, albeit at a slower pace than it declined in Europe. The reason for Christianity’s decline in America is simple and easy to understand; fewer people today believe in the historic, prophetic evidence for Christ as the Son of God and the uniqueness of His Gospel. Thus, the early First Century Church grew on its faith in the absolute truth of God’s word that manifested in signs, wonders and miracle-working power. The early 21^st Century Church declines because it no longer trusts in God’s word and has lost its faith in His power to perform great miracles.

Certainly, of the myriad of reasons why Christianity is in a steep decline in America and throughout most of the world is because the church has lost its love for Christ and has stopped contending for the faith against the spiritual forces of darkness. Biblical Christianity degenerated into religious churchianity and the prevailing fallen culture overtook the cross. When Christ appeared to the apostle John who was in exile from Rome on the island of Patmos, he critiqued seven churches that were located in Asia Minor. He revealed that five of them had compromised their faith and were in jeopardy of being cutoff from God. One of the churches was located in Ephesus and Christ revealed that it had lost its love for God and was just going through the proverbial motions. Christ stated: “You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first! If you do not repent, I will come and remove your lamp-stand from its place.” (Revelation 2:4-5)

Another prophetic event that Jesus revealed will prevail in the end-time world will be the increase of wickedness. (Matthew 24:12) The apostle Paul also prophesied that wickedness would increase exponentially across the world in the last days. (2Timothy 3) There is a direct correlation between the increase in wickedness throughout the world and the decline of Christianity’s influence. And when we speak of wickedness, we also include moral wickedness such as sexual perversion (homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexuality, transgenderism) fornication, adultery, drug and alcohol abuse, idolatry, occultism etc.

Certainly, crime, violence and moral depravity are fractional in many Islamic nations that are ruled by the iron fist of Sharia Law. But Sharia Law restrains by the fear of persecution, torture and death for those who violate Islamic law. Unlike Islam, true Christianity ultimately restrains by changing the human heart through the fear of God and the knowledge of his laws that everyone is accountable to. And unlike Islam, Christianity offers God’s grace to everyone through the eternal pardon for sin in Christ’s death on Calvary’s cross.

The regeneration that the Holy Spirit provides to those who are born into eternal life through Christ is what restrains evil by creating a new person into the image of God through Christ. The Christian church forgot about that a long time ago and it’s been fighting a losing battle ever since. If the empty pews don’t provide a strong clue, then nothing will.