It is perhaps considered normal these days for churches to have a non-theological or even anti-theological stance. However this does have very many consequences, all of which are dangerous for the health of the church. Sure crowds can still be won and pews can still be warmed, however if 'church' is defined by the Scriptures, then to have that church, one needs to have sound theology.
Here is an excellent excerpt from “The Quiet Revolution - A Chronicle Of Beginnings of Reformation in The Southern Baptist Convention” by Ernest C. Reisinger & D. Matthew Allen, where this point is driven home powerfully. Read the waterfall model of what the authors are proposing as the effects of having bad or weak theology.Though written in the context of Southern Baptist churches, the case is very much applicable for the wider Evangelical scene.
First, many of our churches have a weak theology. Consider, for example, the doctrine of salvation. In many Southern Baptist churches, regeneration (or being born again) has simply lost its meaning. No longer does it refer to a divine act of the Holy Spirit in giving a sinner a new heart and a new life, and bringing that person from spiritual death to spiritual life. Instead, being born again is simply a synonym for what happens when a person "makes a decision to accept Jesus Christ into his heart as personal Savior." Or worse, it means to "come forward" or "walk down an aisle."
This was driven home to one of us (Allen) forcefully recently when a friend casually mentioned that his brother-in-law wanted to get saved, but he had to wait until Sunday when he could go to the local Baptist church and "walk forward" to the front to receive Christ. It apparently did not occur to him that he could believe and repent and be converted in his own home. Still further, the common twentieth century Baptist view of eternal security is fundamentally flawed. We dip ‘em and drop ‘em, and take comfort in the fact that they are saved even though they never darken the door of a church again. After all, "once saved, always saved." In this way, we ignore – to the eternal loss of many – that the flip side of God’s preservation of the saints is the biblical teaching of the saint’s perseverance in Christ. We have forgotten the historic Baptist belief that those who do not persevere are not carnal Christians; they are not Christians at all!
Predictably, this weak theology leads to weak evangelism. Much of what is called evangelism in our Baptist churches is shallow, manipulative and decision-focused. The principal tools of the trade are altar calls (in which the pump is primed by well-placed counselors who set the example in walking to the front of the church) and the "sinner’s prayer," in which the person "invites Christ into his life." Then, we give immediate assurance to the person who prays the "sinner’s prayer" that he or she is eternally secure in salvation. Never mind the life and practice tests of 1 John. (Cf. 1 John 5:13; "I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.").
Of course, the inherent result of a weak soteriology and weak evangelism is a weak membership. We base membership on a "profession of faith," rather than evidence of a changed life. Our churches baptize preschoolers and accept professions of faith from couples living in open sin. By inviting so-called carnal Christians into our fellowships, we populate our rolls with unregenerate church members.
The result of a weak membership is a demand for weak worship. Our congregations have not learned to go beyond the pabulum of shallow praise choruses so prevalent in our worship services today. The self-centered nature of these choruses is manifest. The one doing the praising is more central than the one praised in such choruses as "I Bless You," "I Just Want to Praise You," "I Only Want to Love You" and so on. This is not God-exalting worship! It is man exalting! Woe to those who are more impressed with our "love for God" than God’s love for us!
One newspaper advertisement for a church in Tampa, Florida boasts of its "casual worship." What an oxymoron this is! How can worship – acknowledging the "worth-ship" of Jesus Christ, the Holy One, God of very God, light of very light – be casual? This type of worship approach is defended as an attempt to be all things to all people. What it really represents is an attempt to co-opt the world’s values. For churches that have lost their biblical moorings, adapting worship practices to the world is not an irrational response to a worldly church membership. The problem, of course, is that it is an acutely unbiblical response.
Given these appalling facts, is it any wonder that the greatest segment of converts to the Mormon church comes from Southern Baptist congregations? And, is it any wonder that most of our Southern Baptist churches have a stagnant or declining membership? The Wall Street Journal reported in 1990 that, of the 14.9 million members of Southern Baptist churches (according to an official count), over 4.4 million are "non-resident members." This means they are members with whom the church has lost touch. Another 3 million hadn’t attended church or donated to a church in the past year. That left about 7.4 million "active" members. However, according to Sunday School consultant Glenn Smith, even this is misleading, because included in this "active" figure are those members who only attended once a year at Easter or Christmas. The only conclusion to be drawn is that our Southern Baptist Convention is a denomination of unregenerate church members!
This, then, is the diagnosis: contemporary evangelical churches as a whole, and a large number of Southern Baptist churches as a subset (dare I say the majority?), are devoid of biblical and theological thinking, have abandoned a high view of the sufficiency of Scripture, and have traded in biblical values for modern notions of modernity. In our judgment, evangelicalism is collapsing of its own weight. [1]
Thus weak theology leads to weak evangelism, which in turn leads to weak membership, which determines the worship of the church, which thus ultimately affects the glory of God in the church. Thus theology matters as the glory of God in the church matters. For those who are indifferent to the theological shallowness of the Evangelical pulpit and does not see it as a grave issue, remember the glory of God is at stake. If the glory of God is not worth fighting for, then there remains nothing worth fighting for.
Footnotes
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[1] Ernest C. Reisinger & D. Matthew Allen, A Quiet Revolution A Chronicle Of Beginnings Of Reformation in The Southern Baptist Convention, Ch. 2
