Erosion

a: to diminish or destroy by degrees: to eat away by slow destruction of substance
b: to cause to deteriorate or disappear as if by eating or wearing away
“Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season...For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, keep your head in all situations…” -2 Timothy 4:2-5 (NIV)

There is a danger our world is facing today that is far more threatening than global warming. The best word to describe it, according to Chuck Swindoll, is erosion. Erosion is so dangerous because it is subtle, slow, silent, and serious. It can reshape or even destroy the entire landscape of an area over the course of time. It doesn’t happen immediately, which we might call an explosion. It is gradual, thus we call it erosion.

The erosion I’m referring to is the disintegration of true Biblical understanding, which begins to change the landscape of our Biblical worldview, and eventually results in a new belief system and set of values. The reality is that this erosion would have been exposed and reversed, had it occurred in a single generation. But since the 1950’s, the priority of Biblical exposition and understanding, taught from the pulpits of America, has been increasingly downplayed.

The changing political and social landscape of the 1960’s and 70’s galvanized those churches that held to sola scriptura, and forced many pastors to choose between teaching the Bible and embracing the culture. The felt-needs phenomenon and seeker-sensitive emphasis of the 1980’s also contributed widely to this beginning decline. By the turn of the century, churches were bending over backwards to stay “relevant” in a postmodern culture. They began emphasizing scripture less and less, while at the same time adopting something they felt was more ‘palatable’: psychology, secular humanism, liberal theology, or just feel-good advice.

Today, the erosion is complete. We live in an age when preaching the Word just isn’t “in”. The church by and large has become Biblically illiterate and scripturally unsound, and therefore we are now morally unstable, socially detached, and evangelistically silent. What must change if we don’t want to see the Christian witness snuffed out or redefined by the time the next generation is on the scene?

In the book of Daniel, we read of much of the same problems that Christianity is facing in today’s postmodern society. The political ruler was antagonistic towards people of faith, much like our political scene today—whether in judicial decisions or eventual laws created that limit our freedom of expression in worship. The culture of Babylon sought to not only rename the young men of Judah, but also indoctrinate them in the literature and learning of their cultural ideals. The education our college students receive today is at best a study in pluralism, and at worse a tearing down of Judeo-Christian worldviews.
Most of the tactics succeeded, and the young men of Judah were successfully assimilated. But a few resolved not to defile themselves…they chose to be set apart, to not eat what the culture fed them, or bow down to the gods they were exposed to. The result was a radical revolution; not of the believers, but of the society!

Today it requires men (and women) to stand in the pulpit or Sunday school room, and not give in to the pressure or persuasion of cultural relevancy at the cost of Biblical truth. We need to determine in our hearts that God’s Word won’t return void, but will accomplish the purpose for which He sent it. Paul warned us in 2 Timothy 4 that this day would come. Men are not enduring sound doctrine and are turning from the truth. Our job is to preach the Word, to be ready in and out of season, and to keep our head in all situations.

We can stop the erosion, even reverse it! But it means coming back to a simple understanding of what the Bible says, what it means, and how important it is that we obey all that Jesus commanded us to do. If we put as much emphasis on doing that as we do buying hybrid cards, eating organic food, or supporting “green” businesses, we may stop something much worse than global warming!

-Pilgrim