Why We’re Not Going To Church

Why We’re Not Going To Church

There are many reasons why people no longer go to church. According to several surveys, the number of used-to-be church goers no longer going to church is growing, especially in the young-adult, twenty-somethings. The following is a brief list of reasons. Some of them may be found, discussed in more detail, in the book entitled "already gone - Why your kids will quit church and what you can do to stop it," by Ken Ham & Britt Beemer with Todd Hillard. (Available from www.AnswersInGenesis.org) (See also the articles "Should I Go To Church" & "What Keeps People From Believing ...?")

Years ago before our societies were so busy and so entertainment driven, churches were the center of the community. Church is where people went for social enjoyment, and support & encouragement from friends. Church was often the meeting house for all sorts of town meetings. It was the place to go to see people and discuss concerns of the day as well as to study God’s word, and praise & worship god.

Today there are so many other activities which compete with the church and church time. Church no longer has the priority in many people’s lives as it once had years ago. We have become a very busy and selfish society which is consumed with selfish pleasures and being entertained. People often sleep-in during church time or go to ball games and outdoor activities (as hunting, fishing and trips) during church service time. [Just because you are away from church doing other activities doesn’t mean you can’t also worship God, but seldom is time taken to worship God when people participate in activities outside of church.]

When twenty-somethings were asked why they no longer attended church, one of the top reasons was that they were bored there. They are either not entertained or they are not hearing what they want to hear (not enough Scripture teaching, apologetics, life applications, etc.). For several years now our society has put great emphasis on entertaining our kids. Kids feel they must be entertained constantly. Talking and texting on cell phones, playing electronic games, surfing the internet, watching TV and movies, etc. occupy most of their time. Many churches today work very hard to make sure kids are entertained to try to keep them coming to church. Unfortunately though many kids will go to youth activities in the church, but may seldom, if ever, attend worship services with adults. They fail to realize that church is also about worshiping, praising and thanking God. It is not all about getting something for themselves. As they grow up, if they are not used to going to worship services with adults, then there is no place they will feel comfortable going once they are too old for youth programs.

Some churches have a problem truly welcoming visitors or new members; while others are cliquey and tend to ostracize people who are different than they are. When people do not feel accepted by members of their church or by any church, they learn that it is easier to just stay home than go to church and be rejected or ignored and not truly cared for. Such attitudes may cause people to reject God or Christianity or cause them to look for other ways to worship and study God’s word. They may find comfort in watching a church service on the television or listening to a preacher on the radio or just reading their Bible or biblical devotional at home. But this is not the same as fellowshipping with other believers who sincerely love and care for them.

Some people question Christianity when they see so many denominations. "If the Bible is true, why do so many groups disagree with what it says?" & "Why aren’t other religions just as good?" & "There must be many ways to get to heaven - not just one." What they do not realize is that the Bible is God-inspired (with much evidence to support that it is) and more reliable than any other religious book (See "Is Jesus Really The Only Way?"). Also we have many denominations due to disagreements in peripheral things, but not due to faith in the basic doctrines (See "Why Are There So Many ... ?").

People often see church leaders and other members as hypocrites - they tell people how they are supposed to live according to the Bible, but they do not live that way themselves. They do not practice what they preach. But everyone must remember that we are all human; we make mistakes. We are born with a sin nature, so it is human nature to do wrong. Christians are supposed to do their best to avoid sinful things and turn away from sinful lifestyles, but they occasionally slip up (See "What Keeps People From Believing ...?").

Kids today have been indoctrinated in the idea of tolerance. So many of them have difficulty with church members who won’t compromise their views - like Jesus being the only way to heaven (See "Only God Can Form a Basis for Truth").

Morals in our society, as a whole, have changed drastically too and the Bible is intolerant to many of the immoral views we now hold as a country. Therefore many people see the Bible as old-fashioned, out of date, and out of touch with reality, so it is not relevant to them personally. Our kids have been taught by society that there are no absolute truths; all truth is relative. Again, our society is being brainwashed by our mass media as Hollywood, television, our news media, etc. Each generation, as a whole, is slipping further in their moral beliefs and not taking responsibility for their actions. They are choosing to ignore the biblical teachings and making excuses for, what they believe, the Bible’s unreliability, in order to make themselves feel better about themselves and their decisions (See "Prayer in School Affects all of Society" & "No Stopping on the Slippery Slope").

Liberal, secular, humanistic, non-Christian leaders learned a long time ago how to reach our children and how to influence them. Remove the Bible from schools to remove the basis for absolute truth and moral behavior, then teach them tolerance and acceptance of immoral lifestyles and decisions. Also take away parent notification so kids can learn to do whatever they please without moral guidance. Since children have been given this freedom to live contrary to biblical teachings, they do not want an organization, like a church, telling them that their decisions and actions are wrong. Unfortunately many churches around the country are caving in and showing tolerance and acceptance of such behavior without showing people that such living is contrary to biblical teaching. As a result we are seeing less respect for God and the Bible, for churches and moral teachings. According to a 1993 report in the article "Prayer in School Affects all of Society" - we know that the removal of prayer and the Bible are not the cause of all social ills, but "Since prayer was removed from public school classrooms in 1962, we have had a six-fold increase in violent crime, our divorce rate has tripled, births to single mothers have increased five-fold, and the teenage suicide rate has tripled." Since then it has only worsened along with rates and acceptance of abortion, homosexuality and gay marriage. Premarital sex has also been normalized by the entertainment industry creating a drastic rise in its consequences of unwanted pregnancies, abortions, broken families, fatherless homes, STD’s and emotional disorders especially among teens and young adults.

So What Do We Do?

Churches often tell people what to believe, but not why to believe. Satan, through a simple idea and suggestion, caused Adam and Eve to doubt the Word of God. Today, doubt in God’s Word is what is causing people to distrust God and the Bible. More and more of man’s ideas about the origins of things in nature is used to question God’s Word recorded in the Bible. People are being taught, even in churches, that man’s ideas about historical science (such as the "Big Bang" and life happening by chance, animals evolving from lower to higher life forms over millions of years, and man evolving from the apes) are "fact," so we must reinterpret the accounts in Genesis to make them fit the "facts." So if Genesis must be reinterpreted, other parts of the Bible can be reinterpreted too to fit man’s views, since the Bible is obviously not reliable if it has to be reinterpreted. (See "How To Reach Non-Believers Today")

Unfortunately, most churches do not know or teach the truth, that there are many scientific evidences which support the creation, flood, and tower of Babel accounts in Genesis and the amazing reliability of the Bible, and discredit man’s evolutionary views. Churches need to teach these scientific evidences so their congregations will be able to defend the Word of God when outsiders question His Word and when members of their church have questions or doubts.

We must continue to teach about Jesus and the gospel, but don’t let the foundation of members’ beliefs crumble because we can’t defend the Bible from its beginning in Genesis. Answer their questions by giving them evidence to support the Bible, and watch their faith in Jesus grow due to their knowing they can trust the Bible. What about miracles and fulfilled prophecy in the Bible - did they really happen? Well, that all depends on whether the Bible can be trusted. Do we trust it because our church tells us to believe, or do we trust what it says because we have seen the evidence for its reliability?

When we as a culture no longer trust the Bible, "the structure of Christianity (its morality, its Christian worldview) collapses, to be replaced by a man-centered structure where moral relativism would pervade the culture. That is what we have seen across Europe, and before our very eyes in America." (Already Gone ..., p.104)

Where are people going to learn the evidence for biblical reliability and for our true origins? They won’t get it from our typical educational system or our mass media, both of which are progressively teaching anti-Christian morals and anti-Christian worldviews. The best way to teach biblical reliability to our society is through our churches. Find ways to incorporate evidences for biblical reliability and the truth of Genesis into Sunday School classes, church services, youth activity groups, Vacation Bible School, and special programs. Repeat successful programs and encourage members to invite others to these special presentations.

Just as we repeat the teachings of Christmas and Easter every year, we must repeat the teachings of biblical reliability to keep it fresh in our understandings and to keep reaching new members. Have, as part of a new member packet, handouts on biblical reliability. Also remember, we learn by repetition, so find several ways to teach this message and share successful ideas with other churches.

As Ken Ham, in the book Already Gone ... , put it, "We see it as our job to defend the Christian faith, stand on the authority of God’s Word without compromise, and proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ. And when the relevancy of the Word of God is restored, lives will be changed as the power and authority of the living Word of God empowers their lives. Then, we believe, these individuals will permeate the culture by living truthfully and honestly in harmony with godly principles ... and then culture we be changed from the bottom up." (Already Gone ..., p.106)

Our goal in retaining young members in our churches should be to entertain them enough to keep them interested in fellowshipping with church members, but also to teach them about the Bible and the importance of putting God first in their lives. They need to be shown how truly reliable the entire Bible is and how the Bible relates to their lives. They should learn how to defend the Bible against critics and their claims of contradictions and errors in the Bible. We must teach them and present them with material which supports the overwhelming evidence for the Bible’s reliability before liberal professors and others give them contradictory materials and ideas (See "Evidence for Biblical Reliability" & "The Bible Stands Alone" articles). Also see "Contradictions in the Bible - Why?" to show them that there are really no contradictions - just misinterpretations. Once they understand that the Bible can be trusted, then you have built a foundation for teaching the gospel and Scriptures that relate to their life and their problems.

We need to invite and entertain immoral, lost and unconcerned children and adults into our churches. We must learn to accept them, realizing they need to be saved, but we must not tolerate their immoral lifestyles which contradict biblical teachings. We must stress to them our love and sincere concern for them and our willingness to help with their needs. We must show them why we believe immoral lifestyles are wrong and encourage them to accept the Bible and it’s teachings. Warning: for those who refuse to attempt to leave their immoral lifestyle and pose a threat of influencing our children or other church members, they must be asked to leave with the understanding that someone will be available to talk with them when they are ready to talk. Many hearts are hardened and they will not listen because they are not ready to leave their lifestyle or to accept the Lord yet. You may try to keep in touch with them, but do not give them opportunities to influence others in your church.

Since most kids lose their faith and leave the church (mentally) by Middle School or High School, we must recognize the problems in our church and reach children soon and often. We learn best by repetition. What are our kids being taught repetitively? They are often bombard by secular, non-Christian values many hours a day every day; but how often are they taught Christian values, shown proper behavior, and reminded about the reliability of the Bible and the importance of living by its teachings (and the consequences of rebelling against it). It is the parents’ and churches’ responsibility to teach our children and train them to be responsible citizens and mature Christians.

What Keeps People From Believing?

What Keeps People From Believing In God And The Bible?

By Brooks A. Harris

Often non-Christians see Christians as people who are to be sinless. Therefore Christians are expected to set the example of how a Godly person should live. But since many Christians live a life which is seen as un-Godly, non-Christians see many Christians as hypocrites and untrustworthy. Why would anyone want to be a member of such a group? What non-Christians do not understand is that all people are sinners; no person is sinless (other than Jesus Christ). Remember that the church is a hospital for sinners and not a club for saints. If you took all the sinners out of church, there would be no one left. We should pray and attend church (to worship God and fellowship with other believers) to strengthen our faith and our relationship with our Lord. It is up to Jesus to judge and handle those who are hypocrites to the Christian morals and laws. To be saved and to enter the gates of God’s heavenly kingdom, we must first sincerely believe that Jesus Christ died for our sins, then we must try our best to live with Christian morals and obey God’s laws. A true Christian is a changed person with true desires to follow the laws of God. For those who are not willing to make Christ more valuable than the follies of sin and continue to disobey God’s laws and morals, there is strong doubt that they are truly saved. Broad is the way to a life of corruption and eternal damnation, but narrow is the way to righteousness and eternal salvation. Therefore many people will say that they accept Jesus as their savior and will call themselves Christians in order to supposedly secure their place in heaven. This is their "fire insurance" to keep them out of hell when they die. But unless they also accept Jesus as their Lord and turn their life over to Him, they are not truly saved and will not enter God’s heavenly kingdom. So do not let the ignorance and actions of others keep you from being saved.


A non-Christian interested in the Christian concept is often afraid of what their non-Christian peers will think or say about them if they pursue Christianity. They do not want to be seen as a religious freak. But true Christians learn that what is important and fulfilling in their life is to be pleasing to God and not necessarily to their peers.


Although many non-Christians are not truly happy with their lifestyles, they believe that being a Christian will keep them from having fun. They may be afraid that they will have to give up some of their friends, entertainment choices or certain material possessions. They do not understand what Christianity can do for them instead of to them. God gives us the opportunity to change but does not force us to change. When a person truly becomes a Christian, their priorities and what is important to them will change.


If God exists and is all-good, all-powerful, and all knowing, why does God allow bad things to happen to good people? This keeps many people from believing that God really exists. The truth is that God loves us so much that He gives us the freedom to make our own decisions. Unfortunately accidents are results of bad decisions by us or others. Illnesses, birth defects, and natural disasters are all eventual results of the beginning of sin (Adam’s bad decision) and God’s curse of death and destruction of the earth and all of its inhabitants because of sin. Adam’s rebellion against God caused separation from God and the beginning of the deterioration of all living things and their descendants.


God, by His nature, is very good, perfect, sinless and loving, so He does not cause bad things to happen but He allows consequences to happen since man, by his nature, is sinful and rebellious against God. Also being a Christian does not keep us from having difficulties in our lives; these are what test our faith. Our time in this lifetime is very short compared to eternity. Our being accepted into God’s family and God’s plan for us in His eternal heavenly kingdom is what really matters.


The theory of evolution teaches us that "survival of the fittest" is a natural law, therefore man must be strong and in control of his own life. It is difficult for non-Christians to understand the concept of relying on God to be in control of our lives. Non-Christians often see prayer and reliance on someone else as a sign of weakness. They do not understand the guidance, support, power, peace and joy God can and does provide His believers.


Our society was founded and built on a strong Christian foundation - its laws, morals, and doctrines. The accounts recorded in Genesis - the creation, the world-wide flood, and the dispersion of families at the Tower of Babel - were all understood to be true accounts of our origins and history. Over the past 200 years though, the theory of evolution has become a very strong influence in our society. The Biblical foundation of our origins, history, and morals are being uprooted. Even many Christians are compromising the teachings in the Bible with popular secular beliefs. Trust in the Bible is being questioned as the authority of God is being replaced by the authority of man. Therefore many non-Christians are doubting the reliability and truth of the Bible since many Christians no longer believe that the Bible is entirely true. It is difficult for non-Christians to understand the meaning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, when they do not even believe that the teachings in the Bible, as the origin of sin and its consequences, are really reliable.


Most people do not realize how much evidence there is to support the reliability of the Bible. Most Christians do not even realize that many modern evidences strongly support the Genesis account of creation as well as most other scientific and historic accounts throughout the Bible.


Often liberal students and professors in universities will present seemingly credible arguments for the non-existence of God or Jesus. Those who argue that the Bible cannot be trusted, speak largely on the basis of unjustified assumptions, bias, and/or simple ignorance of the facts. For those who are open-minded, the evidence is more than sufficient to establish belief.


Lastly many people believe that Christians are very narrow-minded and arrogant to believe that you must have faith in Jesus to be saved. They believe that there are many ways, through many different religions to get to heaven. Christianity is a very unique religion with evidence for its trustworthiness which stands far above any other religion.


I believe that people need to be shown the overwhelming evidence which supports the reliability and trustworthiness of the Holy Bible. Once they can realize that the Bible can be trusted in what it has to say about earthly things (our origins, science, history, etc.) then they can begin to study its truth in spiritual things (as who God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are, and the existence of heaven and hell).

What If

WHAT IF

Does God really exist? Are the stories of the Bible & of Jesus Christ true? Is there really an afterlife? Do heaven and hell truly exist?

What If the answer is NO? Then when we die, that is it. There is no more conscious existence for us, and those who believe in God have just lived a life of hope in vain.

But

What If the answer is YES? Then when we die, those who believe in God and the Lord Jesus Christ will enjoy a conscious everlasting existence in God’s heavenly kingdom. Those who do not believe in God will suffer eternally in a place called hell.

What If you are wrong? Are you prepared to suffer the consequences?

Do You Have Faith?

Do You Have Faith?
by Brooks Harris

A few years ago I questioned whether God really existed. I would tell different preachers and other religious leaders that I am a very scientific person and I am used to scientifically proving things. So I would ask them "Can you prove that God exist?" They would always tell me something like "No I can not, you just have to believe by faith." This never satisfied me. You could say that my faith was weak or non-existent. I eventually found that this was far from the truth.

I began to realize that I had faith, plenty of it. I have strong faith in many things. You see we all have faith. We use our faith every day. Actually it would be virtually impossible to live without faith. Whenever you get in a car or sit in a chair, you have faith that they are not going to fall apart while you are using them. You also have faith that cars in the opposing traffic are not going to cross over into your lane and hit you. Every time you come to a traffic light you have faith that all the lights won’t be green at the same time causing tie ups in traffic or accidents. So do you thoroughly inspect the car or chair to make sure they are in good working order before each use? Do you avoid sitting in chairs or riding in cars or avoid driving on streets which have opposing lanes of traffic or have traffic lights? I am sure that I can safely say that your answer is "NO." Why? Because you have seen plenty of evidence to sufficiently prove to yourself that you can trust the reliability of such things. So it is not unreasonable for us to have faith in things which we cannot absolutely prove.

Now you might be thinking, "What has this got to do with faith in God?" Isn’t faith in God just a blind faith, and isn’t it unreasonable to believe in God without proof? What I discovered is that even though I had a problem believing in God (whom I could not prove), I had no problem believing in other ideas which I could not prove. You see, I was brought up believing that all of nature happened by accident through random chance processes. I was made to believe that this was fact and there was no need to question it. But once I began questioning the many ideas that I was led to believe and started looking for evidence to support these ideas, I quickly found that for many years my faith was in the wrong things. I found that nearly all of our modern up-to-date scientific findings drastically support a reasonable faith in God and His creation.

Although I studied these findings for several years, it was quite evident to me, within a few weeks, that the scientific findings of the past century overwhelmingly support the existence, brilliant creativity, awesome power, and mind-boggling intelligence of God. These highly researched and published findings support the idea that elements and organisms and systems in nature had to have been designed. It has been virtually proven, beyond the shadow of any doubt, through laws of probability, biochemistry, cellular biology, and other fields of study that every living organism is far too complex and far too organized to have come about by accidental, random, chance processes. Also from our studies concerning the fossil record, embryology, comparative anatomy, as well as the indescribable complexity and organization of living creatures, we see that each one testifies to the creative genius of God that passes all understanding.

Noone can prove any theory of origins by the scientific method since it all occurred before man existed to observe it happening and too many unknown factors of the ancient past make experiments on ancient past items unreliable. So to believe in any unprovable idea you will have to believe by faith. To believe that God does not exist also requires a great deal of faith since such a belief disagrees with the existing evidence. Therefore to me it makes much better sense to put my faith in what the scientific evidence overwhelmingly supports. It is very unwise and foolish to say that you believe in something or that you do not believe in something without thoroughly researching the evidences which support each view. In the case of whether or not to believe in God, you must also understand the consequences of your choice in what to believe. If God does not exist and there is no existence after our death on earth, then you can live however you please without any eternal consequences. But if God does exist you will be judged for your unbelief and sentenced to eternal separation from God with all other unbelievers in hell or you will be accepted for your faithful belief in God and live eternally with God in God’s heavenly kingdom. So research the scientific, historic, and prophetic evidences for God and the Bible and carefully choose where you put your faith.

Proof

PROOF
by Brooks A. Harris

How do you prove that something exists if you can not see it, feel it, smell it, taste it, or hear it? This is an argument many atheists have for the existence or non-existence of God. They may ask "Why do you believe in God if you can not prove that God exists?" or they may say something like "Prove to me that there is a god!"

Instead of a believer in God getting flustered about not being able to absolutely, physically or scientifically prove God’s existence, the believer in God should ask those who say they do not believe in God "Can you prove that there is no God?" Non-believers should be able to support their beliefs as well as those who say that they believe in God. Actually there are no non-believers. Everyone believes in something. They either believe that there is a God or they believe that there is no God.

First of all, to "know" that God does not exist, you would have to know everything. For if you don’t know everything then you can never be absolutely sure of what you do not know. The only being which would supposedly "know everything" would be God. Therefore if you know that there is no God, then you must know everything. This also means that if you know everything then you must be God. So if you are God then God does exist. Obviously though no mere person knows everything, so no person can absolutely prove the non-existence of God, or for that matter the existence of God.

So again, how do you prove anything exists? Let me ask you this, "How does a lawyer prove his case in court?" If you could not have seen something happen, then you have to rely on the available evidence. You need to gather as much evidence as you can find, analyze all of it, and determine which view(s) the evidence best supports. That is the job of a jury, to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that the evidence supports one view or another. That’s what scientists must do when trying to prove the origins of things in the ancient past. This is also what believers in God and those who do not believe in God must do. We must all study the evidences to see if they support our beliefs.

Also, as we study the evidences our beliefs should grow stronger and we should be better prepared to explain why we believe what we believe. Even in the Bible in 1 Peter chapter 3 verse 15 it states "... always be ready to give a defense to everyone who ask you a reason for the hope that is in you, ... ." Sometimes too, after seriously studying evidences, people discover that what they have long believed to be true turns out to be wrong. There are numerous recorded accounts of scholars, doctors, lawyers and scientists who did not believe in God. Determined to prove their belief correct, they seriously researched the evidences in many fields of study but found that the evidences overwhelmingly supported the existence of God. They learned that beyond any reasonable doubt the existence of God makes logical sense.

If you are interested in learning some of the evidences which practically prove the existence of God and the reliability of His Word, the Holy Bible, see the article "Evidence for Biblical Reliability" under the topic "Biblical Reliability". Also read books as "The Case For A Creator" and "The Case For Christ" by Lee Strobel, "Many Infallible Proofs - Evidences for the Christian Faith" by Henry M. Morris with Henry M. Morris III, and "Revised and Expanded - The Bible Has The Answer" by Henry M. Morris & Martin E. Clark. There are many web sites with such evidences too, as http://www.family.org/, http://www.answersingenesis.org/, http://www.apologeticspress.org/, http://www.gnmagazine.org/, http://www.equip.org/, and http://www.icr.org/.

How To Reach Non-Believers Today!

How To Reach Non-Believers Today!

At a church retreat for United Methodist Men in August of 2003, it was reported that in the Memphis Conference, barely over 1200 people had joined the Methodist Church last year. These were supposedly all newly converted Christians and not people transferring from other churches. We hope they all were true believers in God and Christ and some were not just joining the church for other reasons only. Although 1200 new Christians may sound like a good number, sadly this only translates to one new Christian member for every 75 existing members of Methodists churches in the Memphis Conference. Whether or not this is a true growth in Christianity would depend on the number who were true believers and also the number of previous members who gave up on faith that year.

This made me wonder, "What is being a Christian all about?" Is it only about believing in Christ and the gospel solely to save yourself, or is it also about sharing the gospel of Christ with others in order to save them too? What is the purpose of Ministry? Is it to just help others and show them how caring Christians are, or is it to ultimately help others save their lives through Christian conversion? If the gospel of Christ and the hope of heaven are so wonderful, why isn’t Christianity growing at a tremendous rate in our country? Why isn’t teaching the gospel and the other stories in the Bible enough anymore? Why is it increasingly more difficult for people to have faith in God and the Bible?

I believe that our society has lost the foundation of Christianity and its understanding of the absolute authority of God. This article contains powerful explanations to these growing problems. The information in the following paragraphs has been taken from articles by Ken Ham in his "Answers update" Vol. 10, Issue 9 and "Creation" magazine Vol.25, No.3.

"The church is desperately trying to retain and rebuild the spiritual and moral aspects of Christianity, but it really is a lost cause - unless the church recognizes the fact that the Christian message no longer has a ‘physical reality’ to connect to. I mean, simply, that the church, by and large, has disconnected the Bible from the reality of history, which is foundational to the moral and spiritual matters they so desperately want the world to accept.

"In the late 1700's and the early 1800's, the idea of long time periods for forming the fossil-bearing sedimentary rock layers was becoming popular. This, in essence, is where the idea of millions of years for the age of the Earth really developed, and is the key to understanding Satan’s strategy today. Sadly many church leaders have succumbed to the idea of ‘millions of years’, and thus have reinterpreted the Bible to fit these eons of time into the Biblical text. The Days of Creation were thus reinterpreted to mean long periods of time. And the Flood of Noah’s day was relegated to being just a local event; the Bibles geology was replaced with secular geological history.

"When Darwinian evolution became popular, many church leaders then replaced the Bible’s biology (the creation of distinct ‘kinds’) with secular biological evolutionary ideas. Then the Bible’s anthropology (the creation of the first man from dust and first woman from his rib) was replaced by secular anthropology: man descended from some ape-like ancestor. Eventually, the Bible’s astronomy was replaced by secular cosmology such as the ‘big bang’ idea, and so on.

"The church, by and large, progressively gave up the literal history of Genesis and began to capitulate to secular history. As they did, church leaders still wanted to cling to the spiritual and moral aspects of Christianity. So, for the most part, the church held to these (e.g. the message of Christ and the Gospel, Christian morality, etc.), while also teaching its congregations ( and the world) that the secular history of the universe could be embraced - so long as God was still somehow involved.

"For a while, this seemed to work. But the church’s disconnecting of the spiritual and moral aspects of Christianity from Biblical history (which involves geology, biology, etc.) had two major consequences:

1. A ‘door’ was unlocked, something that told the church and the world that the Bible’s history in Genesis was not important, and that it could be reinterpreted on the basis of secular history. Future generations progressively pushed that ‘door’ open more and more, resulting in a growing lack of trust in God’s Word.

2. The world that had been influenced by Christian morality began to recognize that if the Bible could not be trusted in its history, then it made little sense to trust it as an absolute authority in regard to spiritual and moral things. Thus, the world began to abandon Christian morality, and build a different worldview more consistent with the secular history.

"Thus, in the world (and even the church), there is a rise in the acceptance of abortion, homosexual behavior, adultery, etc. The church (particularly its older generation) is now looking at the world and is horrified at the increasing immorality and rejection of Christianity. The church battles the world in opposing social ills, and just tells the world to ‘trust in Jesus’. But as much as the church tries, it is losing the culture, because it lost the ‘war’ a long time ago. Because the church gave up the real history of the world and yielded it to the secular, it lost the foundation for the spiritual and moral things it has tried to cling to.

"Most in the church do not understand that we need to re-establish the teaching of geology, biology, anthropology, etc. (From a big picture perspective - not necessarily the technical details) in Sunday schools, youth meetings and, most of all, from the pulpit. Until the church understands that it needs to regain and defend its true history, and reconnect the Bible’s spiritual and moral things to this history, we will continue to be shocked by how fast the church continues to lose its influence.

"As Jesus said in John 3:12, ‘If I have told you earthly things, and you believe not, how shall you believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?’

"The church must rethink how it is reaching and influencing the culture. Many churches do a good job of preaching and teaching what the Bible says about morality, for example, but increasingly the world isn’t listening. Why?

"I believe that the church has largely forgotten to apply 1 Peter 3:15 ‘But sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who ask you to give a reason for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence...’.Christians need to give answers - they need to be able to defend their faith wherever it’s under attack. And where’s the Bible under attack today? Science!

"Generations of ignoring the Bible’s history, geology, and so on have caused the church to become so isolated from the culture that it is in effect existing in a ‘bubble’, its teachings cut off from reality. Accounts like Eden and the Flood are not taught as connected to the flow of factual history. They are generally seen and presented like ‘Aesop’s fables’ - stories with a moral message, but not real.

"So the church can’t just teach Bible stories. Christians have to show that the Bible answers the attacks people hear constantly at their school or job. We often hear how fossils and other evidence of ‘science’ supposedly prove ‘millions of years’ of history and disprove biblical history, but do we have answers?

It’s time that the church started teaching the answers to science questions, not just to spiritual or moral questions. Once people hear answers to their questions about the Bible’s connection to science, then they‘ll be more open to hearing what the Bible says about morality ... and salvation."