Pastor?s Points of Light Vol 52:3 2004

 

We bow down before Your Holy Cross O, Christ.

St. James, First Bishop of Jerusalem

 

Recent statistics show that membership in the liberal, mostly mainline American, denominational Churches is on the decline.  Not a new phenomenon, the reasons have been researched by sociologists, theologians and church leaders for many years.

These facts however, should not really come as a surprise to anyone. 

In an article published in the New York Times, over 50 years ago, it was submitted that churches that were deciding to adopt a more liberal and tolerant view of religious matters and doctrine, for the purposes of inclusivity and with a desire to "grow" the church, as it were, in fact experienced just the opposite effect.   The surprising result of this 'experiment" gone awry was not only the growth of the more conservative and theologically ?fundamental? and traditional churches, but first the stagnation then the eventual decline in the membership of the denominations described as "mainline Protestant" or "liberal" churches.

Today, the trend continues as literally hundreds of churches are being put up for sale with the continuation of decades-long erosion in membership.[1]

What happened?  What went wrong?  What was it about Liberal Theology that failed the church?  The answer was articulated early on, and warnings by the minority voice of the conservatives in those churches was ignored.

As early on as in the period following World War II, an American theologian, Richard Niebuhr, dissatisfied by the theological minimalism of his time, pronounced very simply and plainly the summary point of what can now be referred to as the epitaph of Liberal Theology:

A god without wrath brought men without sin into

a kingdom without judgment through the work of a

Christ without a Cross.

That is it!  The nutshell.  Without sin, without devil, without wrath, without punishment, without judgment, without the Cross, Christianity

is irrelevant.  This is in fact what the "new order" and the religion of the land is all about.  It is called "Absolute Secularism".  It is not a denial of God's existence--worse!  It is a watering down and denial of the super essentiality and super natural, divine interaction of God with his Creation.  It says that while there may be a "god" or divine being, "it" or he really has very little importance in the world in which we live, let alone a place in our lives or in our institutions?including strangely and in some cases the Church!  This type of religion, true Christians have been faithful enough to realize is a denial of the Incarnate God "who for us men and for our salvation, was Crucified".  It is a gutless and impotent religion, which empties the Cross of its effect and makes Jesus' Sacrifice of Love unnecessary and void of any effect.

St. Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians said, "the Word of the Cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the Power of God."[2]

If the membership in the Armenian Church wants to avoid the same pitfall, She must not only maintain Her high confessional position, but be ever more vigilant in articulating it, expounding and promoting it.  How She must do that is by openly and lovingly reaching out to all with this lofty message of Salvation.  Mere nostalgia about heritage, language and culture will not provide growth for our Church in America, but a burning and insatiable love and desire for Communion with Christ, the Crucified God!

For our church, the difference will determine whether we languish or if we flourish!

For the Armenian Church to remain relevant in the lives of her adherents, she needs to be clear about what she professes and believes, giving her children a sense of certainty about who God is, what he did, what he is doing and what he promises yet to do and how he plays an active role in their lives, by no other way than through the very Power of His Cross and His Crucifixion by which He plundered even the bolts of hell, freeing those in captivity.

She needs now more than ever to be politically incorrect, unapologetically historic, and expect her adherent followers to implicitly believe the Gospel.  In short, she needs to stick to the old time religion of our apostolic and spiritual ancestry in awe and with faith, "bowing down before the Holy Cross" and continually singing out the praises of the Crucified God who trampling death under foot, saved us from the Adamic inheritance of spiritual death and called us to new life in Baptism.  She needs to preserve and nourish God?s children with and by his Unfailing Word and by calling upon them to share weekly in His Holy and Eternal Supper offered in the company of His Father, in the Holy Spirit and together with all the saints, Arch-angels and angels, singing Holy Holy, Holy Lord God of Hosts, Heaven and Earth are full of Your Glory, Hosanna in the Highest heaven.

May each of you my dear beloved in Christ have a blessed Easter.  Christ is Risen from the Dead.  Blessed is the Resurrection of Christ.