Christendom’s Plight

Spiritual Famine Spreads as Churches Boom

Churches may be overflowing with new members, but the hunger for spiritual food has not been satisfied. Ravaging Christendom is a spiritual famine; it spreads and intensifies in spite of increased church attendance. This ought to start some people thinking. It has. An enlightening article by Louis Bromfield in the Mansfield (Ohio) News-Journal of September 18, 1955, had the heading “Famed Mansfield Author Takes Look at Churches, Religion.” Said the writer:

“One of the extraordinary reactions of our time, it seems to me, is the growing hunger of great numbers of people, not only here in the U.S. but all over certain parts of the world, for something to live by. . . . Oddly enough, the churches do not seem to be supplying what is needed. . . . Occasionally I get absurd or preposterous letters of protest from clerics. . . . The burden of these letters is, oddly enough, almost unanimous. The writers assume that because they are preachers or priests they have a special status and know more about God than any decent, kindly citizen. This, I doubt very much. Judging from a few of the letters, some of the writers are not only deficient intellectually and spiritually, but are apparently downright wicked. Certainly they could give comfort and assurance to none but the most terrified and ignorant. . . . All this is a most interesting phenomenon, which is increasing rather than diminishing in force.”

Babylonian Captivity Admitted

Suburban churches in America are thriving, financially and numerically speaking. As a result, according to cleric Gibson Winter of Brighton, Michigan, “suburbia has introduced its concept of success into the very center of church life.” What has the suburban “concept of success” done for the people? Declares Episcopalian Winter, as reported in Time magazine for October 10, 1955: “The Biblical faith is rarely met with in suburbia despite growing church membership and activity. . . . Despite a nominal church background, this is an unconverted, untrained mass of people who make the problem of church membership comparable to what it was in the time of Constantine, when Christianity became a recognized institution of Roman society. . . . The task of the churches as witnesses to Christ’s lordship . . . has been submerged. . . . The test of every parish enterprise is whether it will bring monetary and numerical progress. . . . The captivity of the church is a national tragedy of the first order. . . . [It] may well be God’s word of judgment upon us as his church. For our trespasses and complacency, we have been delivered to Babylon.”