“Weak Witness to Christianity”

Speaking of the form of Christianity practiced by Christendom’s worldly churches, cleric James A. Pike, bishop of the Episcopal diocese of California, wrote in Look magazine of December 20, 1960: “Christianity is in retreat. To be sure, the outward evidence seems to indicate otherwise. The growth of church membership in this country in the last fifteen years has been three times that of the previous fifteen years. . . . But an evaluation of all the evidence would demonstrate, not only that a decline has set in, but that the upsurge itself was without substance. . . . If General Motors over the years were to treble its sales but not improve its cars, its customers would properly consider the achievement a hollow one. The logic is no less applicable to the Christian church. . . . Abroad, there is a relationship between the retreat of Christianity and the advance of communism. . . . Some of the advance of the atheists is due to the church—to its clergy and its most responsible members. . . . What is responsible for making us a weak witness to Christianity? . . . First, the church, instead of being a goad, is by and large at peace with society. . . . A second cause of Christianity’s retreat is found in its own divisions. . . . A third cause of the retreat is that we have tended to make religion man-centered, rather than God-centered. . .‹v›. The final measure of Christianity’s retreat is its increasing irrelevancy to life.”