The roots of this decline are many and I have not time here to list them all, but let us just mention;

1. The adoption or acceptance of Darwinian thought by and into the church.

   1. Darwin and Genesis.

      The first place that Darwinian evolution attacks in the creation account in the first first few chapters of Genesis.

      As Darwin’s ideas of evolution began to spread – much of the church swallowed his theory, hook, line and sinker!

      They first extended the days to be millions of years and then came up with the gap theory which puts millions of years between Genesis 1v1 and 1v2. They then have to make the flood of Noah’s time into a local flood as the rock layers that where actually laid down by this flood over a matte of days or weeks are now co-opted by Darwin into millions of years.

      This

      1. Undermining the reliability of the Bible.

         If the Bible is untrustworthy in these chapters – how can we trust it in others areas.

      2. If God is not the creator, He, His word and His church, have not basis for the authority they claim.

         Why should, God through the Bible or the church have any right to lay down moral rules or guidance – if the world was not made by Him.

      3. If God did make the world, but though millions of years of death, violence and struggle – it undermines His goodness.

         How can a good good God that “it was very good” Genesis 1:31 when looking over a world built on the fossils of millions of dead animals and people?

      4. It totally undermines the Bibles teaching on sin and death and it’s cause being in the disobedience of Adam, (Romans 5:12).

         What does the church have to say about death, sin or guilt, hay the Bible is wrong about it’s origins – how can you trust any of it other teachings about this?

   2. Evolution of Theology

      Darwinian evolution not only affected peoples ideas about the origins of the the universe and biological life here on earth. But it also lead to ideas of the evolution of theology.

      At it’s most extreme it turns the whole of the churches theology on its head. It says that instead of God creating man – man created God.

      But within the church this more normally shows in ideas like:-

      1. Adam – Noah even up to Moses and the prophets had less understanding of God than we do today.

      2. Some of the Bible is based in a primitive understanding of God, today we have a more full understanding of God.

      While it is true that we have a more full understanding of God’s plan of salvation – it is not true to suggest that we might know God better than Adam who walked with God in the cool of the evening, or Moses, David, the Prophets etc.

      Nor is it true to suggest that the Old Testament gives a privative understanding of God

   3. Evolution of Morality

      Often running on into post Bible teaching to the point where we believe us to be more enlightened than the New or Old testament writers and therefore our acceptance of things like homosexuality and the idea that guilt is not real.

   4. Undermining of absolutes

      Pollster George Barna recently found that four out of every 10 people involved in Christian discipleship programs believe that there is no such thing as absolute truth. And only 44 percent of adults – and only 9 percent of teenagers – said that they are certain of the existence of absolute moral truth. (see How Satan and Darwin undermined the church)

2. The undermining of the Authority of the Bible.

   There was a time when the Bible was raised high and the preacher would cry “thus seth the Word of God”, but that is not often heard today. People, a great many people have given their lives that you might have a Bible in your hand, and one that you can read and understand. They gave their lives both spending their time, energies and freedom and often gave their lives literally, being martyred for their belief that God would have them make the Bible accessible.

   So how did we get our Bibles?

   The Patriarchs recorded the early history as it happened in there life time. These records where kept and past on to Moses, who put together the first five books of the Bible about 3400 years ago. Others moved by God recorded the inspired word of God, (2 Tim 3:16) The 66 books of the Bible completed when John finished Revelation around 100 years after Jesus was born, and where canonised or recognised as the true word of God over the next few centuries.

   By 600 AD the Roman Church had the Bible locked up in Latin so that ordinary people could no longer read the Bible. This enabled them to bring in all manner of heresies unquestioned by the laity.

   1. Praying to Mary and the Saints, (even Saints with a capital s are a falls teaching of the Roman Church).

   2. The church, (Roman Church), being able to dispense merit or indulgences.

   3. The infallibility of the Pop

   4. The Pop

   For nearly 800 years the church had the Bible locked away from ordinary people in a language they did not speak. Then in 1384 AD Wycliffe Produce a Hand-Written manuscript Copy of the Complete Bible in Middle English. There was great opposition to this from the church.

   In 1455 AD: Gutenberg Invents the Printing Press so now books can be printed instead of copied by hand. The First Book Ever Printed is Gutenberg’s Bible in Latin. Now at least learned men and sincere seekers after God’s teaching could have a Bible. Even if they had to learn Latin to read it.

   In 1526 AD: William Tyndale produced the New Testament in English, though you would find his spelling a little odd. So much did the church love to have a good modern printed Bible that in 1535 Tyndale was arrested, jailed in the castle of Vilvoorde outside Brussels for over a year, tried for heresy and then strangled and burnt at the stake. His last words reportedly were: “Oh Lord, open the King of England’s eyes.”

   In 1535 AD: Myles Coverdale’s Bible was printed and the 1539 folio edition carried the royal licence and was therefore the first officially approved Bible translation in English. It looks like Tyndale’s prayer was answered!

   Then in 1539 AD: The “Great Bible” was Printed. An injunction was issued by Cromwell that a copy of the Great Bible should be set up in every parish church. It was consequently the first English Bible formally authorized for public use. Contemporary evidence showes that it was welcomed and read avidly.

   The verse numbers that we still use today where first added to an English Bible in 1560 AD in the Geneva Bible.

   1611 the King James Version of the Bible was published. At last a good authoritative translation in English we can still understand today.

   For nearly 300 years, preachers, evangelist, pastors could hold up the King James Bible and proclaim it the Word of God. And that they did. They still could today, but it is not often heard.

   Why is this? Along with the churches acceptance of Darwinian evolution we also have the undermining of the authority of the Bible. In 1881 Westcott and Hort published their revised Greek New Testament. Known today as the United Bible Society or UBS or Nestle-Aland Greek text.

   Brooke Foss Westcott (1825-1903) and Fenton John Anthony Hort (1828-1892) were to a great degree responsible for the application of textual criticism to the Bible. They worked to replacing the majority Greek texts, the Universal Greek Text that the King James Version, (KJV) also known as the the Authorized Version, (AV) with two texts, one from Egypt and the Roman Catholic Church.

   In the just over one hundred years since there have been a huge number of translation, all claiming to be better, more accurate, more readable or …. but what we end up with is confusion.

   1. People end up asking “which is the BEST Bible?”

   2. Others saying well “I like this one”. (Ask them why it is a good one to read and they will probably just say they LIKE it!)

   3. Preachers saying “This translation does not put this very well, I like the way it is put in xxx translation”

      More confuses people asking well what do I do? Do I have to read them all? How will I know which one is right even if I do?

   4. All to many Christians and church leaders no longer believe that they have The Word of God in their hands or it’s authority to say “The Bible says it, I believe it, that end it!”

      The just believe they have a good approximation to the ideas of God, and that they have to hunt for the version of a given verse that feels best.

   5. People end up choosing a Bible to suit their beliefs not changing their beliefs to fit the Bible.

   This is not to mention the problems the “new” versions of the Bible have – like

   1. Missing verses

   2. Questions raised about the authenticity of passages like the end of Mark or Luke.

   3. Weakness of phrases like “sexual imorality” verses the KJV’s “fornication”

   4. The weakening of the deity of Jesus

   5. The changing of masculine terms for Jesus into asexual terms.

3. The attach of liberalism.

   There has been a slow, but effective warring down of the standards of the Bible, on the grounds of being nice or kind or… but not on the grounds of Biblical doctrine. This liberal attach often used vary powerful techniques like loaded language.

• They will say that they are pro-choose and we are ani-abortion.

  It would be more fair to call them pro-choose and pro-life or ani-life and ani-abortion.

• The speak of tolerant and intolerant – people with moral standards are intolerant – those who want to allow all manner of perversions are tolerant.

  Having moral standards doesn’t sound to bad, but when you are called intolerant that sounds very negative.

• They will ask questions like “can a just God be against two man living in a loving relationship?”

• How can a God of love sent people to Hell?

• They use the “we will keep at this until we win” programme.

1. From Collage to Clergy to Congregation

   This scepticism, to a great degree has moved through the church from the learned scholars, (not wise or correct, just learned), often in European universities, into the church’s theological training colleges, the newly trained clergy are more sceptical than their congregation, but in time their scepticism gets passed on.

   Often in a congregation you will find that the older members of the congregation still hold to a true biblical theology, but that this is dying out with this older generation.

2. The attach of humour.

   No one likes a joke more than me. And there is plenty about the church today that is just ripe for laughing at. But the accumulative effect of years of poking fun at the church is an undermining of it authority.

3. Lose of self-belief

   As the church has lost its belief in the authority of the Bible and of the churches right to pronounce about moral matters, so the church looses it’s authority in the eyes of society. The power of the preaching and the sharpness or distinction of the message also gets lost. When the church loses it direction, it’s message, it’s purpose so it becomes less worth listening to or going to.

   Who wants to hear someone say, “Lets be nice to people”?

   If you are on your way to Hell and the church can offer a way to avoid God’s judgement, it is worth hearing.

Most of the church in the West today is almost as much in need of a reformation or renewal as was the Church of Rome when Luther rediscovered salvation by grace.