The Faithful Have Vanished

In Psalm twelve, David mourns, “the pious have ceased to be for the faithful have vanished.” Sometimes I think this is true of America today. Pious is an old word we don’t use much anymore, but it is a good biblical description of people who possess devotion, reverence, fervor for the things of God. David mourns the passing of this class of people and explains their absence by saying, “the faithful have vanished.” The biblical meaning of “faithful” is those who trust in God. Having lost faith or trust in God, devotion, reverence, and fervor for the things of God have mostly ceased to be in America.

I think there are at least four reasons why this condition exists today. The first is our ridiculous wealth and prosperity. America is one of the wealthiest nations on earth, and despite the presence of endemic poverty and a growing homeless population, our “poor” are better off than most of the rest of the world’s population. We rank seventh in yearly income on a list of sixty nations reported by World Bank. The poverty level in America for a family of four is $31,200 annually; that’s $21.37 per person per day. Currently, 1 billion people in the world live on less than $1.00 per day. We hardly qualify as “poor.” This level of wealth causes people to feel self-sufficient with no need for trust in God.

The second reason for our vanishing faithfulness is the pervasiveness of evil. The Psalmist says, “The wicked [evil] prowl about when vileness [worthlessness] is exalted among the children of humankind." Many of the highest paid persons in America are either athletes or entertainers. I don’t mean to denigrate sports or entertainment; there is a place for them in a healthy society. Our problem is found in the word “exalted.” It means to lift up or raise higher than all else. The truly worthy people in our country are the pastors, the teachers, the police, the healthcare workers, the common laborers who fuel the engine of our economy. When those people struggle to get by while athletes and entertainers make millions for a single performance, the inequity represents the exaltation of worthlessness.

Rampant commercialism is another aspect of worthlessness being exalted. When Jesus said believers should lay up treasures in Heaven and warned that no one could serve God and materialism, He cautioned that treasuring wealth places our hearts in the wrong place. While money itself is not evil, treasuring it is. The new car, the bigger house, the better everything represents the things that are passing away in contrast with the things that are eternal. Faithfulness has vanished in the face of material wealth.

I believe the third explanation for our lost faithfulness is the commercialization of religion. While we are travelling this summer, I have the opportunity to visit the church my daughter introduced us to which we have been “visiting” online regularly. I would be lying if I didn’t admit I am enjoying the experience. The worship is thrilling; the preaching is biblical and direct; there are programs for just about anyone. The attendance in four services is in the thousands. But I can’t help thinking that for many attenders it’s about being in a beautiful place with beautiful people. There are two other such mega-churches within a few blocks. I drive past half-a-dozen smaller churches on my way there. Attending one of these churches gives many people a sense of having fulfilled their religions responsibility, and further demonstrations of faith are unnecessary. They have bought a commercial Christianity.

Then there is the commercialization through Christian radio, Chrisitan publishing, countless para-church ministries all of which exist by selling their version of a religious commodity. None of these are bad in themselves; they each serve a need in the Christian community. However, true, biblical religion is often supplanted by a commercial version that is false on its face. True religion, Jesus says, is worshipping in spirit and in truth. True religion, James says, is helping widows and orphans. True religion, Paul says, is finding your place in the Body of Christ. The commercialization of the church in America does little to promote those things.

Another reason the faithful have vanished is because many of them are hiding their light under a basket as Jesus said. Whether because of fear of recrimination or outright persecution, too few sincere believers are standing up against the overwhelming tide of secularism that is drowning our society. It is a sad irony that in countries where Christians are being physically persecuted, often martyred, the church is growing while in comfortable America it is shrinking. Too many American faithful have bought the secular humanist’s lie that the founders’ principle of freedom of religion actually means freedom from religion. Nothing could be farther from the minds of the Founding Fathers. They knew that without religious faith as a grounding element, the experiment they proposed would never succeed.

Unfortunately, those who are most likely to be the missing faithful David mourned are leaving the church and parking their faith on the steps on their way out. Someone recently categorized people who don’t attend church as “Nones” or “Dones.” The Nones never had a religious faith; the Dones once did but now are saying been there, done that, not interested anymore. The blame for the Dones’ exodus might be placed at the door of the church. Many Dones tell pollsters that the church is no longer relevant in their lives. This attitude may betray a selfishness that requires the church to meet their felt needs while ignoring the fact that the church, the body of Christ, needs them as much as they need it.

It may also be true that many churches have forgotten why they exist, and because of that, they are no longer places where body life is practiced and promoted. The New Testament gives no support for the idea of lone ranger Christians. Paul stresses the analogy of the body over and over in his epistles. Peter talks about the church being a building of living stones, not single rocks lying around in a secular desert. The Nones can be excused for not realizing this; the Dones have no excuse unless it is the failure of their pre-Done church. When the Hebrew author warned believers not to forsake gathering together, it was in the context of maintaining ones’ faith. The remainder of the tenth chapter of Hebrews has some dire warnings for those who despise the work of Christ which established His body, the church. The faithful would do well to heed that warning and stop the vanishing act.

Related posts: What is the Church; Be Content on Sunday