Reports of Christians Leaving the Faith for Paganism are not Accurate

Christians are converting to paganism in the UK in record numbers.

This is according to a Times article.  They are not going to Islam, Buddhism, or Judaism, but rather to atheism, agnosticism, and Wicca.

It’s not true and let me explain why.

When I was in high school, I kept bees as a hobby. One hot Arizona summer, I purchased 5 beehives from a friend of my father’s who was getting out of the business. Getting those five hives to their new location was a harrowing experience. When we arrived, the hives were stacked high with supers (boxes) of comb filled with honey. The night included driving thousands of bees back into the hive with smokers, nailing the openings shut, hauling hives weighing hundreds of pounds to a trailer, dropping one on the way, and getting stung many, many times.

What I did not know at the time was that two of the five queen bees had died in the process of moving. This happened before the bees had the possibility of nurturing a new queen.

For several months, those two beehives appeared to function normally. From the outside, the dead hives and the living hives looked exactly the same. Bees flew in and out carrying honey and pollen. They had the appearance of life, but they had actually been dead for a long time.

When you read articles like this who say people are leaving Christianity, they are not really leaving at all. What is happening is that fake Christians are leaving long dead churches that have the appearance of life.

Dead churches

Like my beehives, many English congregations have been without the life-giving presence of the Holy Spirit for decades, maybe more. They have functioned with the appearance of life, as part of a cultural structure that included religion as part of the fabric of society. But it is a church without life, just like the Church at Sardis in Revelation 3:1.

These are the words of him who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead.

Dead churches rarely produce living Christians. Sometimes the Holy Spirit in conjunction with the living word produces life where death otherwise abounds, but this is a rare occurrence.

This is a problem for US churches as well. Sometimes the problem is fake life. They can be full of social programs and activity, but be truly spiritually dead, devoid of any reality of life in the transforming work of the Spirit and the Word. They produce feel-good messages for congregations who are only looking for their ears to be scratched (2 Timothy 4:3-4).

Sometimes the problem is that they have just aged out. There is no theological realm where this does not happen. Fundamental Baptist Churches often do this. Like my bee hives, they are unable or unwilling to pass on their faith to the coming generations. They live half-hearted, nominal Christian lives. The pastors go through the motions on Sundays preparing halfhearted messages for halfhearted congregations.

Fake Christians

They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us. (1 John 2:19)

In that context, our children, the only hope of halfhearted congregations, never become true believers. We do not win people, because we think our kids are enough. We live under the illusion that they are born to be like us–to follow in our footsteps. The truth is that they are born pagans and will continue to be pagans through their lives unless they are converted. They might fake it to please us and keep the peace, but that is not real Christianity. There is no future church life without Great Commission commitment, even in our own homes.

Our children are our first mission field, and we will not win them unless they see other peoples’ lives changed as well. Why would they believe in your God when your God seems to have no power to accomplish anything of real value?

We do not pray, so they know nothing of answered prayer.

We do not win souls and disciple new believers, so they see nothing of transformed lives.

We do not fully commit ourselves to our Lord, so they only see hypocritical Christianity.

Christians in England are not converting to paganism. True Christians do not do that. These people were never true Christians. They never trusted Christ. They never became Christians. They are just throwing off the shackles of a fake Christianity to free the pagan souls with which they were born.

“Covenant children” are pagans living under the illusion of faith

The idea of “special” children, born into a covenant community, who receive grace because of their infant baptisms, is a theological illusion. A child can be surrounded with truth all their lives, but until that truth lives in the everyday walk of the people around them, it will not live in them either.  And even then, they must choose to receive grace for themselves.

For the parents and church leaders fretting over those who are leaving–are you mourning the fact that they are rejecting you, or that they are rejecting your Lord? Do they see your Lord in you? Are you a true follower of Jesus Christ or have you just deluded yourself into thinking that your faith is real, when it is just an empty habit?

Christianity needs revival. Maybe it is happening in some circles.

How is it with your soul?

There is hope!

Even to the church of Sardis, Christ shouts, “Wake up, strengthen what remains and is about to die.” Even that church had a few who had not soiled their garments with the filth of the world (Revelation 3:1-6).

We must come under the convicting power of the Spirit, understand the holiness of God, and be overwhelmed with a fear of God that drives us in honesty and humility to the foot of the cross.

The Great Awakening occurred in such a time as this.

Unlike in nature where death reigns and it might take new life years to gain a foothold; our God is able to make new life explode in a very short time. May God grant us true revival. We so desperately need it.

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Audio version of this post: Reports of Christians Leaving the Faith for Paganism are not Accurate