they are less idolatrous
they are more at peace
God blesses them, but they’re inferior
this reflects in all media as well
- christian art isn’t often as technical, effective, or grandiose
- it CAN be, but isn’t the norm
the answer is in waiting for God, then letting Him provide the increase
this is REALLY against modern American culture
- when a door closes, find a window
- ideally, when a door closes, start praying and venting to God
This is God’s design
- it is a forced situation that makes us humble and having to trust God
- this is an example shown in Christ (taking the form of a bondservant and stripped away deity verse)
God made EVERYTHING for us to fail
I entirely agree with you that the Christian church has become quite apostate. To me, it represents a logical flow:
The world was once perfect, with man and woman in harmony with God.
When man rebelled, his decision began a corrupting influence that rippled into all creation.
From that downward decay onward, God promised a savior (starting in Genesis 3).
The Law was established to clearly "track" our moral decay, which made us ALL insufficient (Romans 2-3).
The payment of Christ was the "final Lamb" within the Law to wipe all our sins away (Romans 6). The final Lamb was ALSO our High Priest (Hebrews 5).
That freedom comes with the command to "go and sin no more".
This is pretty much where we stop in the narrative if we go by orthodox church teachings, with a call to various moral actions and spiritual exercises depending on which church.
However, while all authority has been given to the King, He has intentionally not acted on it.
There is enough Scripture to indicate that the devil has to ask permission to act.
Nobody in the Bible ever seems to question God's authority, but instead has problems with it.
He has His reasons for waiting, and I've heard a theory that it's to reap every possible believer that can ever be reaped.
This moral decay has gotten worse over time, and history shows it:
Most of the things that Christians debate with today are present with the Early Church Fathers. I haven't gotten too far into reading them, but it's safe to say that there were a LOT of bad teachings and heresies held by everyone.
The Catholic Church amassed WAY too much power in the 4th century, and it only took ~70 years to go from institutionally permitting Christianity (i.e., Constantine) to making it the state religion. This scooped up a LOT of false doctrines and beliefs through pagan things getting renamed to Christian practices.
Many of the cultural values shifted over centuries, and the Catholic Church lost the script on why any of that mattered.
One example that comes to mind is Mary, who was the "queen mother" by association to the idea that there was some sort of significance of position (not of essence) that came from being the mother of the King of Kings. Once more ideas of "God is not partial to anyone" seeped into everyone's thinking, Mary had to be emphasized by a Catholic ecumenical council.
The Reformation tried to cast off most of those false doctrines, but also threw off many of the healthy spiritual practices as well.
In the absence of these spiritual practices, we have philosophically shifted from "teachings-first" to "understanding-first" as the basis for our moral compass (e.g., Descartes' "I think, therefore I am" beginning all human understanding).
Postmodern thought has shown that we can basically play with anything in any form we want, and there's no way to stop it if we start with our own philosophies ("there is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is destruction").
In the West, we are now in a place where the state religion of Deism has slowly decayed the Church, to the point that many people lose sight of things that have spiritual value.
If it holds true that the end times will be like Noah's time, it will be WAY worse than now, and those who pursue truth will either not exist or barely exist. I can see this as a viable worldview in the year 2100.And, in light of all this, the common-sense question: what do we do in light of all this falsehood? How do we live around the people who are deep into the Pharisees’ yeast?
I can now say with absolute experience, both my latest hardship and a few others I've known, that removing ourselves from the impure people is a bad thing. Completely sterilizing a wound inhibits healing, sterilizing all gut bacteria is bad for digestion, and staying away from sinners is the same problem.
The Roman Catholics understand the importance of routine spiritual exercises, but they also fail to capture the joy and peace that comes with truly letting God take control of the entire situation. Most of them are also doctrinally weak, and the answer to "why" for your average Catholic priest is a whole lot of "because we've always done it that way".
The Eastern Orthodox Catholics aren't much better. They do a better job of releasing things to "the Unknown" with God, but they often have "it's not so simple" non-answers they pass off as enigmatic and deep truths.
The Protestants have a lot of PTSD about Catholicism, so they tend to resist some of the things that have value simply because the Bible doesn't explicitly prescribe it. It may be good, peaceable, honorable, of good report, but they'll still discredit it.
Within the Protestants, the emphasis of sharing the Gospel message has also created a lack of good-quality discipleship.
Their political basis is ego-centric (such as the founding of the USA), so pride is a very real thing within each denomination.
This shows itself most prominently in house church culture, who assert that their practices are vastly superior because the early church did it. They fail to recognize that Christians also met in synagogues and meeting centers as well, so a house church is ONE way to do it, with its inherent tradeoffs, and their anti-authority attitude is foolish (Romans 13 speaks to how we should handle authority in general).
From all of this void of submission to God's general authority, other theological weirdness can arise (e.g., second work theology).In other words, they’re all wrong.
we are like sheep, to be shepherded by the Good Shepherd
- and, if we don’t listen, we go stupid
- even our greatest works are, in effect, kinda stupid