When the Ashley Madison breach went public and Josh Duggar apologized for being one of the 32 million who used the cheating website … cyber frenzy erupted.  This meant many more cheaters would be exposed not just from the public in general, but in the religious arena as well.

In a recent post: Expert: 400 Church Leaders Will Resign This Sunday Because Names Surfaced in Ashley Madison Hack … “The Ashley Madison hack will have a serious effect on churches. According to Ed Stetzer, as many as 400 pastors, deacons, elders and church staff members may resign this Sunday after their names surfaced on the list of users revealed in the Ashley Madison hack.” Indeed this will be devastating and although according to the post, “To be honest, the number of pastors and church leaders on Ashley Madison is much lower than the number of those looking to have an affair.” Nevertheless, the outcome will be just as disturbing for family members and churchgoers.

Here are helpful posts with links that help with the “what now”:

1. Life Is Eternal. Don’t Have an Affair.
2. ‘My Husband Is on the Ashley Madison List. What Now?’
3. My Pastor Is on the Ashley Madison List.

 Many are reaping what they have sown individually, but we are also reaping what we have sown culturally. The new sexual revolution has spun its web and has flaunted itself. Its how our culture has decided to go “the hook-up” culture …. But, Jesus shows a better way. That way is the way of Jesus, who spoke of a man and a woman becoming one flesh—one marriage, one sexual relationship, for one lifetime.

“He who commits adultery lacks sense; he who does it destroys himself.”  - Proverbs 6:32

Life is eternal …. don’t have an affair!

(adapted from an article Anti-Church Evangelical Trends Six anti-church trends among American evangelicals Written by Shane Lems | Thursday, August 27, 2015)

Pollster George Barna notes that “the average adult thinks that belonging to a church is good for other people, but represents unnecessary bondage and baggage for himself.” [1] Today there are droves of professing Christians who have never been committed to the local expression of Christ’s body (the church), and never intend to be.

In his book “Set Apart: Calling a Worldly Church to a Godly Life”[2], Kent Hughes shares at least six tendencies that are common of Christianity in America when it comes to commitment to the local church.

1) Hitchhiker Christians:  These people say, ““You buy the car, pay for repairs and upkeep and insurance, fill the car with gas—and I’ll ride with you. But if you have an accident, you are on your own! And I’ll probably sue.” Today, at the beginning of the third millennium, we have a phenomenon unthinkable in any other century: churchless Christians. Many professed Christians are nomadic (drifting) hitchhikers without accountability, without discipline, without discipleship, living apart from the regular benefits of the ordinances (communion and baptism), and, perhaps most revealing, without responsibility.

2) Consumer Christians:  These are “church shoppers [that] attend one church for the preaching, send their children to a second church for its youth program, and go to a third church’s small group.  Their motto is to ask, ‘What’s in it for me?’”  The consumer mentality “encouraged those who have been influenced by it to think naturally in terms of receiving rather than contributing.”

3) Spectator Christians: “Spectator Christianity feeds on the delusion that virtue can come through viewing, much like the football fan that imagines that he will get strength and courage while watching his favorite pro team.  Spectator sports and spectator Christianity produce the same things – fans who cheer the players on while they themselves are in desperate need of engagement and meaning.”

4) Drive-through Christians: “[These kind of people] get their ‘church fix’ out of the way by attending once in a great while or finding a early service on Sunday morning  so that the family can save the bulk of Sunday for the all-important soccer game or recreational trip.  Of course there is an unhappy price extracted over time in the habits and the arteries of a flabby soul – a family that is unfit for the battles of life and has no conception of being Christian soldiers in the great spiritual battle.”
 
5) Relationless Christians: Despite the Bible’s emphasis on Christians gathering together in love, today some people say “the best church is the one that knows you least and demands the least….  Of course, the best example of this is the electronic church where Christ’s body can be surveyed by the candid camera and the Word can be heard without responsibility or accountability.” Indeed, Jesus’ Upper Room prayer taught that the quality of Christian relationships is an essential aspect of the church’s witness to the world: “I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me...” (John 17:23).

 6) Churchless Worshipers: “The current myth is that a life of worship is possible, even better, apart from the church.  As one person casually expressed it, ‘For “church” I go to the mall to my favorite coffee place and spend my morning with the Lord.  That is how I worship.’  This is an updated suburban and yuppie version of how to spend Sunday, changed from its rustic forebearer [namely, Emily Dickinson, who said 100 years ago] ‘Some keep the Lord’s Day going to Church – I keep it staying at Home‘”

These tendencies are pretty much accurate (Kent Hughes does describe them with a little more detail – in his book).  For now, consider these six and try to meditate on them from a biblical perspective so the next time you meet “so called” Christians like this you have something loving, biblical, and encouraging to share.

Footnotes:
[1] George Barna, The Frog in the Kettle (Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 1991), p. 133.
[2] Hughes, R. Kent (2003-04-16). Set Apart: Calling a Worldly Church to a Godly Life (Crossway, Kindle Edition).

Q: When does a church cease to being a church?

A: When there is a drift into a condition of apostasy.

 Apostasy is when a church denounces, disassociates, abandons or rejects something they once believed. Apostasy can also be an abandonment or defiance of what they once held to be true in the past and rebelling against those same beliefs and practices.

Jude’s Warning of Apostasy:
Jude wrote that he “found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3) because “certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ” (Jude 1:4).

Paul’s Warning
Paul saw it happening in his day and in one of his last letters he said “the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared” (1 Tim 4:1-2) and certainly any teaching from demonic forces must be an apostasy from what the true faith is which Paul said would happen “in later times.”

Peter’s Warning
Peter saw a lot of apostasy that would be coming too writing that “just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.  And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed.  And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep” (1 Pet 2:1-3). So they exploit people with “false words” and blaspheme “the way of truth” but they will come to destruction and then condemnation.

In the very last letter that Paul wrote he told Timothy that “the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths” (2 Tim 4:3-4). Anything that is taught as a “man-pleaser” or to tickle the ears, must be considered apostasy for anything taken away from or added to the gospel makes it another gospel entirely and one that is altogether different and isn’t really a gospel at all (Gal 1:7). There are certainly a lot of apostate teachers and preachers out there today. Paul would identify “such men [as] false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.  So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds” (2 Cor 11:13-15). An apostate teacher or preacher is disguised “as an angel of light” meaning they look like they’re teaching the gospel but they’re really apostates and what they teach is actually apostasy or the doctrine of demons.

Guarding Against Apostate Teachings
One of the best ways to discern apostasy from the real gospel is to be consistently in the Word of God and why the author of Hebrews wrote that “for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child.  But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil” (Heb 5:13-14) so if someone is not growing in biblical knowledge (lives on milk) rather than knowing more biblical knowledge (on solid food) their powers of discernment are not trained by constant practice in the Word and thus, cannot “distinguish good from evil” teachings by apostates.

Best Way to Avoid Apostasy or Reject the Teachings
The Bible warns us that “in the last days there will come times of difficulty” (2 Tim 3:1) and many will have “the appearance of godliness, but denying its power” (2 Tim 3:5). The best way to avoid apostasy and reject the teachings of apostates is to be reading the Word of God, study the Word of God, and listen to good expository biblical teachings in church.