In a democratic society everyone has a voice. Many states just held elections to select those who would serve in office for the next four years. Some who won election did so by the slimmest of margins proving that it is important that people vote for the candidates of their choice. Cases taken before the Supreme Court are often decided by a 5-4 majority giving these justices enormous power to set the direction of our nation, but the Founding Fathers set up our system of government to function in just this way.
The real problem comes when we make decisions about moral issues and truth based on popular vote. Some politicians do not form an opinion on any issue without finding out what the polls tell them their opinion should be.
For my devotional reading right now I am re-reading Renaissance: The Power of the Gospel However Dark the Times by Os Guinness. Anytime I read something he has written I am blown away by his scholarship and his understanding of our culture and the church's role in it. On this subject he writes
"In America," Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in the 1830s, "the majority builds an impregnable wall around the process of thinking." Novelist James Fennimore Cooper, an American himself, wrote, "It is a besetting vice of democracies to substitute public opinion for law." The philosopher John Stuart Mill warned that "the price paid for this sort of intellectual pacification is the sacrifice of the entire moral courage of the human mind." Kierkegaard wrote in his journal, "The trend today is in the direction of mathematical equality."...For the Hebrew prophets, "Thus says the Lord" was decisive, not the opinions of the people. And in fact, the pursuit of truth, beauty, excellence, whether in art, science or spiritual growth, has rarely taken its cue from John Q. Public or from Mr. and Mrs. Average."
As we have seen our nation slide further and further away from the teachings of Scripture it has happened as we have allowed personal opinions and preferences replace those teachings. Laws have been enacted to legalize behaviors and lifestyles that a few generations ago were rightly seen as immoral and harmful to individuals and society. When lawmakers refused to pass such laws, judges were found who would find a Constitutional right to such activities. End of discussion, and anyone who objected were immediately vilified as bigoted, ignorant and worse.
Unfortunately, we have seen the same thing happen in too many of our churches. Scriptural truth has been replaced by church councils, denominational leaders who are trying to keep the peace until they can retire, deep-pocketed parishioners, liberal seminaries, and others who have more opinions than biblical knowledge. Weak pastors yield to these loud voices in an effort to keep their jobs. They forget that they don't have a job; they have a calling, and that calling is to proclaim the Word of God and do the work God has called them to do.
Guinness later wrote, "'Thus says the Lord' should always trump '51 percent now believe,' but the current idolatry of metrics renders Christians vulnerable to the mob-masters of the virtual age, the high-tech wizards who can corral the opinions of millions within minutes. (This is a crucial factor in the cataclysmic suddenness of the triumph of the sexual revolution over the Jewish and Christian faiths that have shaped Western civilization for two thousand years.) The result is a church befuddled over the difference between success and faithfulness, hesitant to buck the going trends, fearful to stick her neck out and find herself in the minority, and reluctant to risk the loneliness of pursuing the true and excellent regardless of all outcomes - in short, a church fatally weakened because worldly."
The church in America is at a pivotal point. It is truly at a crossroads and must decide whether it will stand for biblical truth, however unpopular, or follow public opinion. Sadly, many have already chosen public opinion and are merrily skipping along with the "in-crowd." The Bible tells us that there is a wide path that many follow that ultimately leads to their destruction. The narrow path is one that is often challenging, but it leads to eternal life. Which path will your church choose?
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