SMUGGLING JESUS BACK INTO THE
CHURCH:
How the church became worldly and
what to do about it
By Andrew Fellows
IVP. 186 pages. £11.99
ISBN 978 1 789 743 432
There are plenty of articles and books to tell us what is wrong with the church, and pretty depressing reading they often are. Andrew Fellows’ book is very different.
I found I had to search my heart and repent of the worldly attitudes I have, and it has helped me to see how much our churches are affected by the secular culture which surrounds us. The book analyses the worldviews we see in every advert, TV programme and in all kinds of media under four headings: Egoism, Naturalism, Hedonism and what he calls Politicism.
Egoism is making ourselves the centre of the universe, with our identity our main concern. Naturalism is believing that this world is all there is, the perceptions of our five senses the only valid basis for life. Hedonism is the desire for pleasure, for shopping, for the next gadget, for sexual gratification and great holidays. Politicism is the polarisation of opinions over climate change, racism, sexual preferences, where alternative points of view cannot even be allowed to exist.
The shocking thing was to discover how much I have been influenced by these attitudes, and how much the church has been too. Here are some ways in which the church betrays its accommodation to secular culture: activism – a constant need to have a dynamic programme of action; functional naturalism – where the supernatural work of God fades into the background and we have no expectation of His power being revealed; adoption of business techniques, so that numbers and activities and busy-ness become the hallmark of the church; and being consumed by desires for status or success or influence or power in this world.
Despite the way Andrew Fellows’ analysis hit home, I did not end up depressed. Rather, I saw that I need to seek that love for Jesus that will keep me focused on pleasing Him. Further, there are things we can do to identify and cut away the unhelpful influences that have infiltrated our lives and the life of the church. But even that is not the most important thing. Rather it is to pray that the Lord will once more intervene in His world, in Britain, in our churches, in us as individuals to revive our faith, to make Himself known, and ultimately to bring about radical change in our world.
