IPC Messenger
A W eekly P ublication of T he I ndependent P resbyterian C hurch
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V olume 17 • N o 23
SUMMER 2017
Collapsing Ecclesiology
I
t’s Sunday morning. You wake
up, prepare a hot beverage, eat
breakfast, and finish your morning
routine. Now what? Go to church?
Maybe, maybe not. Attending public
worship services has become optional
for a growing number of professing
Christians, as has commitment to the
visible, institutional church.
Churchless Christianity
It has been widely reported that a
number of high-profile evangelicals
only rarely attend church. They may
have “accountability” groups, or prayer
groups, or small-group Bible studies,
in which they participate. They may
watch church on the television or listen
to sermons online. However, the local,
visible church is optional for them and
many, many others. “A gated community
in the evangelical world,” USA Today
announces. “Many of the nation’s most
powerful believers . . . won’t be found
in the pews . . . creating a growing gap
between them and ‘the people.’” Julia
Duin sees a wider problem involving low-
profile evangelicals as well, prompting
her book-length response, Quitting
Church. Popular pollster George Barna
all but proposes the abolition of the
local church in his book Revolution, as he
attempts to convince the Church (large
“C”) to ride yet another cultural trend
to success. Having already provided
significant demographic fuel for the
megachurch phenomena of the 1980’s
and 90’s, he has introduced yet another
recreation of the church, presumably
to correct the failures of the market-
driven approach he championed. The
problem with the church (presumably
the purpose-driven, market-driven church
he helped create) he says, is that while
it “can be instrumental in bringing us
closer to (God) . . . the research data
clearly shows churches are not doing
the job. If the local church is the hope
of the world, then the world has no
hope.” He speaks breathlessly of “the
Revolution,” of “an unprecedented
reengineering of America’s faith,” of
“the most significant recalibration of the
American Christian body in more than
a century,” of a movement “to advance
the church and to redefine the church.”
He announces the emergence of the
“New Church,” which in fact is no
church at all. Church, as “traditionally”
understood, was for Barna a human
institution, not a biblical one. The New
Church, as he construes it, is without
structure, organization, clergy, officers,
accountability or discipline. It has no
location, commitments, or physical
presence. It is merely an informal, ad hoc,
uncovenanted association of believers.
For “revolutionaries” the local church
ceases to exist. The requirements of
Hebrews 10:25 (that believers assemble
together) could be fulfilled, he says, “in
a worship service or at Starbucks.” His
Continued Page 3
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