Numerous denominational institutions, conventions, seminaries, and churches alike are facing a reckoning for their failure to proclaim the oracles of God and safeguard Christ’s sheep from savage wolves seeking to devour. 

A recent worldview survey was released from The Barna Group detailing what many have been saying for years: there is a fundamental issue in the church and it stems from the pulpits. The results of this report are particularly damning, as they indicate only 41% of lead pastors, 28% of associate pastors, 13% of teaching pastors, 12% of youth pastors, and 4% of executive pastors actually hold to a comprehensive worldview. Taken on the whole, just under 2/3 of pastors embrace a form of syncretism, which is the blending of various belief systems together as one. In other words, purported ministers of the Christian faith don’t actually hold to the Christian faith, but an eclectic grab-bag of ideological, philosophical, and theological ideas that are fundamentally at odds with one another. The impact this has upon the congregants cannot be overstated.
When one considers past reports, such as The State of Theology from Ligonier Ministries, it is little wonder why so many Christians are embracing heresy condemned by the forebearers of our faith. It is little wonder why so many lead lives opposed to the faith they profess when those in leadership model a life of unbridled hedonism, a rejection of the Word of God, and an embrace of various competing worldviews and philosophies that run counter to the Christian faith. Many have no concept of how the Word of God applies to every aspect of life because they have never been taught how it applies to all of life.
Don’t misunderstand me to be saying that there is a reasonable excuse mankind can give in times of such ignorance; the onus is still upon us all to know and love God. Yet when the shepherds do not shepherd—or when they mislead the people to place their trust in false gods, false doctrines, and false practices, surely, they shall bear greater culpability. Afterall, Jesus did have much compassion upon sheep without a shepherd. Jesus did, in fact, vehemently oppose those who created many obstacles, burdens, and hurdles, for the people of God to jump through. Christ likewise despised those who twisted the truth, calling them sons of their father, Satan.
Shall we collectively scratch our heads in wonder and wring our hands in frustration at why is the church in such shambles?
Occam’s Razor would lead us to believe that these shepherds are not shepherding. And yet if these men are not shepherding, the question must be asked: precisely what is it that they do?
You see, it is the shepherds who will be held to the strictest account by God for their failure to teach sound doctrine (Ja. 3:1). It is the pastors who will be judged by God for their ineptitude to guard the flock from perverse doctrines and the carnal depravities of evil men. They are to be men, fierce men, building upon the foundation laid by Christ, and yet so many are keen on cutting corners and running roughshod through those actually seeking to edify the body. Rather than building upon the cornerstone, they have all but rejected it, crudely piling on the straw and fluff of competing, but blind, dumb, deaf, and lifeless gods. To borrow a phrase from Ezekiel, these shepherds are lifting up dung-gods before the people, smearing excrement on the pulpits and even the people of Yahweh.
Rather than lift up those sacred truths of old, they hide the Law of God behind the wall of the sanctuary. There is little cry of, “Thus saith the Lord!” Instead, many pepper their sermons with newspaper clippings, humorous anecdotes, and not-a-few out of context Bible verses so as to save face before the undiscerning ones. They preach canned sermons written by other men, lifting up the silver screen as if to find the shred of Christ “At the Movies,” as they ask the rhetorical question, “Are you not entertained?” Well do they tend to the goats, belittling, demeaning, defaming, and unhitching from the very Word of God as if to say the Christian faith is religion a la carte. You can form a quasi-Christian worldview and flourish, so they say. Many teach that you can compartmentalize your faith neatly in one part of your life, as if the Sovereign One does not demand wholesale allegiance, slavery even, to Christ.
The litmus test of the faithful minister of God is his integrity, yet we have all but abandoned the very inspired Words of our Lord when it comes to the qualifications listed for such men. Many find themselves in the crosshairs of the apostle Paul, who he condemns in Romans 2, for though they teach that others should not steal, they steal. Though they teach that none should commit adultery, they commit adultery. And though they proclaim that all men should flee from idols, they rob temples, raise up the high places once more, and neglect to teach themselves of that which they shout from the pulpits. The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of them.
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Slavery was never black and white, involving only Whites enslaving Blacks. It was multiracial just as most evils existent today are multiracial. It’s time to correct America’s history. It’s also time to cease promoting racial division based on the falsehood of America’s “original sin” and its selective omission of facts about all the oppressors and practitioners. If we fail to correct how we teach history, we will reap untold and potentially horrific consequences. 

We’re experiencing an increasing racial divide when there should be a remarkable decrease. What is the basis for this historical anomaly, given that American has no more prejudicial race-based laws? No race currently faces legal obstacles to equal justice and opportunity. The most likely culprit for the divide is the simplistic, inaccurate approach to American history in our schools.
When people try to explain the racial divide, they offer many reasons: Critical Race Theory, which divides everyone into oppressed/oppressor categories; the Black Lives Matter movement; politicians pandering to receive ethnic-based votes; or the emphasis on police actions involving race. Something deeper is involved.
Americans are taught that slavery is America’s original sin.” Wrong. Slavery was not America’s “original sin.” It existed before any White or Black person arrived. Native Americans practiced it before they ever came along—but even then, it wasn’t their “original sin.” Slavery is humankind’s sin.
In elementary and secondary schools, slavery is now and has long been taught very simply: American slave owners were White and slaves Black—period. Students learn slaves were shipped from Africa, without any focus on who caught them, enslaved them, or sold them to Europeans to be shipped to Europe or the Americas.
Only after school ends do some learn the whole story. I broadened my knowledge by reading “Unspoken Reality: Black Slaveholders Prior to the Civil War,” co-written by Yulia Tikhomirova and Lucia Desir at Mercy College. Tikhomirova is Russian and Desir is Black. They draw upon and include information from Black historians and scholars (e.g., John Hope Franklin, Larry Koger, and Carter G. Woodson, et al.). The truth is Blacks were also slaveholders.
American slavery begins in Africa. Black Africans, chieftains, and Arabs were the main participants and oppressors of the enslaved. They captured, kidnapped, enslaved, and sold millions of Black Africans into slavery. Millions were sent to Europe and the Americas and millions more to the Middle East and North Africa.
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When we sin, we remind ourselves that standing with us before the Father is Jesus Christ. Jesus accomplished a perfect righteousness in our place and died on a cross, bearing the full weight of the wrath of God for us. Our total trust, our total reliance, and our total dependence are not in any notion that we are sinless (because we are not). Our total trust, reliance, and dependence are in the truth that Jesus, through His sacrifice and perfect righteousness, makes us acceptable in the presence of God.

“He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.”
1 John 2:2
The word propitiation, as used by the apostle John in 1 John 2, has been the subject of much debate throughout the centuries. The question is this: Does John mean by propitiation that Jesus Christ, through His death on the cross, obtained forgiveness for us, or does John mean that through His death, Jesus not only obtained forgiveness for us but also satisfied the wrath of God against us? How you answer this question will either lead you to the gospel of Jesus Christ and a saving knowledge of God, or to a faulty understanding of who God is and what He requires as payment for our sins.
Some would say that God is not a God of wrath. They would say that God does not demand blood sacrifice to satisfy His wrath against sin and sinners. They claim that God is pure benevolence – a loving God, who would never have this kind of wrath that needed to be satisfied against sin. These people argue that this word means that Christ came and died and brought forgiveness, but that God did not need to have His wrath appeased because a loving God is not angry.
The problem with this view is that the Bible clearly presents God as angry not only with sin itself but also with sinners. In Psalm 2:12, the kings of the earth are enjoined to “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled.” Our God is a God of wrath who becomes angry with sinners and sin – especially the sin of rejecting His Son. This anger toward sinners is just and warranted. It is the just anger of a holy God who rightly exercises wrath against what is truly evil and wicked.
David writes in Psalm 7:11 that God “has indignation every day.” What is it that makes God’s wrath necessary? It is the fact that He is a righteous judge, and the world is full of wicked people. God is not some petulant deity who becomes angry without cause. Our God, as a righteous judge, must exercise wrath against those who are wicked and defy His divine law. If he wasn’t angry at evil, he wouldn’t be righteous.
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