Lost in Church
Though
Christendom brought many blessings to the world, from a Christian standpoint, it
also came with drawbacks. The most glaring drawback was the ease with which
people could be in the church, yet lost. When Constantine had his legions mark
their shields with the chi-rho symbol, all those soldiers became Christians –
sort of. Officially. But did any of those men come to a sincere faith in Jesus
Christ? A few? How many? Christendom created a new social structure in which
everyone (except for the Jews) was judged to be a Christian, and sometimes even
a church member, at birth. This identification was sealed by infant baptism.
The situation was analogous to Judaism and Islam, where everyone born as a Jew is
considered to be a Jew and everyone who is born a Moslem is considered to be a
Moslem. Yet this kind of Christian identification based on a first birth is
alien to the New Testament’s teaching. How many citizens of Christendom were
actually born again? For a believer today, it hurts to even think about the
question. Some evangelicals today consider the “lost in church” aspect of
Christendom to be so serious that its fall is considered no great loss, since
“they weren’t saved anyway.”
The idea of
Christian identification at birth is still present today, not so much in any
Christendom-like environment, but among Islamic countries where Christians are
a recognized minority. They were born in Islamic countries but they are not
Moslems, therefore they are considered Christians. Whether or not they have a
relationship with Christ is another matter altogether.
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