I firmly believe that if you got rid of churchianity, all the church buildings, religious rituals, religious window dressing, church programs, church growth strategies, church celebrities, church entertainment, Christian entertainers, bestsellers, worship stars, church conferences, pop-theology, innovative evangelism programs, ambitious leaders, ministerial agendas, worship teams, church fads, church hype, sensational movements, social media influencers, "how-too" books, Christian bookstores, fund-raising, money, budgets, church staff and expensive bells & whistles, God’s remnant wouldn’t miss a beat. Though it would be a religious apocalypse for those in churchianity the remnant of God who “has come out from among her” would continue to thrive.
This is much like A.W. Tozer noted, "If the Holy Spirit was withdrawn from the church today, 95 percent of what we do would go on and no one would know the difference. If the Holy Spirit had been withdrawn from the early New Testament church, 95 percent of what they did would stop, and everybody would know the difference."
Ever since H.G. Wells “War of the Worlds” we’ve been served a steady stream of movies and books dealing with some apocalyptic scenario which threatens to destroy civilization. They deal with monkey takeovers, zombie wars, EMP’s, pandemic plagues, killer asteroids, Mayan calendars, ice ages, tidal waves, mega earthquakes, monster rampages, alien invasions and nuclear holocausts. Many of these focus upon intrepid individuals or small groups of survivors struggling to make their way in a post-apocalyptic world where cities were empty shells. They are surviving without iPads, cell phones, Macdonald’s, credit cards, malls, transportation and technology. Reality had forced them to return to a life of basic necessities without the convenience and frills that civilization once offered.
What if there was a divine intervention that wiped out Churchanity? Just for a moment, imagine if all of this was not as far-fetched as it sounds? Try to imagine a spiritual parallel being playing out in the world today? The spiritual reality is that many have come to a place in their Christian life where they recognize that civilization and churchanity as we have known it has ended. For all intents and purposes, churchanity has ended for a remnant of individual believers and bands of Christian refugees who are making their way in a world where the former things have all but ended for them. Just like the isolated pockets of survivors in the post-apocalyptic books, there is a band of spiritual survivors today who have left behind the worldly desolation and spiritual wasteland of churchanity.
Try to imagine what the church would look like in a post-apocalyptic world. All the trappings seen as so essential and indispensable to the the maintenance of churchanity would no longer be needed or wanted. Out of raw necessity they would instinctively return to the basics, to simplicity to authenticity. They would return to what the church was originally meant to be. They would return to the simplicity the early Christians knew without all the conveniences, frills and trappings of churchianity. They would return to what counted most to the early church in Acts 2:42.
Rest Assured, you could flush all the rest down the drain and His word would stand sure; “Nevertheless the foundation of God stands sure, having this seal, The Lord knows them that are his” – (II Tim. 2:19).
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