How Unpracticed Faith Turns to Atheism
Unpracticed
faith—that is, faith without works—St. James writes, is dead. It has no
transformative or sanctifying power; it is intellectual assent that descends
into paralyzing doubt (or worse), which is no faith at all. That’s because
faith is revealed, confirmed, and made perfect by our actions not affirmations
(for by their fruits you will know them).
Consider a child,
standing nervously at the edge of the pool, coaxed by his father to dive into
the water. He has a choice: plunge headlong into the pool where the able arms
of dad are ready to receive him, or remain at water’s edge frozen in fear,
dithering in doubt. He may sincerely believe that his father won’t let harm
come to him, but until he jumps, fear holds him captive in functional unbelief,
revealing that his faith is in a danger that his father cannot save him from.
When the “rubber”
of belief meets the “road” of decision, a choice has to be made. There is no
middle road other than doubt, which defaults to unbelief and tosses us to and
fro on the agnostic waves of uncertainty. Indeed, we will never walk on the
troubled waters of life until faith moves us to get out of the boat!
Functional Atheists
Behavioral studies
by various pollsters suggest that the vast majority of Americans who
self-identify as Christian are functional non-Christians, if not atheists, with
rates of divorce, sexual promiscuity, substance abuse, and other behaviors on
par with those of their non-Christian neighbors. (By their fruits you will know them.)
In his 2001 book Growing True Disciples, George Barna
reported, “To the naked eye, the thoughts and deeds (and even many of the
religious beliefs) of Christians are virtually indistinguishable from those of
nonbelievers.” Six years later he similarly reported, “born again Christians
are statistically indistinguishable from non-born again adults on most of the
behaviors studied.” The studied behaviors included lying, substance abuse, and
extra-marital sex. (By their fruits you
will know them.)
For example,
although the Church teaches that sex is reserved within the marital bond of one
man and one woman, 94 percent of adults admit to having had non—marital sex.
Considering that roughly 70 percent of the U.S. populace is Christian, it is
safe to say that a lot of Christians—very likely, the majority—are guilty of
sexual sin. (By their fruits you will
know them.)
A Christian I’ll
call “Kurt” is a case in point. Over breakfast one morning, as Kurt was telling
me about his girlfriend, I was taken aback when he breezily insinuated the
sexual nature of their relationship. When I asked how he squared that with
Church teaching, his jaw went slack as if I’d asked about the burial rites of
the Inuit. After an awkward pregnant pause, he replied, “I’m committed to her!”
as if that would resolve any biblical difficulty I might bring up. I brought up
a few. He was unmoved. A few months later I heard that he was in another
“committed” relationship.
On the issue of
abortion, the pro-choice Guttmacher Institute found that in 2014, 54 percent of
women who chose abortion were Christian (24 percent Catholic and 30 percent
Protestant) compared to 46 percent who were non-Christian. That finding led the
Jesuit publication, America, to
report that Catholics are just as likely to get an abortion as anyone else.
What’s more, although the Catholic Church stands resolutely against abortion,
more Catholics favor its legality than oppose it. Every Sunday morning at the Catholic
Church I attend, I’ve noticed a car in the parking lot with a bumper sticker
stating, “STOP the GOP war on women!”
Many of these
people most likely would consider themselves good Christians. They are active
in church, perhaps theologically conservative, even espousing conventional
Church teaching. Yet, when it comes to the way they actually live they have
cultivated, what Mary Eberstadt has called, the “will to disbelieve” what the
Church plainly teaches.
By their words,
they profess faith in Christ, but by their actions they reveal that their faith
is in their instincts, urges, feelings, and the secular sirens of culture: Dear
Abby, Oprah, Joel Osteen. (By their
fruits you will know them.)
Barna’s research
suggests some underlying causes here. From surveys taken between 2005 to 2010,
Barna found that less than 20 percent of Christians are committed to spiritual
formation. What’s more, says Barna, “less than one out of ten have talked about
their faith with a non-Christian, fasted for religious purposes, and had an
extended time of spiritual reflection during the past week.”
He goes on to
report that among self-identified Christians, less than 3 percent “have
surrendered control of their life to God, submitted to His will for their life,
and devoted themselves to loving and serving God and other people.”
Just think—70% of
Americans profess to be Christians, and yet as few as 3% could be called disciples—that
is, believers who have dedicated their lives to become more like Jesus by
learning to do the things He commanded us to do. The rest are people of
unpracticed faith who, if church members, are in effect
“belonging-non-believers.”
In result, we have
Christians who are exuding more the stench of death than the aroma of life and
a Church that is losing its social and moral capital in an ever-increasingly
secularized world. Lord have mercy!
By Regis Nicoll
Excerpts from: Crisis Magazine
Source: https://www.orthodoxytoday.org/blog/2018/06/unpracticed-faith-is-functional-atheism/
