On Spiritual Decline, Part 1: Introduction

Every generation has believed that the future was in peril. “Kids these days …” has been a constant cry. 

I don’t buy that, for a couple of reasons: 

• The lesson of history: the kids are scary because they’re kids. But they don’t stay kids; they grow up, and they deal with the world that, for better or worse, was handed to them. Thus has it always been. I’ve been working with “the next generation” my whole adult life, and while there is always a spectrum of talent, wisdom, and morality, there is always a high end of that spectrum, and they’re all right. 

• The lesson of theology: God is working his plan throughout the passage of time, and he will bring it to a successful conclusion. He is great, and he is good. 

So on the big picture, I’m at peace and wildly optimistic. 

But along the way, there’s brokenness. Times are tough—cyclically—and we are called to steward the times in which we live, to address the problems we face, and to leave the world a better place than when we found it. 

Some of my Christian fellow travelers might take issue with that. The Bible does speak of a time, at the end of time, when things pretty much fall apart, apocalyptically (literally). They would say the world is fated to decline generally rather than to improve. But I think it’s clear from history—both biblical and extrabiblical—that things get better, and then they get worse, and then they get better again, and on it goes. I believe it will all fall apart in the end, but in the meantime, I think it’s foolish to assume decline as a general characteristic. 

With all that duly noted, I think we can agree that times are tough for a lot of people today. There’s an almost palpable sense of frustration in the current world. I sense it more deeply in my own country, due, I suppose, to the political polarization and the resultant chaos in our public spaces. No, that’s not unprecedented, but it does exist currently, and I would suggest that Christians have a duty to contribute, as best we can, to ameliorating its worst effects. 

I wonder whether we as the Church are in a position to do that. 

There’s been significant failure among Christian leaders in recent days—again, not unprecedented—and I would suggest that that’s a symptom of weakness in the broader church. Are the believers sitting in the pews generally being prepared to live out their faith, to proclaim it, to answer objections to it, to improve the conditions in which they live through spiritual power? 

Or is the church largely feckless because it is largely powerless? 

I wonder. 

There have been other such times in the history of God’s people—times that come with irritating regularity. Pick a biblical book—Genesis, Numbers, Judges, Kings, pretty much any of them—and you find God’s people cycling through malaise and revival, ad nauseum. 

There’s a part of biblical history—just a thin slice of it—that I think can serve as instructive for us. This period doesn’t get mentioned in Sunday School, I suppose because it doesn’t feature any significant names. It occurs after the return from Babylon. Several biblical books—Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai, Zechariah—discuss the mechanics of the return itself and the rebuilding of the Temple; but what then? 

There’s just one prophet who addresses Israel as it settles into life after the Exile, in what we call The Persian Period. He calls Israel to account for its sin, and he prescribes a solution. 

But apparently nobody listens, and God goes silent for 400 years. 

What if they had listened? 

What if we were to listen today? 

The prophet is called “My Messenger” (“Malachi,” in Hebrew). Is that his name, or a title? 

Nobody knows. 

He may be just an unnamed preacher speaking for God as He goes out the back door for a few centuries. 

Perhaps we should give him some attention. 

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash