66: Why Christianity is Failing
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I recently came across an article saying that 15,000 Christian churches will close by the end of 2026, and that 100,000 will close by the end of the decade. These are appalling figures. At the very least, they mean that 100,000 institutions that try to create pathways to God for ordinary people will no longer be available. The impact of their collective closure is massive.
To be honest, I find that the teachings of many churches is muddled at best and often, in my view, erroneous. The Bible literalism taught in many churches, for example, is a trap. Literalism creates an idol – and an idol is anything that is not God that we try to make into God. The golden calf, cast by the frightened Israelites while Moses was up on Mount Sinai was clearly an idol because it was an object that clearly was not God. In a similar way, the Scriptures are objects that are not God. Do they point to God? Of course they do, but they are not God.
Going back to that startling statistic that I opened with, I have to ask why Christianity is failing in such a massive way. If more than 15,000 churches a year are closing, it is due to a profound lack of interest in the Christian message. Why would that be so? What’s driving this disinterest and the subsequent disengagement from Christianity?
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As you look at the Church with an objective eye, you begin to notice a number of disturbing facts. First, it has no clear goal. The main goal of the institution (as with all institutions) appears to be staying alive. Not very motivating for the taxpayer, who is expected to provide the funds for this. What are we getting in return for our support?
Because the institution has no clear goals, there is no clearly articulated goal for the individual Christian. As such, the rather vague goal for its members is simply “be a good person.” But what does “being a good person” really mean? That is rarely, if ever, stated.
Because there is no clear goal, there is no clear path – which means, of course, that there is no path at all. The Church tells the believer to be a “good” person, but it doesn’t show you how! That’s like throwing a kid in the deep end of the pool and saying, “Swim!” as you walk away. Very little practical instruction is given in almost every church. As a result, people try and fail, over and over again, typically blaming themselves for the Church’s failure.
In fact, the Church seems to have no clearly defined goals, either for itself or for its adherents. As a result, the institution just flails around and Christians, by and large, do the same. There is no clearly marked spiritual path, so how can anyone follow it?
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You see individual Christians trying all sorts of things to make some kind of spiritual progress. They try Bible study, prayer groups, spiritual reading, church going, singing in the choir, teaching Sunday school, etc., but with no coherent path, they have no clear direction. There are three likely results to this. First, many just loop in these efforts continuously, going nowhere and getting stagnant. Second, some just give up. These folk often continue going to church for performative reasons. Most tragically, many just give up on the Church completely and try to find their own way to God, with little help or guidance. Guidance that is the Church’s responsibility to provide.
Much of this trouble has occurred because the Church, unwittingly, has changed Jesus’s message. Jesus told his followers in many ways and in many places to be like he is. And just what would that be? We are invited by our Lord to step into our true nature as children of God, participants in the Divine.
The Church has largely forgotten this. As a result, the pathway to God has been obscured over the centuries to the point where it is virtually unrecognizable now. What remains is the moribund notion of being a good person. Even this, in the strangest of ways, is a mistake.
The Church has mistaken the beginning of the journey for its end. It has taught that the goal of a Christian is to lead a moral life. It’s not. Leading a moral life is one of the first observable parts of that journey, yes, but it is not the end goal. Morality, the process of behavioral regulation, is necessary at the very start of the Christian journey. It is most assuredly not the final goal.
One of the main purposes of a moral life is behavioral coherence. Establishing coherence between what you believe and what you actually do reduces the inner fragmentation that is inherent in operating through an ego – that element of human life that is so necessary for social living. The deeper purpose of coherence is providing the necessary basis for unifying one’s attention and focus. It is this focus that is so necessary for a deeper spiritual life.
Let me give you an example of this. I say that I am a peaceful person, and I truly believe I am. But when I’m behind the wheel and the idiot in front of me is going too slow and I can’t pass, the thoughts in my head and the words under my breath are far from peaceful! What I believe and what I am doing are two different things – I am fragmented and separated inside. It is this very fragmentation that must be overcome for us to enter into union with God.
As a result of mistaking the beginning for the end, the Church has essentially kept its followers stuck at the start of the spiritual journey. They loop over and over in this truncated circuit. Because the Church doesn’t recognize the deeper purpose of a moral life, it doesn’t know how to use the internal coherence that these behavior changes create. This internal behavioral coherence is the basis for sustained deep prayer, and this sort of deep prayer is necessary to bridge the apparent abyss that separates us from an intimate connection with the Divine. As a consequence, there is little significant spiritual movement in most Christians’ lives.
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So, what can be done with this confused and confusing mess? From my perspective, the first move, and the one with the greatest leverage, is to identify the underlying purpose the Church. That purpose is simply stated: to bring people into a felt and enduring relationship with the Divine.
No other group in our culture has this purpose. It is absolutely unique to the Church. It doesn’t matter if we don’t quite know how to do this at first. Neither did the eleven remaining disciples after Jesus’s death. It is critical that we start here, with a clear understanding of our mission. Without a clear understanding of what we are about, we can never make progress.
Following this, we need to look to those in our communities who have already entered into this felt connection and allow them to teach us. Almost certainly, this will not involve the clergy. While clergy often have a great deal of knowledge about the Divine, knowledge doesn’t get you very far in this realm. Instead, we need to look at those holy people who are already in our midst. The quiet ones who seem to have a special inner peace… the ones we find ourselves going to when we feel troubled or alone, or have questions that we ourselves cannot answer.
In addition to this immediate resource, we have, within our larger faith communities, a great history of holy people. Some are widely recognized as saints; others are recognized only by those with whom they have lived. These holy ones often left a body of written work that we can use to discern the spiritual path that Jesus commended to us. Some have also left communities that have embodied the traditional spiritual disciplines that have been used to overcome the constraints of our egos.
Who is going to do this, though? If it is to be done, it is you and me that will have to do it. It is up to us to seek each other out for mutual support and spiritual teaching. It is up to us to call our local ministers to account, and to push them to be clear about our mission and purpose. It is up to us because we are the Church.
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Well, I probably should apologize for getting up on my soapbox. As I reread this, I am reminded of my father and his many soapboxes. While our soapboxes were markedly different, the process of hollering is pretty much the same. So please accept my apologies this week. I will endeavor to restrain myself in the future.
As always, please take time this week to listen to that “still quiet voice” that is constantly whispering encouragement and direction. To listen, we need to still ourselves and place our attention in the depths of our hearts. There, in the stillness, our Lord waits for us to notice him. Waits for us to listen… waits for us to hear and learn and follow…
I hope you have a splendid week and I look forward to continuing our time together in the next newsletter.
May God make his face to shine upon you, this day, and always!
What Invisible Offers
After reading Invisible for a short while, you will begin to notice:
A quiet groundedness beneath the noise of daily life
Greater calm, clarity, and inner freedom arising from within
A growing awareness of God in ordinary moments
Language for truths you have long sensed but never named
A gentle opening of the heart – free from dogma or pressure
Invisible will not give you new beliefs.
It will help you see with new eyes.
P.S. These newsletters were written in a particular order, but due to the limitations of our email delivery system, we cannot send them in the order in which they were written. We can send out the first five in order, but then the system sends out the next one, whatever that happens to be.
So, if you are suddenly moving from issue #5 to issue #whatever, it might be a little jarring. If this sounds like you, I would encourage you to go back into our archives and do your best to read them in order.
Humility as a Tool → Letting go → Fear → Openness → Acceptance & Growth
If you are finding this newsletter course helpful, you may want to consider Dr. Kaisch's latest book, Inside the Invisible: The Universal Path to Spiritual Transcendence.👇
