Words and Deeds of Major Churches – Actual War Against Gospel

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The words and deeds of the major church institutions diverge sharply. “By their fruits you shall know them,” is also the case with the institutions of the EKD and the Church of Rome. Outwardly apparent efforts to fill the churches with more people are merely camouflage for the actual war being waged against the gospel.

Persistent helplessness – Apparently

The major churches in Germany clearly still lack the “right recipe” for stopping or at least reducing the flow of church refugees. They are trying to make their “offerings” more attractive to people, so that the incentive to go to church beyond occasional service attendance could be increased. Leaving the church ultimately also involves a proportional loss of church tax revenue.

The helplessness of those responsible in the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) is evident in the fact that they even commission business economists to propose concepts (Info).

During 2023, Protestant churches in Germany experienced a temporary peak in the number of church exits (Info). The Roman Catholic Church also cannot boast of its ability to keep its flock together. In 2022, a good half a million people fled (Info). The developments in 2024 show that the measures, whatever they may have been, have not really contributed to keeping the sheep in check.

Supposedly helpful measures

Approaches by the EKD and individual actions by pastors for “improved acceptance” that suggest despair include:
– Expansion of rituals (Info)
– Creation of a “ritual agency” (Info)
– Offers of pastoral care through artificial intelligence (Info)
– Holding “baptism events” (Info)

You will know them by their fruits!

In turn, the institutional churches are increasingly revealing themselves as institutions that are increasingly moving away from the gospel. Significant cornerstones of this disintegration are:
– Politics declared an official part of the Protestant churches (Info)
– Defamation of people’s individuality (Info)
– Only relative right to life for unborn children (Info)
– The arrival of pantheism (Info)
– Visible cozying up to the Church of Rome (Info)
– Demand for the introduction of the Eucharist (Info)

This blatant hostility towards the Gospel was recently presented bluntly in one of the most disastrous Church Days to date of this once Christian organization (Info).

When academics clear their throats on the subject of faith

And yet, the EKD leadership is puzzled as to why the pews of churches are becoming increasingly deserted. The “de-churchification process” can only be slowed by “functioning, vibrant congregations,” according to the approach of sociologist of religion Detlef Pollack (Source). However, the sociologist of religion doubts that the actions of the churches have a significant influence on the level of commitment to the churches.

Apparently with the Roman Catholic Church in mind, Pollack advises against reintroducing the traditional liturgies of earlier times. This includes the Tridentine Mass in Latin. This, he argues, tends to have a repulsive effect on people. After all, there is a “tendency toward liberal, post-materialist values, toward self-determination, toward gender equality, toward acceptance of homosexuality” in society as a whole. The “crucial question” now arises as to who had pushed these “tendencies” and continues to support them.

The church would lose even more people and gain only a few if it did not move with the times, according to the sociologist of religion with a chair at the University of Münster.

More show than substance

“Casting out the devil with Beelzebub” is a traditionally clumsy approach and doesn’t really lead to the desired result. Unless it’s a pretext for actually wanting to improve the precarious situation, Pollack speaks of “something missing” if the church and faith no longer exist. It seems as if he can’t even define “this something,” because the term faith (in the gospel) clearly has only an academic significance for the professor.

In his letter to Timothy, Paul predicted the dire times that would come in the “last days” (2 Timothy 3:2-4):
“For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;“

Paul rounded this off with an admonition that can certainly be applied to the representation of the major churches, 2 Timothy 3:5:
“Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.“

Only the Word of God works

The only effective recipe for filling the churches again is and remains the proclamation of the living Word of God, the Gospel. This Word itself contains the power that those church leaders deny by every means imaginable. Their task should actually be to proclaim the gospel of salvation, as it is written. Especially in a time when conditioned people only want to hear what corresponds to their desires, 2 Timothy 4:3-4:
“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.“

Instead, it is the churches, which have become complacent in their self-edification efforts, that actively support people’s desire for words that sound good and affirm them.

Actual opposition to the gospel

Jesus Christ began His ministry with the words, “Repent!” Repentance from what? Turning away from sin, from one’s own perpetually sinful existence. The message to separate oneself from this world, to be precisely the individualist who does not want to enter into any covenants with this fallen world, let alone have it as a friend (James 4:4):
“Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.“

It is this individualism demanded by the Gospel that is fought with all severity (Info).

The “advice” that the church should adapt to the times is diametrically opposed to the gospel. If one were to appeal to the Word of God, such advice could not be more false. These are precisely the proclaimed messages of the “false prophet” (Info). The words and actions of these church leaders differ dramatically. The actual battle they are waging against the gospel cannot be concealed.

Development of church members in the Protestant and Roman Catholic Church in Germany since 1950 – here.

Bible verses from King James Version (1611)