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May 4, 2018 - The Matt Walsh Show
29:39
Ep. 23 - Liberal Christianity Is Pointless

People in our culture are starving for identity. They are lost, confused, dissatisfied. The church must be there to provide that direction, that purpose, and that identity. But it can't do that if it is more concerned with being "affirming" and "inclusive.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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People these days are starving for identity and community.
People want to know who they are and what they are and why they are and what's the point of everything.
So that's why it seems like every day a new community crops up.
A new community or a sub-community or an offshoot of a sub-community of a community.
And people will find their identity and their community in anything at all.
It seems like everything these days is a community.
So it's a, oh, I'm part of the blank community.
And very often, people will structure this around their sex lives, their sexual proclivities.
So every sexual proclivity becomes a community.
Every fetish, every sexual interest is its own community.
And it's an identity.
It's a lifestyle. This is my lifestyle.
This is the kind of sex I like to have.
So it's my lifestyle.
It's my identity. It's who I am as a person.
And sometimes this craving for identity, it just kind of, in our culture, it's getting increasingly bizarre and just weird.
So there's so many examples of just the weirdest kind of identity people find for themselves.
Of course, one example, just a classic example now would be The bronies.
Bronies are adult men who enjoy My Little Pony for some reason.
And they dress up in My Little Pony costumes, and they go to My Little Pony conventions, and they wear My Little Pony apparel, and they creep me out generally.
And their identity is that they like this show for little girls.
And then there are people who They call themselves superfans and they're superfans of something.
They're superfans of a movie like Star Wars or they're superfans of a show or a band or some other pop culture thing.
And we call them superfans because they have found their identity in their fandom.
Nothing wrong with being a fan of something, but then we go for a lot.
What happens very often is we go a step further and people are obsessed with this thing.
So you're like Star Wars.
Great. Then there are people that are obsessed with Star Wars and this is their life is Star Wars.
This is where they find their happiness and their fulfillment.
They find themselves in Star Wars.
So there's a new Star Wars movie and they're camping out for three days.
Forget about work. Forget about family.
This is all that matters is Star Wars.
And this, again, every, you know, it seems like every film franchise, every kind of whatever, whether it's Marvel superheroes or whatever, there are these superfans, these obsessed people.
In the past, I have myself run afoul of what the kids call the Bayhive.
And the Bayhive, I never thought I would actually say the phrase Bayhive, but I just did.
The Bayhive are, they're superfans of Beyonce.
And so that's what they call themselves.
And they just love Beyonce.
They absolutely love and adore her.
And they find their identity in her, in a pop singer.
The point is, we have a crisis of identity in our culture.
People don't know who they are, what they are, why they are.
Literally, they don't know what they are.
Because another thing is, I think that it's otherkins is another thing.
And that's otherkins are people who feel like they're really animals inside.
So maybe they're really, maybe a person is an otherkin because she's really a cat inside.
So she'll crawl around and she'll wear little cat ears.
And I don't know, she'll use a litter box.
I mean, this is what, I think what happens in this quest for identity, people, rather than looking without...
Looking up. People are looking deeper and deeper and deeper within themselves, within their own psyches, within their own egos.
They're just kind of plunging into the depths of their minds, of their subconscious.
And they're just bringing to the surface whatever they can find.
And what they find deep down in there is really just confusion.
And it's confusion that takes increasingly dark and disturbing forms.
But identity is what they want.
It's what they need. It's what everybody needs.
And that's where Christianity ought to come in.
But the problem is that the Christianity professed from many pulpits is just hollow and worldly, and it doesn't give people that meaning and that purpose and that community and that identity that they crave.
So let's just take, for example, the Episcopal Church.
The Episcopal Church this week announced that they're going to be removing the words man, woman, and procreation from their marriage liturgy in their latest sort of bow to the LGBT lobby.
This is what they're doing because it's offensive to the LGBT. And Episcopalian Episcopalianism has been kind of skidding into oblivion for decades now.
Over the course of the 90s, they lost over 30% of their members.
And then in this century, they've been losing, I think, about 2% annually every year.
And now, there are fewer Episcopalians in America now than there are Jews, which is significant because the Jewish people have always been a small minority in America.
The Episcopalian Church, on the other hand, the Episcopal Church, used to be the dominant church in America.
Not anymore. What happened?
Well, you can easily track the church's decline over the past several decades, and you can track it because it corresponds directly with the church shedding its Christian orthodoxy in favor of liberal, secular, worldly, humanistic orthodoxy.
The two things are happening Attendance is plummeting as the Episcopal Church is just getting rid of one Christian doctrine after another.
In the hopes each time of reversing this decline and convincing people to come by being less challenging and by being less Christian.
But instead, people just keep leaving.
So it began for the Episcopal Church as it always begins with.
It began for them in the early to mid-20th century when they embraced birth control and divorce.
They got rid of their prohibitions against birth control and divorce.
This is where everything always starts.
And I know this is an uncomfortable conversation because it's not only Episcopals who embrace those two things in our culture.
But here's the thing.
Our, not just the Episcopal Church, but our cultural plunge into the abyss began right there with the proliferation of divorce and birth control.
You want to find, if you want to pinpoint an exact moment, that's where it started.
That is where it has to start.
Birth control and divorce.
Because right there, that is how you begin To undermine the family.
And to destroy the entire purpose of marriage.
And marriage is the foundation of the family.
So with divorce, you have forfeited the permanence of marriage, which is one of its defining characteristics.
The other defining characteristic of marriage is its procreative capacity.
So you've forfeited the procreative capacity of marriage.
You've forfeited the permanence of marriage.
And now marriage is nothing now.
It serves no purpose. You've turned it into just nothing.
And so we did that decades ago.
Decades ago, the Christian church turned marriage into nothing.
And then we were shocked when eventually the gays came and won gay marriage.
Well, of course they're going to win. We had no argument to make against them.
We've already said, well, yeah, marriage is not necessarily permanent.
Yeah, you can make a permanent vow on the altar before God.
That doesn't mean you actually have to necessarily keep it.
And yeah, you don't have to have kids.
I mean, that's not... Yeah, the very first commandment of the Bible that he gives to man and woman is be fruitful and multiply.
It's the very first commandment that God gives human beings.
The very first thing he tells us to do is to be fruitful and multiply.
You don't have to do that, though.
You don't need to.
That's not really the point of marriage.
So the point of marriage isn't necessarily to have kids.
It's not necessarily a monogamous lifetime union.
Then what is the point?
And that's why we were so ineffective when the gays came and they wanted marriage and Christians were trying to explain, no, no, no, you can't get married.
And the gays said, well, why not?
We had no arguments to make coming from this perspective where we've already said marriage isn't necessarily permanent or procreative.
Well, then what's our argument?
Not to mention that when it comes to divorce, this is one of the things that Where Jesus, I mean, if you go and read the Gospels, and you're reading them honestly, it's almost, no matter how many times you've read them, it's almost surprising how often Jesus actually addresses this issue.
It's almost, I don't know, it's almost like Jesus is God, and he knew the situation we were going to be in, and where the world was going to head.
I mean, that's almost what it's like, right?
No, that is, Jesus is God, and so he's speaking Of course, he was speaking to the people around him.
He's also speaking to us. And that's why this issue of divorce comes up so often in Scripture.
And he's so clear about it.
Jesus is so clear, saying, you cannot get divorced.
Getting remarried is adultery.
That's what he says.
Marry a divorced woman, it's adultery.
Boom. That's what he says. It's clear as day.
So, then they moved from there.
They moved to the ordination of women, which, again, Scripture is so clear about this.
St. Paul and the epistles could not be more clear about who was supposed to be leading churches.
Men. Jesus couldn't have been more clear when he selects 12 apostles and they're all men.
He could have selected women.
He had plenty of women around him who played very important roles.
As we know, women were at the foot of the cross.
Women were the first to the tomb on Easter morning.
So they played a very important role.
They were not his apostles, though.
That means something. He could have chosen women.
He didn't. He obviously wasn't beholden to the bigotries of his time, as some people try to claim about Jesus.
He was not a man of his time.
He was a man transcending time, but he only chose men.
And then St.
Paul comes in and confirms that.
No, men are the leaders in the church.
But we said, okay, we're going to ordain women.
And then it was a straight line to the ordination of openly gay clergy and then the approval of same-sex marriage.
And now there's nothing surprising, really, about seeing a feminist Episcopal priest blessing an abortion clinic or a transgender Episcopal priest doing a service in a church adorned with rainbow flags.
Nothing surprising about that.
And it's even less surprising to look around during that service and see that there's nobody sitting in the pews.
Because why would they come and sit in the pews?
There's no point. What would be the point?
Right now, what would be the point of going to an Episcopal church?
Why? Why even go?
The message of liberal Christianity, whether it's the Episcopal variety or any other variety, the message of liberal Christianity is you're perfectly fine exactly as you are.
Everything you're doing is fine.
Make no changes.
Keep up the great work.
That's the message. Hey, it's all good.
Exactly what you're doing right now.
Just keep doing that.
Okay? Yep.
Thumbs up. That's the message.
Now, a very weak person may be happy to hear that message, but they don't need to hear it twice.
They don't need to keep coming back to hear it over and over again.
All they need to do is hear it once, and then they'll just go off and live their life.
They only need to receive that affirmation one time, and then they'll just continue living exactly as they were before, just as lost, just as confused, just as hopeless.
The Episcopal Church, like any worldly church, has already given everything it has to offer.
You go to an Episcopal service one time and sit down and listen to whatever nonsense they're spewing.
That's it. That's all they got.
They got nothing else to offer you.
But if a person wants worldliness, if what a person deeply craves is worldliness, they can go literally anywhere else to get it.
That's the problem.
And if they want lectures on diversity and inclusion, they can go talk to their human resources director at work.
If they want encouragement to just continue along in their sin, Satan is happy to provide it using a whole host of methods in our culture.
And most of those methods, whether it's through pop music or TV or whatever, will be far more entertaining and enjoyable than anything that the crusty old Episcopal Church can provide.
So there's no point.
If somebody actually wants what the Episcopal Church or liberal Christianity will give them, well, they can get it anywhere.
They can get it anywhere in the world.
So going to an Episcopal Church for the sort of Christianity that Episcopal churches preach, it would be like going to a Fine dining restaurant and ordering a Twinkie.
It's just there's no reason.
If you want a Twinkie, you just go to 7-Eleven.
You can get a Twinkie anywhere.
No, if somebody says to themselves, I want to go to a really good restaurant, then most of the time they want to go because they're looking for something substantial.
They're hungry. They want something real.
Give me some real food.
And in the same way, if a person wants something higher, if they want to be rescued from the dreariness of modern culture, if they want to find their real and transcendent identity,
if they want to be challenged, if they want meaning, if they want purpose, If they want a mission in life, well then they have even less reason to go to Episcopal Church or any other similar variety of Christianity.
Because it's not substantial enough.
It's not different enough.
It's not saying enough.
It's not real enough.
It's not asking enough of them.
See, this is the great secret of humanity that progressive, inclusive Christian leaders don't understand.
The great secret is this.
Religions grow when they expect more of their adherence, not less.
Expect more.
Be more orthodox.
Have a message that's more at odds with the culture, that's more demanding, that's more challenging, that's harder.
Those are the religions that grow.
Those are the churches that grow.
Religions thrive when they provide a lifestyle that is radically different from the dull, hollow, pointless lifestyle that the world provides.
Because people turn to religion for identity.
And if all they find is more of the same, more of what caused them to go looking in the first place, then they're not going to be converted.
So if a church wants to grow, and more importantly, if it wants to save souls, It has to have the boldness to completely, entirely reject the teachings of the world.
To just act like they don't exist.
That's the way it should operate.
That's the way Christians should operate.
That's the way a pastor or priest should operate.
That's the way churches should operate.
That the teachings of the world, the opinions of the world, the orthodoxies of the world, don't matter.
It's wrong. It doesn't matter.
It has no bearing whatsoever on anything we do.
And we do not care if how we live and what we believe is diametrically opposed to the world.
In fact, if anything, we find some encouragement in that because we know how lost the world is.
And if we were to ever look and see that we're actually lining up with the world on something, that would be a bad sign.
People are looking for a higher identity.
They're looking for an identity that transcends the world.
And it's a natural human desire.
Because everybody has this innate recognition.
Everyone has this innate recognition that there's got to be more There's got to be more to the world.
There's got to be more to reality.
There's got to be more to themselves.
Everyone, everyone looks at themselves and they want to change.
Everyone wants to change themselves.
That's the other part of this.
So you look around our culture and it's just people are, you know, not only they're finding their identity in different places, but they're radically changing and doing these makeovers to try to change themselves.
And sometimes in the most radical ways, you know, I'm going to take it, well, I'm going to change my gender.
I'm going to get surgery and change my gender.
But even if they're not going that radical, it's still, whether it's extreme diet plans or it's this or that or self-help books or motivational seminars or whatever it is, or joining a cult or something.
People are looking to change.
They're dissatisfied with who they are.
They look at themselves.
They don't like who they are.
They want to change. They want to believe that it's possible to change.
They want to believe that it's possible to emerge into some other kind of new identity that's different from what they have now because they're dissatisfied with it.
And that's where the church has to step in and says, here's your new identity.
Here it is. And the longer that a person languishes in the world, the longer they languish in sin, the more their identity kind of starts to fade.
And the lines start to blur and they become less.
That's what sin does to you.
It lessens you. It makes you less of yourself.
That's why I think I made this point before, but when you look at really evil people, when you look at serial killers or school shooters or serial rapists or whoever, when you look at the most deranged kind of people who are just wallowing in the darkest, darkest sin, when you look at that, At them, they're all kind of the same, aren't they?
It's like they're interchangeable, one with the other.
You almost lose track of them.
School shooters, which one did which one?
You can't even remember. They all seem to be identical in terms of just their motivations, the kind of people they are, just everything.
Even their history, their family situation.
Everything seems to be kind of just the same.
They just blur together Into one just mass of, into one weird, gross, horrible fog of humanity.
That's what they become. Whereas when you look at the heroes, when you look at virtuous, godly people, well, they're all so distinct and different and beautiful and their stories are different and everything is just different.
They stand out.
They're like these bright shining stars in the midst of the fog.
They stand out. They are so distinct.
Because it's in that where we find ourselves.
And ultimately when we stand before the throne of judgment, when we stand before God, we're either going to be welcomed home into communion with God, where we will finally find our truest, our perfected identity.
Which is free from all of these sorts of patches of nothingness that are within us, this kind of sin, these holes.
You know, sin are these holes in our soul that are there.
And so we all have these bits of emptiness in us.
Some have more than others. When we go to heaven, well, that's all filled in.
That's all gone now, right?
Or if we're cast into damnation, then there we will go and we will be just nothingness.
Which isn't to say that hell is real or that we disappear so we don't really go to hell.
Not saying that. Hell is real.
Souls go to hell. Satan is real.
All that's real. But the souls in hell have been stripped, or rather they've forfeited all that's real about them.
All that's substantial.
Because everything substantial, everything beautiful, everything distinct, everything real comes from God.
None of that goes into hell.
It can't. And so the souls in hell are just this blur of ego, still there in some way.
Now they're outside of time and space, but still existing, but just nothing.
I'm reading a book called The Lord, or I just finished it actually.
It's called The Lord by Romano Guardini.
It's a beautiful book.
I highly recommend it.
About the life of Christ. And he has a great line about judgment.
He says that as you stand there before God, you'll find out how much of you is.
I thought that was a great way of putting it, kind of a terrifying way of putting it.
How much of you still is?
Because there's the you that God gave you and intended for you.
And then there's kind of the anti-you that you claim for yourself through sin.
That which does not come from God.
So, Christianity should put us on the path towards finding our true selves in God.
But if it doesn't, if the church doesn't step up to the plate, then there are plenty of other places, you know, then people will find that identity somewhere else.
Why do you think Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world?
Because it is. Why is that?
Think about it. In our progressive enlightened age, Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world.
Why? I mean, this is a question that Christians should confront and confront it honestly.
I'll tell you why. Because it expects more of its adherence.
It provides a way of life that is drastically different It expects, it demands total submission to its precepts.
In other words, if you're going to become Muslim, you can't partially find your identity in Islam.
No, there's no partial commitment.
You're all in.
Praying five times a day, everything.
Total reverence, total submission.
Islam is not afraid to talk about obedience, not afraid to talk about punishment.
Concepts that have gone out of vogue in Western Christianity.
Islam is an identity.
And so people come to it and they find this whole new identity and this challenge to live differently, which is what they want.
Say what you want about that identity, but the fact is, it is one.
Which is more than I can say about Episcopalianism.
Islam is an identity.
Being Episcopal at this point is just nothing.
It's just being nothing.
It means nothing.
I don't have to go to Islam, for example.
There are some churches in America who have figured this out.
Some. They're in a minority.
I gave a talk at a church in Wisconsin just a few weeks ago, and it was a very traditional church, very orthodox, very conservative.
Very. It was beautiful.
I loved it. And you know what else it was?
It was a young church.
It was growing.
I talked to the priest afterwards, and he told me that when he first came to the parish, the average age for parishioners was 70.
And then he got in and he got rid of all the liberal reforms, all the fluffy stuff.
He kind of started turning the clock back by about a thousand years in terms of how the liturgy is celebrated.
And now, the average age of a parishioner is 35.
Why? Because it gives young people that totally submersed, radical, orthodox experience that they crave.
There's a point.
There's a reason to go to that church.
There's a point to it.
It stands apart from the world.
It's completely different from what the world is doing.
It does not echo or mirror the world at all.
So there's a reason for it to exist.
There's something else people crave.
They crave virtue. Virtue.
We crave virtue so much, but we find so few examples of it in the culture that now we turn to superheroes.
In fact, I was talking to somebody recently, and in the past I've made it clear that I don't totally understand this superhero obsession, especially among adults.
I get it, it's fun, but just adults going to see every new superhero movie and just so invested in superheroes.
I don't get it. I really don't.
Something about it seems, well, I just don't get it.
And I was talking to somebody about it, and they told me that they said, well, you know, it's an example of virtue.
It's an example of, you know, these are good guys.
And so much of Hollywood these days is all about antiheroes, and it's about these kind of tortured People that are just kind of morally ambiguous.
Think of every Quentin Tarantino movie ever made, where just everybody is bad in the movie.
There's no virtue, there's no goodness, nothing.
And he made the point that, well, with a superhero movie, say whatever else you want about it, but at least there are good guys, and there are bad guys, and there's a moral distinction between the two, and they're fighting for good things, so that's why people like it.
And I think that's a good point.
But it's kind of sad, isn't it, that people are so starving for examples of virtue and stories of virtue and sort of a defense of virtue, so starving for it that they've got to turn to Spider-Man.
They've got to turn to Batman for it, when they should be able to turn to the church.
The church should represent that virtue, should defend the virtue, And challenge its adherents to live by virtue and defend it themselves.
It should challenge its adherents to be warriors.
To be real warriors.
To go out and fight.
And it shouldn't be afraid to say that.
That we are in a holy war.
We are. It may not be a physical war right now anyway, but We're in a holy war.
We're in a war against the powers of evil.
And there are a lot of them.
And it's kind of overwhelming right now.
And so the church should be saying, go out there and fight.
There should be some of that militant.
There should be kind of a militant flavor to Christianity, especially in our day and age.
That's how you build a church.
The Episcopal model is how you destroy it.
So I guess we just have to decide which to follow.
All right. Have a great weekend, everybody.
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