Among my younger evangelical peer group are many Cafeteria-style Christians who pick and choose which Scripture passages better jive with current cultural trends. Those that don’t are often ignored.
Sometimes confronting compromise and downright bad theology in the Church is disheartening, if not all-together draining. But as I was reminded by my Tozer on Christian Leadership devotional this morning, confronting mediocrity and deception among individuals in the Church is an ageless problem that calls faithful Christians to action.
It’s Monday, which means we all could use a little extra motivation. To help, here are 10 common-sense quotes from Evangelical minister and prolific author A.W. Tozer (1897-1963) on confronting mediocrity and compromise in the Church:
- “Popular Christianity killed the Reformers, jailed the Quakers and drove John Wesley into the streets. When it comes to religion, the crowds are always wrong.”
–The Next Chapter After the Last
- “The temptation to modify the teachings of Christ with the hope that larger numbers may ‘accept’ Him is cruelly strong in this day of speed, size, noise and crowds. But if we know what is good for us, we’ll resist it with every power at our command.”
–The Size of the Soul
- “Compromise will take the pressure off. Satan will not bother a man who has quite fighting. But the cost of quitting will be a life of peaceful stagnation. We sons of eternity just cannot afford such a thing.”
–That Incredible Christian
- “We are sent to bless the world, but never are we told to compromise with it.”
–The Next Chapter After the Last
- “Cultivate the acquaintance of God more than the friendship of men and we will always have abundance of bread to give to the hungry. Our first responsibility is not to the public but to God and our own souls.”
–God Tells the Man Who Cares
- “It is not complimentary to the masses that they are so easily led, but we are not interested in praising or blaming; we are concerned for truth, and the truth is that for better or for worse religious people follow leaders. A good man may change the moral complexion of a whole nation; or a corrupt and worldly clergy may lead a nation into bondage…”
–God Tells the Man Who Cares
- “Personally I have for years carried a burden of sorrow as I have moved among evangelical Christians who somewhere in their past have managed to strike a base compromise with their heart’s holier longings and have settled down to a lukewarm, mediocre kind of Christianity utterly unworthy of themselves and of the Lord they claim to serve.”
–That Incredible Christian
- “The contemporary moral climate does not favor a faith as tough and fibrous as that taught by our Lord and His apostles…And the fault lies with our leaders. They are too timid to tell the people all the truth. They are now asking men to give to God that which costs them nothing.”
–The Incredible Christian
- “No one can know truth except the one who obeys truth. You think you know truth. People memorize the Scriptures by the yard, but that is not a guarantee of knowing the truth. Truth is not a text. Truth is in the text, but it takes the text plus the Holy Spirit to bring truth to a human soul…”
–Faith Beyond Reason
- “Someday the church can relax her guard, call her watchmen down from the wall and live in safety and peace; but not yet, not yet…”
–That Incredible Christian
Comment by Skipper on August 8, 2016 at 3:45 pm
Wow! Those are some powerful thoughts. Thank you so much for getting them out.
Comment by Nutstuyu on August 8, 2016 at 3:54 pm
This should be plastered on the forehead of every member of the UM Northern Illinois Conference Board of Ordained Ministry.
Comment by Joan Watson on August 9, 2016 at 11:20 am
Particularly liked the first one. I don’t remember which state it happened in, but when same sex unions were legalized, a state tried to institute some protection for religious beliefs. A local UMC used their sign to state that they were absolutely against freedom of religion if it promoted “discrimination”. As if that was not bad enough, the UM News Service simply included the story in a montage of how UM’s were responding to the Supreme Court ruling. A church coming out against freedom of religion, aka freedom of conscience and no denominational leadership finds it strange….
Comment by MikeJ2 on August 17, 2016 at 7:07 am
The best thing anyone can do with a collection of pre-modern texts and traditions is, precisely, picking and choosing in order to extract something useful. It’s good that more people are doing so.
Comment by Christian A Hershey on May 17, 2019 at 5:00 am
Tozer was indeed a man whose legacy is found in his devotion to magnify God with the whole of his life. For Tozer there was nothing higher then the thought of God as He is revealed to the mind by the Spirit and through the scriptures. In an age when the church is so fragmented and dominated by emotionalism this dearly departed brother has left us much to meditate on and to follow that will help us all to move every closer to that “Fellowship of a Burning Heart”
Comment by Dan on June 6, 2019 at 9:54 am
All man can do is plant and water, God gives the increase. Tozers planting and watering have always led me back to the scriptures. Isn’t that where we are supposed to be?