The Painful Course of Inclusivism Without Repentance

Though one can in some ways understand the desire to be inclusive (without repentance) in the name of love as espoused in most mainline churches, it is a sad pattern that has emerged by that conviction —- the more inclusive they have become, the more they disintegrate.

This pattern has been almost painful to watch, as literally millions have left these churches while they press on to disregard the true exclusivity of the gospel, that is, the good news that God welcomes all (yet only) those who come by repentance and faith through Christ alone. When the threads of the original orthodoxy have been unraveled, such as the need of every person to repent of moral failure and immoral beliefs, and heretical beliefs of other faiths, in the act of coming to Christ, the churches become churches only in form and not substance. I’m stating an outcome that is easy to track and should be visible to all who remain and care in the mainline churches.

On the one hand, their demise is to be welcomed. You can only be a true church of Christ if you have the gospel, anyway. And, false teaching is dangerous. On the other, there are some within those churches who have higher desires and carry remnants of gospel truth. Some have a yearning to return to better days. Some listen to truth still, who have not yet left. Many are confused. While mainline churches continue to speak this “gospel” of no judgment by God by which all people are in and none outside of the circle of acceptance by God, the final strokes of their demise will come, bleeding church by church, merge by merge.

But there is a solution as radical as a true reformation. And we should pray for that. It is possible that alarmed members can rally together to say, “Let’s return to the orthodoxy of our first confessions, the beliefs of our founders, the purity of Christ’s gospel, and, better, to a sincere, though costly, adherence to the Scripture alone as God’s infallible word to us.”

As long as these churches exist, let’s pray for such a merciful awakening.