At the commencement of his ministry, Jesus Christ announced that his purpose was to ‘proclaim good news to the poor… to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed’ (Luke 4:18). Before he ascended to heaven, he commissioned his disciples to continue his work and take the gospel of salvation to the end of the earth (Acts 1:8). Yet even a cursory understanding of history shows that in the two thousand or so years since then the Christian church has not always had such a benign effect upon humankind. The Christian faith has been corrupted by the addition of pagan ideas. The simple teaching of its Lord has degenerated into superstition and empty ritual. It has been abused to endorse the ungodly reigns of kings and emperors, to justify slavery, and to bless warring armies. It has been used as an obstacle to scientific discovery. Church leaders have persecuted to the death those who disagreed with their teachings, and have made war on those of other religions. The faith of Christ has been twisted into a state ideology and an instrument of social control.
All this has not gone unnoticed by unbelievers. Atheist writers have seized upon the past record of the churches as evidence that religion is a malign force, and that humankind would be a lot happier if religion in all its forms were obliterated.
Is that a fair conclusion to draw? The course of church history has sometimes been compared to a stream that emerges from its source as a fountain of water so pure that a sick person can drink from it and be made well. But as the stream winds its way through the countryside, tributaries flow into it that enlarge it but also pollute it. Rubbish and detritus are thrown into it, and eventually it is so dirty and polluted that if a person in good health drank from it they would be made sick.
The Christian faith is like that. We must go back to its source, to the teaching and the living example of the Lord Jesus as revealed in the Bible, if we want to rediscover the gospel that he taught in its purity, its simplicity and its beauty. Then we will find the pure water that can truly refresh us and give us life: “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink” (John 7:37).
PAUL WASSON