Matt Walsh - Church of Cowards: A Wake-Up Call to Complacent Christians

Copyright 2020 by Matt Walsh

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They followed worthless idols and became worthless themselves.

Jeremiah 2:5

T here are still some Christians in this country who worry that heathen hordes may one day arrive on our shores, armed with guns and knives and bombs, to crush our Christian way of life and destroy the American church. They worry that Christendom will come under brutal assault by these hypothetical savagesthat they, clinging tearfully to their Bibles, will be dragged into the town square and beheaded in front of cheering, bloodthirsty throngs. They worry that we believers in the West may finally suffer the same persecution those in the East have faced for two thousand years.

They flatter themselves.

Let us imagine that this heathen horde does show up one day, swords in hand, revved and ready to butcher some Christians. Consider their confusion upon landing here. Looking about, they expect to see ample evidence of Christianity in this Christian nation, but instead they have stumbled upon a very strange sort of paganism. They do not find any clear indication that the people of this Christian land worship the Christian God. They see instead the worship of actors, of politicians, of athletes, of imaginary figures on television. They discover, too, the worship of things, of objects like electronic gadgets and cars and houses. Most of all, it would seem, the people of this Christian land worship the great and magnificent god called the Self.

This is all very confusing for our heathens. They had pictured an America filled with pious, modest, prayerful believers, but instead they find silly, shallow, oversexed, nihilistic zombies who live vicariously through their phones, which they have stocked with photographs of their own faces. They find that modesty is mocked, discipline is scorned, and obedience is rejected on principle. They find materialism, hedonism, secularism, avowed atheism, and unavowed atheism. The only thing they have trouble locating is Christianity.

As our heathens begin to conduct a closer investigation, they discover that the nuclear family is in disarray here in this Christian country. Fewer than half of our children live with both biological parents in the home. Divorce is commonplace and unquestioned. Sometimes the dissolution of a marriage is celebrated with a divorce party. How odd this is for a Christian country, the heathens note, considering that the Christian Lord and Savior expressly forbade divorce.

They notice that all manner of sexual perversion is accepted and legitimized. Homosexuals, far from being called to purity, are encouraged to marry each other. Raucous parades are held across the country to applaud sodomy. Perversion is promoted and advertised everywhere. The heathens see that some of the men here in this Christian country dress in skirts and pretend to be women, and everyone else plays along with the charade. They see drag queen story hours at libraries, cross-dressing child models on television, and many other forms of debaucheryall tolerated and even celebrated.

They discover that pornography is a multibillion-dollar industry. Children here in this Christian country start watching porn when theyre thirteen years old.

As the heathens wander around confused, bewildered, they see a nondescript office building with the words Planned Parenthood written on the side. They walk through the door and down the hall and find a man in a lab coat extracting a child from a womans birth canal one piece at a time. They soon learn that such a procedure is carried out hundreds of times a day in this Christian country. Over sixty million human babies have been dismembered and discarded, legally, and with the enthusiastic approval or apathetic acceptance of a majority of the population. Even we dont kill babies, the heathens say to each other in disgust.

They are perplexed. There are supposed to be 240 million Christians within Americas borders. Where did they go? Did they float into space? Did they fall into the ocean and drown? It is like the mysterious disappearance of the settlers at Roanoke, except in this case it is the church that has disappearedand not from just one island, but from the entire continent.

The would-be persecutors stop a pedestrian and inquire as to the whereabouts of these elusive Christian creatures. He points them down the road to something he describes as a church. Yes, the heathens think, finally! We shall descend upon them and crush them!

But they are profoundly confused as they approach the alleged house of worship. From the outside it looks like a post office or a medical clinic. There is not a cross or religious symbol in sight. The name on the sign says something like New Horizons or Cross Point. It seems less like a house of worship and more like a rehab center for wealthy drug abusers.

The would-be oppressors wander inside and find a bunch of people sitting around in casual clothing, sipping Starbucks, listening to a mediocre rock band perform a pop song. Nobody is demonstrating anything approaching reverence. There is no sign that anything sacred is happening here, or that anyone believes it is. Then out onto the stage strides a hip young man with perfect hair wearing skinny jeans and a deep V-neck. He launches into a series of self-help maxims and inspirational platitudes. The mana pastor, he claimsspeaks about God in vague and general terms. But not the Christian God. The God this man is telling his audience about seems to be a magical genie whose only function is to satisfy their appetites. There is no judgment in this God. He is a Divinity who sits back passively, waiting for His children to arrive into a Paradise that they are all absolutely certain to enter, no matter how they live.

The heathens standing in the back, now with venti lattes in hand, look with shock at one another. This is not Christianity. At least it is not a Christianity worth persecuting. They leave disappointed.

After wandering around the neighborhood for a while, they come across another supposed church. This one has the appearance of a basketball stadium or a shopping mallor maybe a sci-fi villains futuristic compoundand it is packed to the rafters with thousands of noisy spectators. The heathens walk through the doors, right by the coffee stand, past the gift shop, through the food court, and into a giant auditorium with a humongous stage adorned not with crosses, but with a globe, or possibly a picture of a tree. They see video cameras everywhere. They see fancy lighting and expensive audiovisual equipment. People in brightly colored T-shirts are handing out brochures. Another rock band is playing.