Churches are due to reopen this weekend, with social distancing and other precautionary measures to ensure personal safety. The reopening has been widely acclaimed by clergy and ministers of all denominations, particularly among those who opposed the closing of churches in the first place.

But has anything been learned from the lockdown? Most churches have been operating some form of internet communication with their congregations and these messages have been picked up by large numbers of people who do not normally attend church. There are already calls for churches to maintain this form of communication as a means of getting the gospel out to a wider public.

Many church leaders were strongly opposed to the closing of churches at all during the lockdown period. One group of leaders are initiating a legal challenge to the Government claiming that divine rights of the churches have been set in English law since the days of Magna Carta and the Government acted illegally in ordering the churches to close. That legal challenge has yet to be heard and there will be many people who will be interested in the outcome.

But surely the major question all church leaders should be considering is why did God allow the churches to close for the first time in a thousand years of history? Is there some message that God was conveying to church leaders? But it is doubtful if the Church of England Synod, or indeed any of the denominational church assemblies, take time to listen to what God is saying to the churches today.

It is doubtful if the Church of England Synod, or indeed any of the denominational church assemblies, take time to listen to what God is saying to the churches today.

A Word from Malachi

In the Book of Malachi – the last book in the Old Testament, written by the last of the great prophets of ancient Israel – there is a word that all church leaders would do well to study. Malachi 1:10 says: “Oh, that one of you would shut the temple doors, so that you would not light useless fires on my altar! I am not pleased with you, says the Lord Almighty, and I will accept no offering from your hands.”

This was said in the days when the Temple in Jerusalem was practising animal sacrifice, which was prescribed in the Law of Moses as a genuine sacrificial act of much-needed food to make an offering to God. It was meant to be a sign of the devotion of the people and their gratitude to God for his love and protection. But by the time of Malachi, about 460 BC, the practice had become corrupt, with the priests offering rotten meat that was unfit for human consumption and both priests and people using outward displays of religion to mask deep moral hypocrisy.

These practices were said to be contemptible to the Lord and showed the corruption of the whole religious institution associated with the Temple. The worship they were offering to God was totally unacceptable and his word was that the doors of the Temple should be shut.

Church leaders should urgently be seeking answers to the question, why did God allow the churches to be closed? Has the whole religious institution associated with our churches become unacceptable to God, in the same way as it had in the time of Malachi in the Jerusalem Temple?

Malaise of Unbelief

Far from instituting such an enquiry, however, the Archbishop of Canterbury this week has declared that its 16,000 churches and 42 cathedrals should all review the memorials and statutes in their buildings to see if there are any that should be removed, as they might be offensive to people who are campaigning on various subjects.¹ He is not calling for what can be learned from history, but saying that we need to remove history from public view and hide it away in the crypts underneath our church buildings.

If we just hide history away and pretend that it never happened, we learn nothing, and subsequent generations will make all the same mistakes as were made by former generations. But this is just an example of a much deeper malaise in the Church. I remember a former Archbishop of Canterbury, Donald Coggan, with whom I was closely associated. He tried to initiate a major gospel outreach into the nation which was fiercely opposed by liberal bishops in the Church of England.

Has the whole religious institution associated with our churches become unacceptable to God, in the same way as it had in the time of Malachi in the Jerusalem Temple?

Dr Coggan addressed the Lambeth Conference on 23 July 1978, where he said:

Some of you have given up believing that God still speaks to the church. God forgive us. We would not admit it; it would shock our congregations if we did. But we have stopped listening to God and our spiritual life has died on us, though we keep up the appearances and go through the motions.²

Then he added, “But many in the congregations know that God does speak, and that he makes his mind known to his followers.” This last statement showed that he recognised a greater level of faith in the pews than in the pulpit.

Church Married to Culture

Oh, that we had a Bible-believing Archbishop of Canterbury and other leaders in our churches today, with the courage to face the unbelief and corruption embedded in our institutional churches and declare the word of God for our times!

I believe that God allowed the churches to close as a sign of his anger, not only at their unbelief and corruption, but at their lack of vision and their failure to declare his word to the nation at a time of great need. Only repentance will change the situation in the nation today, but if the Church does not teach people the difference between right and wrong, how can there be any change in the nation?

We have a Church that cannot meet the needs in the nation, because the Church has married the culture of the world. There are many signs that we are approaching the second Advent of Jesus. So, as the family of God should be preparing the Bride of Christ, we may also expect the emergence of the apostate Church. But the Apostle Peter warned that judgment begins with the family of God (1 Pet 4:17). So we may expect life to become much more difficult for Christians in Britain in the near future. In particular, those who are true Bible believers may not only have to face the opposition of cultural Marxism in the nation, but also unbelief in the institutional structures of the Church.

The lockdown of the churches should have caused all those who are sincere believers to seek the mind of Christ and listen to what he is saying to his people today. The institutional churches may not believe and declare the word of God: but surely his people – the true ekklesia – must do so, or the whole purpose of the pandemic could be lost.

References

1 Some Church of England statues will have to come down, says Archbishop of Canterbury. The Times, 26 June 2020.

2 Quoted in Hill, C, 2018. The Reshaping of Britain. Wilberforce Publications, p32.