Reformation (to)Day

• Zephaniah's Reformation
• Luther's Reformation

Having already considered reformation in the past, we turn, on this very happy Reformation day, to the present day. Do we need a reformation today similar to those of Zephaniah and Luther?

Decline?
People say that the church in the West, in Europe, and the UK in particular is in decline. The downward trend in church attendance is given as proof, which makes atheists feel happy, and Anglicans feel sorry for themselves. But numbers aren't everything; numbers can be deceiving. Through the twentieth century, it seems God has been slowly refining the Christian church. No longer is church another voluntary society with which to be involved. The painting of Christians in a bigoted, arrogant, gay-hating light has meant that a great deal of non-Christians previously in the church have left. Those that remain have largely become involved in liberal congregations which might as well be another religion altogether (which is dying out quickly).

This can be seen in the growth of the the separate wings of the Anglican church in the UK. The liberals are dying out fast, the evangelicals are growing steadily and the pentecostals are growing rapidly.

I think that the church as a whole is on an upward trend, with the rise of the 'young, restless and reformed'. It is the young, restless and reformed who will outlast the emerging church as they will have solid Christian truth (Romans 8) to hang onto when things get tough. I see a lot of hope in the young.

Where have they come from?

Al Mohler's blog yesterday featured a question he finds himself constantly asked by parents: 'Why are my children more conservative than I?'

I suspect that it is partly due, as Mohler says, to the higher stakes of youth. A Christian teenager looks a lot more different to a non-Christian teenager than a Christian 50-year-old does to a non-Christian 50-year-old. Therefore they face a lot more situations with their friends where they have to cling to Jesus or sin and compromise.

But there's another reason. They read, listen to, watch and copy Christians who are bold, who proclaim weighty truths with passion. A quick glance at www.monergism.com's Hall of Contemporary Reformers will confirm that many of its members have qualities remarkably similar to those of Zephaniah and Luther.

From here... to where?

We need to pray for more men like these, the Pipers, Carsons, Boices and Frames. We need to pray for those whom God has already raised up, that they would stay faithful. We need to hold faster to the old, Biblical truths held in scripture.

There is still a lot of work to be done, so we pray that God would continue to captivate our hearts with the glory of Jesus, his grace and his love. Would God raise up preachers who would make God's glory known to us, and smash the idols of our hearts.

For more on Reformation Day, see Tim Challie's Reformation Day Symposium.