Apostasy: according to the dictionary, it means “the abandonment or renunciation of a religious or political belief.” The Puritans in America did that? When? How? Why? What happened? What did they do to give Satan a foothold in the “pure” Christian Church? Let’s dig in…
First, let’s examine the Bible’s teaching on Apostasy. We’ll start with the Old Testament Prophets and the messages from God.
Your wickedness will bring its own punishment.
Your turning from me will shame you.
You will see what an evil, bitter thing it is
to abandon the Lord your God and not to fear him.
I, the Lord, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, have spoken!5 Then why do these people stay on their self-destructive path?
Jeremiah 2:19, 8:5 NLT
Why do the people of Jerusalem refuse to turn back?
They cling tightly to their lies
and will not turn around.
23 They will never again pollute themselves with their idols and vile images and rebellion, for I will save them from their sinful apostasy. I will cleanse them. Then they will truly be my people, and I will be their God.
Ezekiel 37:23 NLT
In the Old Testament, God was speaking to the Jews who at that time, turned away from the True God and started following the pagan customs of their surrounding countries. However, God hates apostasy! We see this in the New Testament letters…
A Call to Spiritual Growth
11 There is much more we would like to say about this, but it is difficult to explain, especially since you are spiritually dull and don’t seem to listen. 12 You have been believers so long now that you ought to be teaching others. Instead, you need someone to teach you again the basic things about God’s word. You are like babies who need milk and cannot eat solid food. 13 For someone who lives on milk is still an infant and doesn’t know how to do what is right. 14 Solid food is for those who are mature, who through training have the skill to recognize the difference between right and wrong.
6 So let us stop going over the basic teachings about Christ again and again. Let us go on instead and become mature in our understanding. Surely we don’t need to start again with the fundamental importance of repenting from evil deeds and placing our faith in God. 2 You don’t need further instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. 3 And so, God willing, we will move forward to further understanding.
4 For it is impossible to bring back to repentance those who were once enlightened—those who have experienced the good things of heaven and shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the power of the age to come— 6 and who then turn away from God. It is impossible to bring such people back to repentance; by rejecting the Son of God, they themselves are nailing him to the cross once again and holding him up to public shame.
Hebrews 5:11-6:6 NLT (emphasis mine)
Paul warned us that there would be increased deception and apostasy in the Last Days…
3 Don’t be fooled by what they say. For that day will not come until there is a great rebellion against God and the man of lawlessness is revealed—the one who brings destruction.
2 Thessalonians 2:3 NLT (emphasis mine)
Now the Holy Spirit tells us clearly that in the last times some will turn away from the true faith; they will follow deceptive spirits and teachings that come from demons. 2 These people are hypocrites and liars, and their consciences are dead.
1 Timothy 4:1-2 NLT (emphasis mine)
Into the Black Hole of Wokeness
That’s exactly what I see in the United Church of Christ (UCC) today. They’ve gone off the deep end. No, beyond that, they’ve fallen off the wokeness cliff. Where did they go wrong?
I’m fascinated by Christian Church History. How did we get from the pure, early church in the Book of Acts to the mess we have today? This started my research, which led to my writing a novel and later this blog.
Having been raised Catholic, my initial quest was to uncover where the Roman Catholic Church went wrong. After that, I delved into the Eastern Orthodox Church. Most recently, I asked if your church was condoning your sin. Or if they were enabling you to continue sinning. I wrote about my experience in both the Catholic Church and the UCC churches.
In my many years attending UCC churches, I watched the denomination slowly accept and condone cultural sinning. They fell into the black hole of wokeness. But wait! Didn’t the UCC Church start with the Puritans? Those founding fathers who left their well-to-do lives in Europe to start afresh in America? They were solely seeking Freedom of Religion — that is freedom to worship what they believed.
Who Were the Puritans?
First, let’s get the early American settler groups straight.
Jamestown, 1607
Initially, we have the 1607 settlement at Jamestown, Virginia. Funded by the London Company, they came to farm. Thus, mainly for economic reasons. Nevertheless, they brought their Church of England religion with them as we see in this famous quote…
“Father, we come to you in the mighty Name of Jesus Christ our Savior to dedicate this land to the glory of God… Father in Heaven, we consecrate this Cross. We consecrate ourselves to the Great Commission, making disciples of all the people of this new land”.
The Reverend Robert Hunt, Prayer at the Cross, 1607, Jamestown, VA
The Pilgrims, 1620
Next, we have the Pilgrims in 1620. These Separatists hoped to go to Jamestown, but providentially, ended up in Massachusetts, on Plymouth Rock. They were different from the settlers in Jamestown because, unlike the Jamestown folks, they specifically sought religious freedom rather than a new economic start.
“For the Glory of God and the advancement of the Christian Faith.”
The Mayflower Compact, 1620
The Puritans, 1630
It wasn’t until 10 years later that the Puritans came. The Puritans got their name from wanting to “purify” the Church of England (Anglican Church). They considered it “Roman Catholicism without the Pope.” See, King Henry VII started the Anglican Church only because he wanted to divorce his wife and marry his mistress. For whatever reason, like the Lutherans, they held onto baby baptism. Why, I don’t know. They considered themselves “reformed Calvinists”.
The Puritans hated the two choices they had in England — Anglican or Catholic. They were God-fearing Purists.
In attempts to begin a church without the Church of England’s polity — removing the rites, rituals, and religious superstitions — they formed the Congregational Church in America from 1620-30.
Consequently, the Massachusetts Bay Colony was established in 1923, with Congregationalism as the State Church (Religion) as did the State of Connecticut. So much so, that the state paid the pastors.
In the Cambridge Platform of 1648, they stated that…
…They believed in congregational church government and that the church should include only regenerated persons as full members.
Wikipedia
In other words, a person — an adult — had to be born again before they would be allowed to join the church. For example, a couple could not have their baby baptized in the church unless they were “regenerated”. Basically, they interviewed everyone who wanted to join the church, as a full member, and got their testimony or “conversion experience”. Thus, they became one of the “elect”, a “saint“.
Where the Puritans Turned Congregationalists Went Wrong
Around 1700, many people came to New England from Europe — from all religious backgrounds. Naturally, they went to the Congregational churches for the community. Here’s where the church got lazy. They stopped requiring people to give their “conversion experience” or born-again testimony and just accepted them as full members. More than likely, it was to fill the seats and the coffers. This was the “halfway covenant”.
That was it! They watered down the Gospel to gain church members. The new members publically agreed to the church doctrine but without the essential, personal conversion. This was the foothold that Satan needed. Like a bad virus, it spreads not just from person to person, but from church to church. That’s wokeness or wokeism. You can’t kill a virus. However, you can build up your immune system to overtake it and heal the body.
Strong Foundation
If our faith is not rooted in the true Gospel and the Word of God, we can’t build up our immune system against the devil and his lies. A church that has its foundations in the Bible, will thrive. Otherwise, it’s spiritually dead.
Today, the UCC boasts 4,794 churches in America with 773,500 members, which averages out to 161 members per church! To me, that’s a church that’s dying. People are leaving because they’re coming to their senses and seeking the truth elsewhere.
Satan always takes what God creates and convolutes it. They are very ingrained in Globalism. (That’s another future post.) They have a “social focus” rather than a theological focus. The more you sin and condone or tolerate sin, the further you get from God and the foundation crumbles.
“We take the Bible seriously, but not literally.”
United Church of Christ
Taking the Bible Seriously
If they honestly took the “Bible seriously”, they wouldn’t skip over these essential lessons…
“But you dishonor my name with your actions.”
God, in Malachi 1:12 NLT
Paul lays it all out perfectly in the first chapter of Romans…
18 But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness. 19 They know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them. 20 For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.
21 Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused. 22 Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools. 23 And instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people and birds and animals and reptiles.
24 So God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other’s bodies. 25 They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen. 26 That is why God abandoned them to their shameful desires. Even the women turned against the natural way to have sex and instead indulged in sex with each other. 27 And the men, instead of having normal sexual relations with women, burned with lust for each other. Men did shameful things with other men, and as a result of this sin, they suffered within themselves the penalty they deserved.
28 Since they thought it foolish to acknowledge God, he abandoned them to their foolish thinking and let them do things that should never be done. 29 Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarreling, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip. 30 They are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. They invent new ways of sinning, and they disobey their parents. 31 They refuse to understand, break their promises, are heartless, and have no mercy. 32 They know God’s justice requires that those who do these things deserve to die, yet they do them anyway. Worse yet, they encourage others to do them, too.
Romans 1:18-32 NLT
The History of Protestantism in America
Let’s follow the church’s history in the U.S.
- 1701 — Both Harvard and Yale were established by the Congregational Church. Look how those ended up.
- 1735 — The First Great Awakening. Jonathan Edwards traveled through New England preaching Puritan theology. Back to the basics. Here are some of his sermons including the revered, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God– Deuteronomy 32:35, ‘Their foot shall slide in due time.'” Many who heard the truth — including pastors — left the Congregationalists for the Baptist Church.
- 1740 — George Whitefield formed the Methodist Church.
- 1781 — The Germans brought the Reformed Church to America.
- 1789 — The First Presbyterian Church was started.
- 1801 — The Presbyterians united with the Congregationalists, but the union dissolved in 1852 when the Congregationalist churches started turning Presbyterian.
- 1865 — The First Council of Congretationists. Here’s where they started to fiddle with the church’s doctrines. Though the individual churches were autonomous, most adhered to the suggestions of the governing council — later to be called the “synod”.
- 1825 — The Unitarians split off from the Congregationalists. They had no theology at all. They eventually called themselves Unitarian Universalists. The start of the “New Age”? (That’s for a future post.)
- They just kept splitting and merging until 1957 when the United Church of Christ was created.
Considering how far from the Gospel they are now, I resent their calling themselves a “church” and using “Christ” in their name.
Here’s a chart of the Protestant Churches in America:
A Loving, Merciful God
Like a loving parent, God didn’t and doesn’t want the humans, which He created in His own image, to perish in sin, but to live in Heaven with Him for eternity. That’s the Confident Hope we have as born-again believers. Jesus lays it out in the final chapters of Revelation. You know. The last book of the Bible.
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was also gone. 2 And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.
3 I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, “Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them.[a] 4 He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.”
5 And the one sitting on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new!” And then he said to me, “Write this down, for what I tell you is trustworthy and true.” 6 And he also said, “It is finished! I am the Alpha and the Omega—the Beginning and the End. To all who are thirsty I will give freely from the springs of the water of life. 7 All who are victorious will inherit all these blessings, and I will be their God, and they will be my children.
8 “But cowards, unbelievers, the corrupt, murderers, the immoral, those who practice witchcraft, idol worshipers, and all liars—their fate is in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.”
Revelation 21:1-8 NLT
Yes, God is a just and fair God. Just like a parent, He must discipline His children who disobey Him.
As Peter wrote…
9 The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent.
2 Peter 3:9 NLT
Jesus explained what we need to do…
3 Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God.”
16 “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. 17 God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.
18 “There is no judgment against anyone who believes in him. But anyone who does not believe in him has already been judged for not believing in God’s one and only Son. 19 And the judgment is based on this fact: God’s light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil. 20 All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed. 21 But those who do what is right come to the light so others can see that they are doing what God wants.”
John 3: 3, 16-21 NLT
There is no heart too hard for Jesus!
Isn’t it about time you let Him in?
If you’re not sure if you’re saved or not, if you truly want to be born again and have the assurance of salvation, receive the Holy Spirit, feel His Shalom — a peace that surpasses all understanding, and get a 1-way, non-stop ticket to Heaven after you die, or that you won’t be left behind at the Rapture, which can happen at any moment, this is what you have to do…
Believe. Repent. Be Baptized. Receive the Holy Spirit.
- Believe — have Faith — that Jesus is the Christ and He died taking your sins away forever and that He rose from the dead 3 days later.
- Repent of your sins — stop sinning! Do a complete 180-degree turn in your life and surrender your life to Him. When you ask Jesus to forgive you He will. ALL your sins will be wiped clean — past, present, and future! And All means ALL!
- Be Baptized by water baptism — show the world and yourself that you have died to your old life and are born again in Christ.
- Receive the gift of Holy Spirit in your heart.
