Occurring very soon after Charlie Kirk’s assassination, there has been a surge of people either going back to church after a prolonged absence or attending church for the first time. Literally thousands of mostly young people are filling up the pews largely in Evangelical Protestant churches, in some Catholic churches, and apparently in some Orthodox churches as well. Joe Rogan is among one of the more notable people publicizing his attendance at church and his fascination with Jesus Christ and the Bible (https://www.newsnationnow.com/religion/joe-rogan-religion-church-christianity/).
I truly hope this surge of church attendance — predominantly in churches professing historically traditional Christian beliefs rather than in the more “liberal” denominations — greatly benefits our society. We’ve had several generations of lost souls rejecting what are in many cases distortions of God’s character and of Christianity as a whole, and in their quest for meaning and value they have fallen for pseudo-Christian ideas, or other bizarre religious or self-improvement cults/manipulative, harmful high-demand groups, or bought into the empty promises of cultic utopian radical leftism only to find themselves in the abyss of nihilism. Little wonder the suicide rate among teens and young adults is so tragically high.
I remember after the 9/11 terrorist attacks that there was a similar surge in church attendance. But sadly, after a relatively short period of time, people stopped attending church. There were any number of reasons why this happened, but as a nearly lifelong church attendee I would bet that one of those reasons is that a certain percentage of people witnessed obnoxious, unstable church leaders and their lackeys being overbearing, mean spirited, Scripture-twisting, and downright abusive verbally, emotionally, and possibly even physically (including sexual abuse).
And so I titled this blog article on this latest resurgence of church attendance “Trick or Treat” because, soon enough, people will find out when they attend church Sunday after Sunday what the real character of that church truly is — a trick or a treat. A pseudo-Christian assembly that is toxic or a church that is nurturing. A pseudo-Christian assembly that, despite claiming to be “Bible believing”, acts in direct opposition to the Scriptures, or a church that clearly teaches and practices the foundational precepts of Scripture — the essential defining truths that St. Vincent of Lerins described as believed everywhere, at all times, by all Christians.
The same “trick or treat” criteria applies to groups, “ministries,” and characters on the Internet advertising themselves as true believers in Jesus Christ. My cult leader brother “Pastor” Ken “Max” Parks is only one of a gazillion religious frauds crawling all over the Internet. If this most recent surge in church attendance is going to have any substance then people must exercise discretion and be very cautious so as to not give willy-nilly trust to someone who knows how to spout off Scripture quotes and who makes all kinds of claims about themselves, their group, or their “ministry.” Any church leader who reacts defensively or evasively to questions about that leader’s education, ordination, system of accountability within the church, and the overall beliefs and practices of both the church leader and the church’s other leaders and their congregation is simply one to be avoided like the plague.
Those carrying on the legacy of Charlie Kirk continue to encourage people to check out the claims of Jesus Christ and find a church committed to the historically traditional teachings of Christianity. To use a pastoral analogy, there is a significantly higher number of sheep flocking in large groups in specific locations since Charlie Kirk’s assassination. Large flocks attract large packs of wolves. Older sheep and the shepherds need to be on the look out for those wolves and actively provide protection to the young sheep joining their fold from the very coy attacks of the wolves. This requires the older sheep and the shepherds to exercise competence in guarding and living out the truths of our faith in Christ with a sense of mutual accountability to each other, and to the world at large.
For the sake of the spiritual health of our country and with the hope that the destructive nihilism so dangerously prevalent in our culture can be overcome, I pray this resurgence of attendance in historically traditional churches will have a lasting, saving effect. We have been long overdue for the “treat” of true, enduring spiritual revival.
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
John Adams
