The Church of Wheat and Tares
Understanding Nominal Christianity in the Church
One of the major trends in the Western church has been a steady decrease in regular worship attendance. Many have linked this decrease to COVID, but the decrease was not only driven by attendees who began staying home out of concerns regarding health or safety. It also included a significant portion of former attendees who resumed their normal activities of daily life, but who simply never returned to regular worship. The group comprises a demographic sometimes referred to as nominal Christians.
The Lausanne Movement offers a helpful definition of nominal Christianity in a position paper entitled, Christian Witness to Nominal Christians Among Protestants. It defines nominal Christianity as, “one who, within the Protestant tradition, would call himself a Christian, or be so regarded by others, but who has no authentic commitment to Christ based on personal faith.” In this position paper, nominal is used as an adjective, “to describe people who are deeply loved by God, and no disdain is intended.”
The Lausanne article describes five different types of nominal Christians,
One who attends church regularly and worships devoutly, but who has no vital personal relationship with Jesus as Savior and Lord.
One who attends church regularly but for cultural reasons only.
One who attends church only for major church festivals (Christmas, Easter, etc.) and ceremonies (weddings, baptisms, funerals).
One who hardly ever attends church but maintains a church relationship for reasons of security, emotional or family ties, or tradition.
One who has no relationship to any specific church and who never attends but yet considers himself a believer in God (in a Protestant traditional sense).
How do we account for nominal Christianity in the life of the Church, and what does Scripture teach us about this reality? In Matthew 13, Jesus shares a vivid parable about wheat and tares. In the parable, a tare is the darnel seed. It looks just like wheat as it begins to grow, and only reveals itself to be a weed at maturity. The tare often ends up uprooting the wheat! Jesus warns the disciples that wheat and tares are often impossible to tell apart as they grow side by side, but one day the true nature of the plants will be revealed. Until then, God alone knows the nature of the plants.
Jesus used this parable to teach that on this side of eternity, committed disciples of Jesus and nominal followers of Jesus will grow side by side, and they are often very difficult to tell apart. This parable teaches us many things including the reminder that we will never have a completely pure church on this side of eternity.
The presence of tares in the body of Christ can lead to several outcomes. On one hand, it often leads to spiritual apathy. Spiritual apathy accepts nominal Christianity as a viable option in place of the high standards of discipleship offered in the Bible. On the other hand, it can also lead to the sin of spiritual pride in growing and maturing believers. This is expressed when committed disciples develop a prideful attitude toward those who are apathetic or who have drifted away and not returned. It also comes when the committed Christian assumes they could be “wheat” apart from the grace and empowerment of Christ or that they could never possibly be a “tare.”
This is challenging. When a disciple of Jesus more fully surrenders to Christ and is filled with the Holy Spirit, their eyes open to a clearer view of spiritual reality. It’s as though you’ve been living in a dark house. You don’t see the cobwebs, the dust, and the mess. When you turn the light on, things become really clear, and it even looks worse! There isn’t more dirt and grime. You are simply seeing and dealing with reality for the first time. The devil, who is the enemy of our souls, will tempt committed disciples of Jesus to spiritual pride, whispering that they are better than tares or judgmentalism, whereby they condemn them. Instead, the committed disciple should be grateful for the grace of God that has fueled their deepening faith.
It is in these moments that committed disciples have to pray through until God delivers them and creates a deeper and truer experience of the fruit of the spirit in their lives. It is an incredibly pure form of love that expresses prayerful compassion toward someone who does not share your core commitments, beliefs, and values. It’s a high form of peace when you receive it in a storm. It is a powerful form of patience that God provides when dealing with someone who pushes your buttons. It is a deep form of Christian charity when it is offered to someone who doesn’t share your intimate relationship with Jesus.
However, and this is very important, Jesus never encourages the Church to be complacent about producing more nominal disciples or being content to abandon “tares” to their comfort or spiritual apathy. Far too much of our teaching and far too many of our policies and strategies within Western Christianity have, in effect, helped create a “Church of Tares.”
A Church of Tares is a “church” that lowers expectations to the point that anyone can be present and comfortable, no matter how uncommitted they are to a disciplined and living faith in Jesus Christ. A Church of Tares is skeptical of the possibility for Christians to live with a deep hunger for God, humility of spirit, and honest vulnerability. A Church of Tares fails to carry expectancy for divine transformation that leads to holiness of heart and life.
A Church of Tares is excited about increased attendance, even if it means compromising morality, denying biblical truth, denying the divinity of Jesus, denying the exclusivity of Christ as our Lord and Savior, or living in skepticism regarding the ability of Christians to live holy lives, empowered by God’s Holy Spirit.
A Church of Tares doubts the capacity for Spirit-empowered Christians to live in sexual purity and commitment. The Church of Tares denies the reality of eternal judgment for those who reject Jesus and is skeptical of any supernatural intervention of God in the day-to-day of human life. A Church of Tares is all too comfortable never experiencing the presence and power of God’s Holy Spirit manifesting in supernatural spiritual gifts within the Body of Christ.
As time goes on, one of the primary contenders for the faith will not be an unbelieving culture, but a culturally compromised false mirror image of God’s Church. Jesus himself warns us in Matthew 24:4-13,
“Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains.
“Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.”
As a result, we must cling tightly to the cross of our Savior and work to cultivate wheat while resisting the temptation to lower our standards to become a Church of Tares. We do this with the awareness that the Church will always have wheat and tares growing side by side. But we must be faithful to pray with the guidance of Jesus’ prophetic words:
That we will not be deceived and turn away from the faith once delivered to the saints.
That we will not be alarmed by the birth pains of chaos of our culture and the world.
That we will not be surprised when we face persecution and hatred because of Jesus.
That we will not fall prey to false prophets.
That our love for God and neighbor will continue to stay aflame through God’s strength.
That we will stand firm until the end and experience God’s incredible salvation.
While we will never have a completely pure Church on this side of Christ’s return, we can better understand the reality we face. We can be committed to being a church that expects to produce wheat while recognizing that tares will be present as well.
By God’s grace, when we understand this reality, we can pray that God will make us wheat instead of tares. We can pray for tares to become wheat while refusing to carry frustration or bitterness regarding the mixed harvest on this side of eternity. By God’s grace, we can guide our churches to carry an expectation for wheat production rather than tare satisfaction. By God’s grace, we can prayerfully seek to be a faithful church that stands in stark contrast to the chaos and pressure of our world!
Thank you for the most relevant and insightful words.
Good word! Loved how you applied the definitions to how churches can succumb to being a church of tares!