Worldly wisdom from a Christian women’s magazine

on a matter already addressed in Scripture.

My wife still receives the magazine Today’s Christian Woman after subscribing to it a couple years ago (before we knew better). TCW is published by Christianity Today (which is a perfect name for it because it bears no resemblance to the Christianity of yesterday). TCW’s target audience is mainstream, affluent, suburban, women of the Laodicean church.

In their latest July/August issue, I came across a little blurb designed to help women get their unregenerate husbands into a church to warm a seat. I decided to reprint the blurb (which was adapted from a book) below for the readers of DefCon to see how far American Christianity has fallen.

Pew Partners.

Wish your spouse spent Sunday mornings with you? Choose a church with these man-friendly characteristics.

* Large congregation

* No denominational affiliation

* Strict Scriptural adherence

* Young, multiracial crowd

* Authoritative, male pastor

* Informal dress

* Modern technology

* Fun services

Adapted from How Women Help Men Find God by David Murrow (Thomas Nelson)

Granted, not all of the suggestions are bad, but the overall theme is what’s of concern (how much poison would you like in your glass of water?).

I can’t help but wonder what a mess this will create if someone follows this and it works. Instead of an unregenerate man who stays at home on Sunday mornings who could still possibly be reached with the gospel one day, you now have an unregenerate man sitting in a circus church on Sunday mornings who was manipulated into church by his wife and had his fleshly needs catered to by the ear-tickling pastor during one of those great modern technological church extravaganza shows.

Furthermore, the husband is now inoculated from the true gospel because he thinks himself in good standing with God because he’s begun attending church, (and no one in that church would dare challenge him to examine himself daily because that would be “judging”).

This spiritual self-deception will only be furthered if the husband ends up repeating a lifeless prayer of salvation after hearing a non-threatening, positive, upbeat, message on the life-lessons of King David during one of those “fun services” in which the pastor coaxed the audience to “try Jesus, He’ll make your life better.”

Sadly, unless a true conversion has taken place, this man will just be “playing church” and everything will remain the same as it was at home before he began attending church. His kids will grow up understanding what a true hypocrite looks like because daddy doesn’t act in church the way he acts throughout the rest of the week. This will more than likely turn his kids off to the Faith and they may rebel and reject Christianity based off this experience of growing up with a fake Christian in their midst.

But what does the Scriptures say about how a godly wife is to handle her unbelieving husband? Surprisingly it makes no mention of church attendance at all:

In the same way, you wives, be submissive to your own husbands so that even if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives, as they observe your chaste and respectful behavior.  (1 Peter 3:1-2)

Ahh, so according to Scripture, the real work is done in the home–in your everyday life–not in some church that caters to men’s needs.

By following the clear command of Scripture it would be better for the wife to remain faithful to the Lord’s instruction and not compromise, capitulate, and water-down her witness by resorting to manipulation in order to get dad to merely be a presence in a church.

It would be better for her children to grow up seeing the contrast between a godly mother and an ungodly father, and learn from their mother’s steadfast faithfulness to do what is commanded of her in Scripture. The above suggestions from TCW, however, would have the kids grow up with mom the compromiser of the faith, and dad the hypocrite of the faith.

What a train wreck we create when we attempt to do the job of the Holy Spirit and cajole, trick, manipulate, and force people into the kingdom of God via church attendance. But hey, all that matters is you got your “pew partner,” right?