“...our existent Christianity is almost universally corrupt, and is becoming more so continually; that unless its present tendencies be speedily reversed, a state worse than medieval darkness will soon settle upon Christendom; not a state of intellectual decrepitude and enslavement, but one of intellectual triumph and haughty independence...one in which man will rise in proud supremacy, and either trample the Church under foot, or else spare her in Gibeonite degradation to become a 'hewer of wood and drawer of water' about the gorgeous Temple of Mammon!” William Henry Ruffner, Charity and the Clergy (1853)
William Henry Ruffner, an Old School Presbyterian pastor, penned those words in 1853, as he reflected on how the Presbyterian church had become a church for the wealthy.
His concern was that so long as Presbyterians focused on the wealthy, the preaching would increasingly be designed to make the wealthy feel comfortable in church. And, as the wealthy fell prey to the “deceitfulness of riches,” the pastors would go along. Already, in 1853, he noticed that in the big, wealthy urban churches, if a pastor announced that he would preach on predestination, half the congregation might stay away; but if he preached on the big political and social issues of the day, he would have a packed house.
Over the last 160 years, Ruffner’s fears have been realized. The church continued to grow and flourish outwardly – but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches have eaten away at the church’s mission and identity, the word has been choked by thorns, and it is not fruitful...
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