Ten Indictments Against The Modern Church

In Paul Washer’s Ten Indictments Against The Modern Church, Washer lays out ten markers of a pernicious malaise plaguing the modern church. In this book one comes face to face with some hard diagnosis that rings too close to home.

Washer examines such pertinent issues as The Denial of the Sufficiency of Scripture, An Ignorance of God, A Failure to Address Man’s Malady among others in a sermonic format that adds to the confrontational forcefulness of the truths expounded in this small book.

The author decries how many in the modern church are undermining the absolute authority and sufficiency of the scriptures for faith and life by resorting to psychology and social culture for possible solutions to what they often perceive as problems too big for the church to adequately handle. Such people unwittingly render the scriptures merely supplementary to life and faith thus tends only to approach it in addition to sociology or anthropology or some other clever schemes and traditions of men. So in effect, the author notes that “it does little good for men to cry out for extra-biblical manifestations when biblical principle is violated all around us.”

The violation of these biblical truths and the eager quest of many for illegitimate religious experiences, the author observes, are often due to a lack of knowledge of the God who is. Many carry an erroneous belief of a God who is akin to a cosmic Santa Clause whose sole desire is to dote on his children by showering countless goodies on them at their every request so long as they remain good boys and girls. He warns then that, “There can be no fear of the Lord among us, because there is no knowledge of the Lord among us!” So many are caught between the notion of the God they want and the God who is simply because of ignorance of the true nature and attributes of the God who is!

Perhaps, the most shocking portion of the entire book for me was his treatment of what he titled An Unbiblical Gospel Invitation where he deals with the dangers of Decisionism and the Sinner’s Prayer saying among other things that, “The sinner’s prayer has sent more people to hell than anything on the face of the earth.” He defends this rather outlandish position saying, “Men today are trusting in the fact that at least one time in their life they prayed a prayer and someone told them they were saved because they were sincere enough.” I totally agree with this assertion. Instead of examining the presence of the fruits of the spirit in our lives in keeping with our salvation, many rely on the memory of a decision they once made as proof of their salvation while wallowing unrepentantly in sin. The modern church must repent of this sin of formulaic salvation that is so prevalent today.

Amid all the dreary diagnostics the author highlights, one would have expected a backlash of the culprits peddling these falsehoods yet the author graciously avoids all overcritical language and instead adopts a firm yet reassuring pastoral admonishing and compassionate appeals for repentance with an obvious aim to restore who or what has gone wayward. This is highly commendable of the author as it is a very godly and biblical approach!

In the end, he appeals to his fellow pastors and elders from the scriptures to “take heed unto thyself and thy doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee.” He further urges them to have “courage to change everything, even if it is the last day of your life.”

Though this book isn’t entirely new (originally a sermon preached on October 22, 2008 at the Revival Conference in Atlanta, Georgia and can be heard at www.tenindictments.com), its message is timely and if heeded will serve as a good guide for godly stewardship for pastors and elders for all time. This book is available for free online and I highly recommended it to all especially church leaders.