The Leaven of the Pharisees

When I was in college, I read a book entitled The Leaven of he Sadducees, or Old and New Apostasies by Ernest Gordon. It was an old volume, published in 1926, long out of print. I wish someone would reprint it, because it is an important book. In it, Dr. Gordon chronicles the descent of modern denominations into Unitarian/liberal beliefs. Many long-standing bastions of Christian thought, such as Harvard, Andover, and Princeton became in a relatively short time secular institutions, indifferent or in most cases hostile to the Gospel. It is a lesson we today must still keep in mind.


However, It is not the only lesson we need. One thing that Gordon and others who have fought long and valiantly against encroaching secularism often fail to ask is what makes Christian institution susceptible to these influences in the first place?

Creeping liberalism, like most heresies and apostasies, more common in well-evangelized countries. The Third World, where Christianity is even today on the rise, seems to have little worry of it. It is Europe and America, where Christianity had long been held to be safe, that we see the rise of universalism and the devaluing of Scripture. If we suppose that this apostatizing trend is simply the work of the Devil, or some function of human depravity, then how do we explain that It mainly happens on one kind of Christian community--the ones which have mainly already been evangelized. Why don't we say the same trend among developing churches? They have other problems with apostasy, to be sure, but not this same liberalizing trend.

Think of apostasy as a virus. Viruses strike us, all, but they afflict some people more regularly. If we are already weakened, or our immunization system is suppressed, then we are more likely to get sick. If the spiritual life of the Body of Christ is weakened, then it is more likely to catch a spiritual disease, such as apostasy. In the wild, termites and other decay-producing organisms do not strike live plants, but dead ones. Where there is life there