Please pray…for the white empty churches of New England! ( And just so this isn’t too depressing, there is a happy, true story at the end.)

A little girl in a New England church

When I was a little girl in Connecticut,  our parents took us to the First Congregational church. I have a few memories that rise in my mind like old snapshots now.

I remember the Sunday School room, and an old man teaching.  He seemed ancient to us, though he was surely younger than I am now.  Once, he held up a dim flashlight and told us that here was where we should come to get our battery recharged.  I don’t recall that he explained how that was supposed to happen.

Then there was one sunny day after church when all the kids were running around outside asking each other “Do you believe in Adam and Eve?”  And the resounding answer from all of them was “NO!!!”

That made an impression on me. I had heard of Adam and Eve, but I hadn’t heard that they weren’t real until that day. I didn’t know who started spreading that, but it was affirmed to us later by our pastor (see the creepy story about the church basement, below).  It wouldn’t be until I went to college in South Carolina that I personally knew anyone who believed the account of Adam and Eve in the Bible.

 

When I was an obnoxious pre-teen

In Junior high, we gave our Sunday School teacher a hard time. He was a kind man. I am sorry now I and the others were so hard on him.  To get us in line, he challenged us to do a good deed every week.  Then, we were supposed to tell him and the class whatever good deed we had done each Sunday. The kid who had the best good deed got a bag of potato chips.  I won a few times, and I am pretty sure I stretched the truth to do so.  A little liar I was.  I am sorry about that too.

It could have been a great teaching moment about total depravity, because I’m also pretty sure the other kids lied too.  In Sunday School.  To a teacher they had been mean to.

Of course trumpeting our good deeds, even if they had been true, kind of violates what Jesus said about doing works of charity in Matthew 6:

3But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4that your charitable deed may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly.

Even if we weren’t lying, weren’t we still trading a reward from God for a bag of potato chips?  We weren’t knowingly flouting the Bible; we were just ignorant of it and gleefully sinning.

 

 

Eighth Grade

In eighth grade, we had something like confirmation.  This consisted of our Pastor taking us down into the church basement to teach us about the Bible.  He wore a black robe when he was preaching. He was very tall and had a loud, booming voice.

But down in that basement, he seemed more human, even a bit folksy. More soft-spoken.

I remember just one thing from that class. He told us that the Old Testament was just a book of fables.  He said people of long ago didn’t have the science to explain, for example, the rainbow, so they made up a pretty story about it.

In one fell swoop he debunked Genesis (following up on what the little children learned, that there was no such thing as Adam and Eve.).

Christ, we learned, died for all regardless of what religion they are.  There is no hell. Our so-called Pastor dismantled original sin,  the 5 solas, and emptied the Cross and Christ’s atonement in a few swift, gentle, deadly blows.

It had been a house of cards anyway.  Flashlights with dim batteries.  Potato chips for good deeds.

And I am sure that they all thought they were doing us a service.  Encouraging us to be good people.

And yet, this same Pastor dutifully read passages from both Old and New Testaments.  I recall his booming voice always saying when he finished, “Here endeth our scripture reading!”.

In my youth, looking now back as a regenerate woman, there were vestiges of what Congregationalism had been: essentially what grew out of the Puritan Church.

But there was no soul even in my day (the 1950’s and 60’s). No gospel.  He surely did end our scripture reading.

Were the white New England churches ever doctrinally sound?

Some undoubtedly were.  There were some that may have been constructed after liberalism and Darwinism had taken hold.  But the architecture was definitely influenced by the Protestant Reformation. Here’s an article, not from a Christian perspective, that explains that the simplicity of these churches came from the places of worship the Puritans built, and subsequent revivals of Biblical Christianity.  (It probably goes without saying that I utterly reject the idea that Unitarianism or Universalism  are Christian, as the article seems to assert.)

The Puritans wanted places of worship that were simple, and also expressed the centrality of the Word of God.  The architecture reflects this. This is why the pulpit is front and center, not to the side the way it is in the Roman Catholic sanctuary  (this positioning elevates the table of the sacrifice of the Mass, not the Word of God).

Some old New England churches have stairs up to a high pulpit centrally located.  It is not, as some suppose, because the pastor is anything, but God’s word preached is everything.  Christ is exalted, not the minister.

The same is true of the robe worn by some Bible believing pastors today.  The idea is to hide him, so the congregation hears and thinks upon Christ.

The architecture of these white New England churches lacks the statuary and ornate elements of Roman Catholicism.  Their very simplicity communicates that it is God who is to be worshipped, not the works and idols and inventions of human minds and hands. Man contributes nothing to salvation except his sin–I believe it was Jonathan Edwards, the famous New England preacher during the Great Awakening, who said that.  These churches express this in the simplicity of the architecture.  The very design comes out of the Protestant Reformation.  The simple steeples point to the sky.

The worship of the Pilgrims

The original church building in which the Pilgrims worshiped no longer exists.  Peter T. Young writes:

The first public building to be erected by the Pilgrims was a large house, twenty-feet square, which was used for storage and public worship; but shortly after its completion, it took fire, and The Common House was burnt to the ground.

Here is a picture we took of a house at Plymouth Plantation several years ago.  Possibly the Common House looked something like this:

(A good article for those who might be interested in what a Pilgrim church service was like.)

Without knowing the exact history of all of them, it is safe to say that the majority of white New England churches have their roots in the Protestant Reformation.

This is what caused both the Pilgrims and Puritans to seek to evangelize the Native Americans and secure freedom of worship for themselves.  This was another wave of what began in the 1500’s, with Martin Luther, John Calvin, and others.

What has happened to those empty white churches of New England since then?

Well, first they went liberal.  This phase is what I outlined in my childhood, above.  Somewhere in the past before my childhood, those entrusted with the word of God lost their faith in the inerrancy of Scripture.  Hard to believe, but it happened big time.

Then they took their heresies and formed heretical denominations like the Unitarians and later, the United Church of Christ. This article argues that this was a good thing–not my position of course–but it does explain that it happened.  The title says these churches took on new life.  But those same white churches are mostly churches no more.  Ultimately they took on death.  They lost their lamp stands because God eventually judged them (see Revelation 2:5-7, below).

This article by The Church of The Pilgrimage explains the history of the church in Plymouth, and how the church initially split over the Unitarian (anti-Trinitarian) heresy.  At that time they chose orthodoxy.  However the authors then go on to say they joined the United Church of Christ, which they call a sound denomination!  This article on the United Church of Christ by Albert Mohler explains just how sound it is, allowing an avowed atheist woman to be a “pastor”.

What was the result of departing from the truth of Scripture?

Once the churches went liberal, they followed the trajectory of other mainline denominations that also went liberal (read heretical).  They lost members.  They have continually declined. Sad to say, not because sound believers left them (though this did happen).  No, it was because a large part of the congregants found better things to do on Sunday morning.

I mean, without the power and presence of the living God, what is the point of church?  There are way more interesting things in the world of sin than pointless meetings.  If Christ is not the way of salvation, why try to follow some impotent, wimpy, unknowable God?

It is not even a church if the Bible is not preached.  Devoid of the gospel, they are empty of the power of God unto salvation through Jesus Christ.  “Ichabod” should be on the signs that have replaced the church signs.  Instead of  “Historical Society” or “Town Hall”.

What has happened to the White Churches? Many of them lie empty, used for nothing.  Many are still limping along as heretical denominations like Unitarian and United Church of Christ (formerly Congregational, some still retain the name).  We should lament when we see them.  Some are literally empty and used for nothing.

Their lamp stands are GONE.

The white empty churches of New England are signs of God’s judgment.

Here are the words of Jesus in Revelation 2:

⁵ Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works,or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place—unless you repent. ⁶ But this you have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.

⁷ “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God.

Let’s pray to fill these empty white churches with regenerate pastors, elders, deacons and saints.  Let them be filled with the presence of the true and living God!  Let God and His people meet in these places once more on the Lord’s Day.

They are a sign of what one was.  They are still standing as silent witnesses to our national defection from God.

So what do we do?

Here is a call to action.  Here is where YOU and I come in.

PLEASE PRAY!!!

It is tragic to see these white empty churches of New England with rainbow flags draped on them, right in the center of town.  Right where church bells used to call worshippers to church to glorify our great, amazing, true, all-powerful, gracious holy GOD!!!

They are strategically located! Right in the center of town.  And if those who meet there are affirming sin, they are doing the very opposite of preaching the way to heaven: salvation through Jesus Christ alone, by grace through faith alone.

Jesus rightly calls such churches synagogues of Satan (Revelation 2:9 and Revelation 3:9.   These false shepherds are opening the door to hell and ushering people in.

It is beyond tragic to have sin affirming pastors ushering poor sinners into hell with smiles on their faces as they virtue signal their tolerance.  As they deny the deity of Christ, the virgin birth, the inerrancy of scripture.  As they fail to show sinners the only way of salvation, in Jesus Christ our Lord.

It is also tragic to see them used for everything BUT worship.

These false sheep will have to answer to God.

If you can, please ACT!!!

Do you live in New England?  Might you ask the Lord to show your church a way to purchase one of these buildings?  They are centrally located, beautiful, expressive of the faith of those who inspired their design.  They are signs that still remain of what once was.

Is your church wanting to plant another church? Yes, they are old and maybe in rough shape, but could you work to restore them physically to show an example of Christ’s redeeming power?  A witness in the heart of town?

Are you in New England and planning a building program?  How about instead, restore several of these white churches? These would be signs that whole towns could see.

Pray that these buildings become available.  God could easily make that happen.

If He did and we responded, they could be a link to a glorious past, all the way back to what made our country great.  The gospel of Christ.

Could there be persecution?

You bet.  There could be.  In fact it’s highly likely.  There is a cost to proclaiming the gospel and we must love Christ and those He came to save enough to count it, then embrace it if comes.  For Jesus says in Matthew 5:

¹¹ Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. ¹² Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

And now, for the happy, true story!

We were recently visiting in New England, and one Lord’s Day we visited a church called Grace Presbyterian.  This church meets in a building modeled after the white churches of New England.

It doesn’t have a steeple, but it looks a lot like the old churches, and this was intentional.  The doctrine and faithfulness to God preached within its walls is similar to what was preached in the Puritan churches so long ago.

It’s what’s inside that counts!  This is what determines whether it is empty or full of life.

 

We were so blessed by the brothers and sisters there, and rejoice that there are other sound churches in New England also.  Many more, in fact, than when I was a little girl in one of the white empty churches.

Please join me in praying not so much for the redemption of buildings, but for the real prize,  That is redemption of the lost souls in these towns.  Ask God to fill hearts that will then fill these white empty churches of New England!  May the steeple bells ring again in the centers of their lovely towns.  May the gospel sound forth!

A prayer in song for revival in our churches…Restore Us 

by Charlotte Ryerson