One of the great temptations of in the history of the church has been to withdraw from other Christians in pursuit of sanctity. This was the first stage of Christian monasticism, which failed. It was not long before eremitic monasticism became cenobitic monasticism. The error has been to think that if we can just get away from the sins and corruption of others, we can attain greater sanctity. History tells us that the project has failed, because wherever we go we take our sinful nature and corruption with us. This is one of the gospel mysteries of sanctification, that the Spirit operates in the visible church through the preached gospel to bring us to new life and true faith, and in the work of the Spirit through the gospel made visible in the Supper to sanctify us.
R. Scott Clark, The Heidelberg Catechism: A Historical, Theological & Pastoral Commentary (Lexham Academic: 2025), 526–27.
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Inwoo Lee
Inwoo Lee (BA, UCSD) earned his MA (Historical Theology) in 2020 from Westminster Seminary California and is author of “Righteous Before God: William Perkins’ Doctrine of Justification in Elizabethan England” (MA Thesis, Westminster Seminary California, 2020). He lives in the Great Seoul area, in South Korea with his wife Holly.
More by Inwoo Lee ›
The reality is that most people today probably leave participation in the visible church because of the personal pain they have experienced within the visible church.
Cathy,
I fear this is too often true, which is a great shame, but, in my experience, people leave for a variety of reasons. Americans are particularly apt to pick up and move because they don’t get what they want. It’s very easy to “church hop” in our culture.
I’ve given a fair bit of thought to addressing the problem of wounded sheep. There is no perfect or complete answer but there are some partial answers.
I really believe that being in a congregation with the marks of the church is an important first step. In America there are many congregations but how many of them are properly organized, with accountability, with proper ministers preaching the pure good news, administering the sacraments as Christ ordained, and church discipline to correct erring sheep, who are themselves subject to correction? Most mega-church pastors are de facto popes subject to no one.
Where there is abuse in Presbyterian and Reformed churches, there needs to be correction at regional and national levels/assemblies. Again, this system isn’t perfect. Sometimes the system fails but it does offer some hope.
If you are one of those wounded sheep, I believe that there are good, safe, gracious sheepfolds out there. Don’t give up. The Christian life is not meant to be lived solo.