I also said to him, "I´m also light years away from religious people who think that everything in the garden is lovely just because they go to church". This is very relevant in Denmark as abt. 80% of the Danish people are members of the so called Evangelical Lutheran Church which is our state (national) church. Many would refer to their membership when I try to witness to them. They don´t know the Lord, but they are religious all right.
Monday night I accepted the invitation to go to an evening gathering in our parish church, a big Lutheran one, where the topic was baptism. I was curious and wanted to find out what the female vicar had to say. It was a very unpleasant experience. In keeping with the teaching of the Lutheran church she held forth the doctrine of infant regeneration provided for in the infant baptism (sprinkling). That is the moment where the baby is born again and becomes a child of God and a member of the church (body) of Christ. "No matter what happens from now on, no matter how our behavior is, that relationship to God will always remain."
She asked me to say something too. I just gave my testimony and told these Lutheran friends that it was actually Martin Luther who had taught me to read the Bible and honor it as God´s word and that his password "Sola Scriptura" (The Scriptures alone) had also become my password, and so I carry my Bible with me whenever I go to a Christian gathering. (Ironically the Lutherans never carry any Bible with them when they meet). I also said to them that their baptism will not save them. " You may be tied to a boat and be baptized all the way in the Atlantic from Southampton to New York and you´ll still be lost if you don´t trust Christ", I said to them thus quoting the beloved British servant of God, Charles Spurgeon.
I felt grieved, but also indignant. Grieved because of the spiritual darkness prevailing in a church that carries Luther´s name, - that Luther who had experienced the light of the gospel. I was also indignant knowing that the vicar in question is preaching Sunday by Sunday to a pretty big crowd who is assured of theirgood standing as God´s children because of their baptism. Alas, "be astonished, O heavens, at this and be horribly afraid!" (Jer. 2:12)
Is the spiritual darkness less in the independent so called "free churches" in Denmark? I hope so, but I often doubt it. Charismatic excesses don´t guarantee spiritual health, in fact they would often in a very subtle way promote spiritual disaster.
I often feel like crying out with Mary Magdalene, "They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him!" (John 20:13). In America they would often say the word "church" every time I say the word "Christ". In Denmark it is the word "baptism" without Christ. - As a young man in the States Christ was once overshadowed, not by "baptism" or "church", but by legalism. An American pastor called on me and said, "You have changed. I remember when you always lifted up Christ. What has happened?" Well, I went through deep waters, but the Lord undertook and tenderly took me out of that bondage and Christ was again the glorious fullness of my spiritual horizon. Indeed, "Him we preach" (Col. 1:28), and if that passion leaves us, nothing is left! Nothing!
