With all the cultural decay going on around us, it is not surprising that we should see problems within the bosom of the institution called the Church.

The Church confronts an increasingly secular paradigm characterised by burgeoning hedonism, crass materialism and an obsession with power and status that breeds selfishness and exploitation.

In the 20th century, scientific and technological advances as well as trends in humanistic and social scientific thought, seriously diminished the spiritual parameters in western culture.

Long before, Emmanuel Kant had observed that the impact of liberal enlightenment on our spiritual life was such that if someone walked in while you were on your knees praying, you might be profoundly embarrassed.

Much is said about the failings of the Church by which is meant what the Reformation scholars called the Visible Church, organised religious organisations, always to be distinguished from the Invisible Church, the brotherhood of all believers and known only to Christ.

Someone once observed that the Church is a hospital for sick Christians and we are reminded that Christ came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Thus it might be fitting if the Church is full of persons in want of spiritual healing, and who among us are not.

The historic visible church has never been immune to schism, heresy, and moral pollution reflecting the sinful nature of mankind, for it may have been St Augustine who voiced that nothing straight has ever been created out of the crooked timber of humanity.

It is not difficult to be cynical about organised religion considering the plethora of denominations springing up all over the place each claiming to have some monopoly on truth and each pastor, apostle, and prophet, most with their qualifying doctorates of divinity, assuming to hear the voice of the one true God. Scandals over the past two decades in almost all sects, not least the Catholic paedophilia scourge, has weakened faith in many of the proclaimers of Christs Gospel.

However, he himself said that many would come in his name, hirelings whose own the sheep are not. When Pope Francis ascended the papacy and began his reforms, a friend in Argentina advised him to be careful because the friend warned: The Borgias are still in the Vatican, a reference to the infamous family a scion of which (Rodrigo Borgia) became Pope Alexander VI (1492-1503).

As with all mythologies (mythology used purely to mean a theoretical construct), Christian claims to ideological purity and certitude has historically led to gross intolerance and obscurantism of dogma.

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THE BIG PICTURE: The Church of Christ