The bad news is that apostasy is inevitable!  Yet, the good news is that no one has to be a part of it — especially if he is alert to, and recognizes, the signs of its encroachment.

That apostasy, of both individuals and groups, is inevitable is evident from both Biblical and uninspired history.  The Bible makes it clear in many statements and examples that this is the case.  To name a few, there are the examples of Adam and Eve (Gen. 3), Cain (Gen. 4), the antediluvians (Gen. 6-9), the tower of Babel (Gen. 11), the general Gentile world (Rom. 1:24,26,28), the Israelites on numerous occasions — in the wilderness (Heb. 3:16-19), in Canaan during the times of the judges (Judg. 2:11-23), the kings (2 Kgs. 17:1-23; 2 Chr. 36:11-17), and Christ (Matt. 12:43-45) — Solomon, 1 Kgs. 11:1ff), and the apostle Judas (Matt. 26:14,15).

Jesus and Paul express the inevitability of apostasy in particularly succinct and definite statements.  Jesus said, “… It is inevitable that stumbling blocks come …” (Matt. 18:7), while Paul said, “… There must also be factions among you …” (1 Cor. 11:19), and “… in later times some will fall away from the faith …” (1 Tim. 4:1).

In addition to these examples, there are numerous Biblical prophecies and warnings regarding apostasy by Jesus (Matt. 24:12), Paul (Acts 20:29,30; 1 Cor. 10:12; 2 Thess. 2:1-3; 1 Tim. 4:1-3,6), the writer of Hebrews (2:1; 3:12), and Peter (2 Pet. 2:1).  Indeed, the Bible is so replete with such examples, prophecies, and warnings that the prospect of becoming an apostate ought to strike fear in the heart of any pious soul.  If even the humble and wise Solomon failed to escape apostasy, no one is justified in feeling safe and secure while in this life!

Furthermore, these prophecies and warnings about apostasy are repeatedly confirmed in uninspired history and experience.  A generation ago, the student of American religious history, David Edwin Harrell, reported that apostasy among churches of Christ had progressed to the point of bifurcation into two separate alignments:  “The fact that the church of Christ is divided into conservative and denominational factions is not a partisan question.  It is not even debatable.  This is a good, sound, inescapable, historical conclusion.  Every secular scholar who has studied the current status of the church of Christ understands that the movement is in the process of a ‘sect to denomination’ evolution” (The Emergence of the “Church of Christ” Denomination, pg. 26, 1972).

A generation later it would seem that that evolution is approaching its culmination.  Even some in the liberal alignment (i.e., “institutional churches”) have begun to complain about the apostasy among themselves, so that what once might have seemed to be a bifurcation has actually emerged into a trifurcation of conservatives, moderates, and liberals.  “We’ve raised up a generation … where some of us kids have forgotten [the passion to teach the lost].  In fact, too many.  And the result is now slapping us in the face.  … ‘A National study of about 2,000 junior high, senior high and college students in the Church of Christ shows that nearly 80 percent of the teenagers do not believe one must be an active member of the Church of Christ in order to go to heaven” (Larry West, World Radio News, March-April, 1995, pg. 2).

“The church of Christ is dividing into two irreconcilable camps.  On one side are those who have kept the same faith.  On the other side are those who are experimenting with a broad range of differing faiths.  And there is a vast gulf between these two sides, separating the light from the darkness. …  Christians usually fall into error gradually rather than instantly.  A small compromise here, a little concession there, and before you know it the whole has changed.  Lowering the boundaries between the church and other religions weakens the meaning of being a Christian.  It is an apostasy of attrition” (Gregory Alan Tidwell, Gospel Advocate, March 2016, pp. 12, 15).

 “Churches of Christ have also felt the pressures of social liberalism.  An increasing number of congregations and institutions do not teach and practice the simple truths of New Testament Christianity.  When I was a young adult, if a congregation claimed to be a church of Christ, you knew what the assembly believed.  College students today face a blurred ambiguity of doctrinal confusion” (Joe Wiley, Gospel Advocate, January 2017, pg. 12).

 “In his excellent new book, Will Our Faith Have Children?, Stan Mitchell writes, ‘The church is just one generation away from disappearing.  All it takes is for one generation in a long line of generations to fail to teach the next.  The most important question of our age is this:  Will there be a church, Christ-like and biblical, faithful and evangelistic, in the next generation?  Will our faith have children?’” (Billy R. Smith, Gospel Advocate, January 2017, pg. 22).

However, no one has to be lost to apostasy.  These very examples and warnings are testimony to the fact that the situation with any individual is by no means hopeless.  Indeed, the very fact that one takes notice of, and trembles, at such warnings makes it that much less likely that he will be overtaken by apostasy.

Though the apostasy of individuals can occur, or seem to occur, rather suddenly, the dynamics of a social group do not typically allow for this.  Instead, the influence of individuals upon one another and the change in attitudes necessary to receptiveness to unconventional ideas within the membership of a group require time.  Therefore, the apostasy of an affiliation of persons usually takes place over years, decades, or even generations.

The difficulty under which this phenomenon places members of a group wishing to preserve the status quo or original identity of the group consists in the fact that the early or even intermediate steps in the process of apostasy, especially critical attitudinal changes, tend to occur so gradually or incrementally that they are nearly imperceptible to most of the members.  To use a medical metaphor, apostasy is not a heart attack — it is cancer!  Adding to this difficulty of discerning the forces of apostasy at work is the fact that those who do notice, and warn of, the changes taking place might often be disregarded, declaimed, and discredited by being labeled as “alarmists,” “traditionalists,” “legalists,” “hobby-riders,” or “nit-pickers.”

The apostasy of the Israelites following the death of Joshua provides a good illustrative paradigm of this phenomenon (Judg. 2:7-23).  Three generations are distinguishable:  (a) Joshua and his contemporaries (vs. 7), (b) the generation following Joshua (vs. 7), and (c) the next generation (vs. 10).

This observation that apostasy occurs in cycles of three generations is, of course, somewhat artificial.  It might occur more slowly or more quickly.  [Paul was amazed, for instance, that apostasy had occurred so “quickly” among the Galatians and that they were ready to “turn back again to the weak and worthless elemental things” (1:6ff; 4:9).]  However, this should not obscure the fact that group apostasy is typically a slow, gradual, even multi-generational process.  This pattern is also confirmed by the narrative of the books of Joshua and Judges, which show that apostasy tended to develop over a period of 40-80 years (3:11,30; 5:31; 8:28,33).  When Joshua called upon the Israelites to put away the false gods they had among themselves, they did so (Josh. 24:14ff).  Yet, two generations later, false gods were reintroduced among them (Judg. 2:10ff).

Later generations tend to lose the fervor with which their forebears fought for, and adhered to, the principles which activated their movement.  They simply did not share the experiences of their forebears.  Patriotism is strongest among veterans.  It seems to be contrary to the nature of life to keep a fire of fervor forever fueled.  It is difficult to pass on a legacy of enthusiasm to a later generation.  They have come to live in a different world.  They cannot relate to, or appreciate, bygone conditions which led to the movement to which they have now become only a nominal and habituated part.  They have a different set of concerns, which leads them to take for granted that for which their forebears so fiercely and fearlessly fought.

The advantage of thinking of apostasy as occurring in small steps is that, not only does this concept generally conform to reality, but it also allows for better discernment of the process by which apostasy takes place.  Therefore, while it might be a little simplistic to do so, it might also prove helpful to analyze the process of apostasy in three stages taking place over three generations.

The First Generation:  Silence

Once the victory has been won, or at least the battle lines have been clearly drawn, a kind of “peace” settles over the scene of conflict.  The guns are silenced, as an uneasy armistice becalms the former warzone.  A sort of “battle fatigue” has set in.  The war has been fought, and the issues have been resolved as far as they can be.  Foes have nestled into something akin to static and entrenched truce.  Quiet descends softly over the fields where fighting has recently raged.  Foes see no point in engaging each other, since sides have been chosen and combatants have made up their minds.  They now focus on consolidating their positions.  They become complacent and cease to teach the principles and make the applications which once animated them.

This silence is itself a problem.  Satan takes advantage of this “quiet time” to get his forces ready for his next offensive.  Younger generations are not being taught principles which will prepare them to identify and confront renewed assaults in slightly different forms.

It is both wrong and dangerous to keep silent about the truth.  Isaiah affirmed his obligation to declare the truth when he said, “For Zion's sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not keep quiet, until her righteousness goes forth like brightness, and her salvation like a torch that is burning” (62:1).  The four lepers at the gate of famine-stricken Samaria understood this.  They initially kept quiet about the bounty they found in the abandoned camp of the Arameans but then repented and said, “We are not doing right. This day is a day of good news, but we are keeping silent; if we wait until morning light, punishment will overtake us. Now therefore come, let us go and tell …” (2 Kgs. 7:9).  When Esther hesitated to intervene on behalf of her people, her guardian, Mordecai, told her, “Do not imagine that you in the king’s palace can escape any more than all the Jews.  For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place and you and your father’s house will perish.  And who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this?” (Esth. 4:13,14).  Peter and John refused to comply with the Sanhedrin’s command to cease preaching the gospel, replying, “For we cannot stop speaking what we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:20).

Second Generation:  Apathy

Because the first generation ceases teaching certain Biblical principles, the next generation becomes indifferent to them.  They might be aware of them and even abide by them, but they do not have a strong emotional or principled attachment to them.  They accept them because they are a part of the heritage which gives them their identity.  They know that they are expected to oppose the teachings and practices their forebears did, but the basis of their commitment to these principles goes no farther than that.  In any event, they have even less to say about these principles to the next generation than the preceding one had to say to them.

This indifference might evolve into embarrassment about these principles or even hostility toward them.  Such reactions might be driven by a psychological impetus not uncommon in younger generations to forge an independent identity and define their spirituality by its distinction from that of their forebears, especially if their spirituality seems stilted and legalistic.  Such hostility might not express itself openly and explicitly, for fear of backlash from those who care about such matters.  Yet, they might become increasingly intolerant of sermons critical of other religious viewpoints.  They want “truth” which is palatable and imbalanced in favor of subjects which are inoffensive.  One is reminded of Isaiah’s contemporaries, who said, “to the seers, ‘You must not see visions’; and to the prophets, ‘You must not prophesy to us what is right, speak to us pleasant words, prophesy illusions’” (30:10), or Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, who was aggravated by Amos’ prophesying and told him, “Go, you seer, flee away to the land of Judah, and there eat bread and there do your prophesying!” (7:12), or Paul’s warning to Timothy, “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires; and will turn away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside to myths” (2 Tim. 4:3,4).

They might conceal their antipathy toward “distinctive preaching” by calling, instead, for emphasis on preaching which is more devotional or “positive” or which focuses on supposedly neglected subjects.  While there might be some validity to their complaints, they might also be taken to the opposite extreme and used to justify it.

Third Generation:  Reintroduction

The third generation experiences the reintroduction of those elements which their forebears found so offensive.  Not only have they not experienced the battles which their forebears fought, but they have not heard much about them or been taught the principals involved.  They have not been encouraged to care about them.  They see matters much differently.  They are looking for a different kind of religion and life.  Hence, they feel no compunctions about reintroducing to their lives and worship what was once so offensive to their forebears.

By the end of the first century, the church had been in existence for about seventy years — enough time that the second and third generations of Christians had come, or were beginning to come, to the forefront.  The author of Hebrews, writing perhaps several years before the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., appears to be concerned about the threat of extensive apostasy among Jewish Christians, as he warns, “For this reason we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it” (2:1).

John, whose writings are probably the latest in the New Testament and might coincide with the last decade of the first century, describes conditions among Christians in that period.  He seems to acknowledge the existence of three generations in the church when he refers to “fathers,” “young men,” and “(little) children” (1 Jn. 2:12,13).  By this time, apostasy was already well under way, for he says, “… Even now many antichrists have arisen; from this we know that it is the last hour” (1 Jn. 2:18).

By the end of the first century, only two of the seven churches of Asia addressed by Christ in Revelation (chs. 2,3) escaped serious rebuke for their unfaithfulness.  Second Peter’s second chapter and Jude’s only chapter are largely parallel, but while Peter uses the future tense in referring to the arrival of apostates, saying that “there will also be false teachers” among his readers (vs. 1), Jude uses the past tense, saying that “certain persons have crept in” (vs. 4), thus confirming that the very ones about whom Peter had warned had arrived on the scene by the time Jude picked up his pen.

Conclusion

If both Scripture and historical experience teach that apostasy is virtually inevitable, why should any generation of Christians, even today’s, feel comfortable, thinking that they, their children, or their grandchildren are immune to it?  Biblical truths and their proper application are a “tradition” (1 Thess. 3:6) in the truest sense:  they must be handed down by teaching to succeeding generations, for time and lack of direct experience lead those who come later to forget their importance.  There will eventually arise those who “did not know Joseph” (Ex. 1:8) or “had not experienced any of the wars of Canaan” (Judg. 3:1), and their behaviors and reactions will be different from those who did — unless they are taught by an older generation to “stand by the ways and see and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is, and walk in it” (Jer. 6:16).

The Lord’s church is now entering, or approaching, the third generation since institutionalism was a source of serious and divisive conflict.  “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Cor. 10:12).

Other Articles by Gary P. Eubanks
A Fool's Approach

Some Practical Considerations for Those Considering Marriage
 Talking Code
If You Remain Silent - Intolerance of Controversy
Fathers, Divorce and Brethren
The Sunday Supper
Negative About Positivism

• Caffin, B.C. (1950), II Peter – Pulpit Commentary, H.D.M. Spence and Joseph Exell, eds. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans).

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