You may well have seen this a few days ago on the BBC news website that illustrates perfectly the dire state of the church in mainland Europe. The article profiles a Dutch church led by a man who doesn’t believe in a personal God or an afterlife or even the historical person of Jesus and the divinity of Christ.

An investigation was carried out about whether to throw out leaders with such views, ‘However, a special church meeting decided his views were too widely shared among church thinkers for him to be singled out.’

And according to the priest, while these views are ‘changing what the Church has said’, but not apparently the “real meaning of Christianity”. Goodness knows how she knows what that is.

And here’s the real insight into why these views are not only tolerated but supported according to a member of the church for 20 years, “I think it’s very liberating. [They are] using the Bible in a metaphorical way so I can bring it to my own way of thinking, my own way of doing.”

And, “Here you can believe what you want to think for yourself, what you really feel and believe is true.”

Ah, what I feel to be true…must be right then.

Who needs new atheists to undermine Christianity when the church is doing that perfectly well on its own?

But before I get all judgmental against Europe’s ‘christian’ liberals I wonder if a similar debate isn’t happening from time to time in evangelical churches. Take, for example, this debate on Vicky Beeching’s blog where she plays the advocate to both sides of a discussion about whether non-Christians should be on the worship team?

Having been asked that question a few times I know it’s sometimes a live issue, but where do you draw the line. If the drummer can be a pagan, why not the worship leader or indeed the church leader as is the case in this Dutch church? It’s not for me, those that contribute to the life of a church have to have the life of the one whose church it is. Another reason for me why baptism is so significant, it stands as a public declaration that ‘I no longer live but Christ who lives in me’ (Gal 2:20).