The Church's Drift
The Way We Think About Faith Changes What Faith Becomes
Consider This:
What if the greatest influence on our faith
isn’t what we believe, but how we think?
In the last article, The Unseen Thinking Drift, I explored how Western culture has been shaped by a subtle but powerful shift in our thinking habits—a drift toward left-hemisphere’s rational processes, and away from the right hemisphere’s intuitive perspective.
What if that same shift has quietly made its way into the church? What if our environment has changed the way we’ve learned to think about faith?
If we’re the proverbial frog in the kettle, when do we recognize that the ever-warming water we’re swimming in is killing us?
Could we even recognize it—given that our ability to recognize is the thing that’s shifted?
A Familiar Voice
It’s telling that most of us know the famous line from the poem Invictus, even if we don’t know where it came from:
“I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.”
This image resonates with Westerners. It portrays the values of individual grit and the pursuit of achievement—indeed, in the U.S., these are iconic national virtues.
Yet this creates a tension: What happens when a culture that worships independence shapes a church called to dependence?
The Shift in How We Think About Faith
Faith in Jesus is built on dependent abiding, trust and submission. Jesus’ words are direct: “Apart from me you can do nothing.”
Yet the church in the West shifted from this dependent abiding—not in our stated beliefs, but in how we process and live those beliefs. We now predominantly approach faith as something to understand, define and apply.
Of course, understanding, defining and applying aren’t wrong. But when they take the lead on faith, faith becomes less about trust and more about information and methodology. And since those produce results, they don’t feel like a departure. They actually feel like clarity and growth.
That we’re unalarmed at how easily this approach supports an independent, “master and captain” identity should tell us something.
The question is: Does it?
Losing Wisdom
This shift wasn’t a conscious decision to move away from God. It was, however, a lack of wisdom: We allowed ourselves to be conditioned by the world.
Embracing independence opened the door to loving the world’s thinking. Just as the Israelites intermarried with pagan wives and came to worship their gods, we intermarried our thought processes with the world’s. As a result, we now have come to think like the world.
So how did this happen?
The Cognitive Coup d’État
Imagine a wise leader of a country. She sees the big picture and knows what matters most. She is supported by a highly capable executive who organizes and executes plans. Over time, the executive becomes so effective that he begins to assume the authority of the leader he served. Others respond, seeming to affirm the exercise of authority as the right move.
But things eventually become unstable. His management lacks foresight. His leadership becomes reactionary and expedient. His decisions are based on retaining control. He becomes intolerant of perspectives that aren’t his, and suspicious of others’ motives. He tightens his inner circle to include only those who will unquestioningly obey him. Diplomacy suffers as relationships abroad grow competitive and combative. Ultimately, the citizens suffer most, as life becomes anxious, fragmented and individualistic.
His executive competencies—so capable in partnership with the wise leader—become incompetence at actually leading.
In a similar way, the part of our thinking designed to execute faith has taken the lead over the part designed to comprehend faith. What we can explain now feels more real than what we are called to trust; what we can manage feels more valuable than what we must receive.
The Drift Has a History
This shift made its way into the church gradually, shaped by the same forces that shaped Western culture as a whole. If we look for it, we can see the pattern across history:
Centralization of authority under the bishops (2nd–3rd centuries)
The bishops in the major cities began to mirror Rome’s leadership. They gained increased influence and reinforced hierarchy, positional authority and control.Council of Nicaea (AD 325)
The first empire-wide council defined doctrine in a formal creed—centralizing, formalizing and enforcing doctrinal clarity (including excommunication for non-compliance). It was convened by the emperor (not the church).1Institutionalization of clergy ordination (4th century+)
The division between clergy and laity becomes formalized, marking the boundary of authority and faith practice in the church.2
Imperial alignment after Constantine (4th century+)
The church became embedded with political and social power, normalizing institutional support and external authority.3
Establishment of Empirical Christendom (4th-15th centuries)
The church was established and the “gospel” was advanced through the exercise of social, political and military power.4
Monasticism (4th century+)
This was a reaction against the church’s institutional rigidity and perceived loss of genuine spirituality. Interestingly, Monasticism was largely set apart from the laity, who commonly regarded monks as spiritual guides and sought spiritual vitality through them by proxy.Scholasticism (5th-15th centuries)
An educational approach that sought knowledge of God through logical analysis and disputation, emphasizing precision and intellectualism while deemphasizing deepening virtues and character.Humanism and the Renaissance (14th-16th centuries)
Humanism emphasized human potential, individuality and human agency. The Renaissance advanced both humanism and scholasticism. It and revived classic literature and Greek philosophy, inspiring diplomacy, inductive reasoning, national identity, independence, individualism, intellectualism and spiritual freedom.Rise of scientific reasoning (early modern period)
The systematic method of acquiring knowledge through methodical observation, skepticism, hypotheses and experimentation. Its acceptance strengthened the belief that truth is defined by what can be measured and explained, cementing the practical trust in rational analysis over intuition.Reformation (16th century)
This was the broad response to the Catholic Church’s abuse of power and corrupt authority, as well as the recovery of the Scriptures as spiritually authoritative. Most of the reformers were operating from a humanistic mindset, and leveraged scientific reasoning in their interpretive approach.Denominationalism (16th century+)
Following the Reformation, Protestant groups began distinguishing themselves from each other and separating over perceived doctrinal and interpretive issues, creating the proliferation of divided denominations that exist today.“I think, therefore I am” (16th century+)
Rene Descartes’ famous quote becomes a defining statement in modern philosophy, and is widely recognized as the basis for understanding. Curiously, Descartes believed true knowledge is only available through radical doubt of self-existence and identity.5Enlightenment (17th–18th centuries)
Based on humanism and scientific reasoning, this movement promoted individual liberty and judgment, religious tolerance and progress. It spawned the concepts of constitutional forms of government and eliminating state-enforced religion.New World expansion and colonization (16th–19th centuries)
Separated groups took advantage of the opportunity to establish like-minded colonies apart from government authority. Kingdoms colonized (and exploited) other peoples to expand their influence (often in association with the church), to gain access to resources and export their way of life.Formation of the United States (18th century)
Independence and the pursuit of self-determination became cultural virtues, and deeply shaped how faith is practiced.Industrial Revolution (18th–19th centuries)
Efficiency and production-oriented output—along with the centralization of money and power—became dominant social and personal realities. It has drastically reshaped how people see their worth, value and contribution to society as a whole.
Admittedly, this might be painting with a broad historical brush. But my point is show how the church was largely reactive in all these social movements and philosophies.
It’s interesting to wonder, in these movements:
What if the church had thought with the mind of Christ?
What if we’d chosen meekness over power, or unity over division?
What if we’d loved, instead of … not loved?
How might it have shaped human history?
The sad reality is that, more often than not, the church was influenced by society rather than being an influence. And so our thinking has been shaped by a world that increasingly trusts independence, the elevation of human reasoning, analysis, certainty and control.
What It’s Produced
So now, in the church, we see:
An emphasis on knowing about God more than knowing God.
A preference for teaching that explains rather than forms.
A need for certainty, even where Scripture invites trust.
Discomfort with mystery or unresolvable tension.
A tendency to measure spirituality by activity and output.
The belief that right methods produce right outcomes.
A reliance on systems and strategy to produce spiritual growth.
A subtle individualism that prioritizes personal interests over shared identity.
A perception that the church is an organization, not a family.
At its core, this shift in thinking is about functional trust—what we’re actually trusting. The list above is the product of beliefs: We believe we are independent beings who partner with God, rather than dependent beings who live in and through him.
“I am the master of my fate …”
Even if we’d never say it, we live as if it’s true.
What Do We Do With This?
The goal is not to fix things ... yet.
The goal is to see, with spiritual eyes. To recognize that what feels normal may not actually be whole, and to sit with that long enough for it to surface what is true.
If there has indeed been a drift, then changing behavior without genuine repentance (a change of mind; changing the way our minds think) could actually be destructive.
This is ultimately heading toward identity transformation, toward examining the patterns we have inherited and the assumptions we have normalized.
And if we are willing to see it, it may lead us somewhere we’ve not yet been willing or able to go: Back to our original identity, where we all began.
Peace be with you …
Footnotes:
The contrast between this council and the Jerusalem Council (in Acts 15) is striking, showing just how far the church leadership approach and perspectives had drifted from the first-century church’s approach—in less than 300 years).
Ordination dictates who has the privilege of administering certain sacraments (e.g. baptism, communion, teaching, confession, etc.). It also affirms beliefs in sacerdotalism (i.e. that God’s grace is conveyed through intermediaries rather than directly to individuals).
The issue was much deeper than Constantine being the first Christianity-friendly emperor. The church went from persecuted to official religion of the Empire in just 60 years. This doesn’t happen without political groundwork having already been laid for the church to be aligned with the Empire—likely including the faith conversion of many influential leaders in the Roman Senate. As a point of reference, consider that it was 146 years between Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and the first black president taking office.
Think: Charlemagne, the church as civic structure after the fall of Rome, the Holy Roman Empire, the Crusades (1095-1291) and the Inquisition (c. 12th-19th centuries).
Descartes’ approach was to reject ideas that can be doubted, and re-frame them in concrete ways in order to grasp them, which he then assumed as genuine knowledge. This is the process of dismissing intuitive right hemisphere knowledge and re-defining it in terms of left hemisphere’s rational thinking.