How to Recognize Counterfeit Christianity

Jesus Christ didn’t come to begin a new religion. He came to begin a new creation…Babylon is organized religion…It is not your native habitat. It’s a counterfeit of the house of God…Many of God’s people are living in Babylon today. He loves them, and He will bless them to the best of His ability. But Babylon is not God’s best, nor His  highest…Significantly, the name Babylon originates from “Babel.” It means confusion or mixture…It incarnates the blending of the holy with the profane…In Babel, the people of the earth decided to build a tower that reached to the heavens. That tower was made of brick. Brick always speaks of the work of man. Man builds bricks, but God creates stones…When God’s people participate in organized religion, they participate in man-made divisions that separate sisters and brothers in Christ…His ultimate passion can only be fulfilled when His people leave that fallen system…

-Frank Viola (@frankviola), From Eternity to Here

The thing about counterfeits is; you have to know what the real one looks like to be able to spot a counterfeit.  Therein lies the problem.  I know I was 20 years old before I encountered a real ekklesia that operated like the church of the New Testament.  It wasn’t until then that I started noticing the phoniness of what I had been a part of.  After I had seen a group of people that lived by Christ as Head,  I was able to recognize when a group operated by a human one.  After I had never seen a group of people that operated organically by the life of Christ within them, I noticed the mechanical system I had been a part of.  There was always a mechanical structure to be followed; and the structure always won over the Spirit. Once I experienced leadership that was revolving and dynamic, I was able to notice static leadership that operated by position.

This is when I realized there was something beyond the great people in the church that was running this whole thing.  Some call it “the machine.”  Some call it “big brother.”  The Bible calls it the “world system” or the “kingdom of darkness.” (Eph. 2:2)  It is subtle.  There are parts of it that we don’t even see right now.  But, that’s what counterfeit is.  It gives the appearance of something real and so that you can’t see that it’s not. Again, the best way to notice is to get to know the real thing.  That’s how people are trained to spot counterfeit money and checks.  As the U.S. Secret Service says here, “You can help guard against the threat from counterfeiters by becoming more familiar with United States currency.”

So, before you go defending Babylon (organized religion) as “not that bad” or say “no church is perfect,” get to know the real thing.  This will allow you to take an honest look at what’s on the inside of the world system and how that affects us; instead of being fooled by the outside. After all, the “Babylonian harlot,” as she is known in Revelation, is made of the same materials as the Bride of Christ (Rev. 18:16).  But, those materials are on the outside, not inside like the Bride.  And she is destroyed in the end.

Your turn…what do you have to add?  Questions? Learn anything new?

*The first post for this book is here. The next post is here.