Are you a wife-hater?

Get this.

I’m standing in a reception line with my wife following a speaking engagement when this guy comes up to me and starts telling me how he’s read all my books, has heard me speak on several occasions and told me how influential I’ve been to his ministry. (Please, go on!)

He talks about how he’s introduced a number of his pastor friends to all things Stetzer and how they actually traveled across country to be at this event. Wow!

But then, he starts verbally ripping on my wife like she’s not even standing there. She’s right there! He thinks my wife, who has been the love of my life and a partner in ministry for 25 years, is a drain on my ability to influence others. He says she’s obsolete and that the “old girl is a little faded.”

I’m in shock.

Suddenly, the cheesy Christian motto of the 1990s flashes through my mind: What would Jesus do? Turn the other cheek? Pray for His enemy? Hand this guy His cloak?

I’m about to go Jack Bauer on him.

I think Jesus would have been ticked—like any normal husband would be. You see, the church is the Bride of Christ. And, you don’t mess with a man’s wife.

The story about my wife is made up. The reality of what professing believers of Christ do to and what they say about His bride—the church—is not. And it is exponentially more serious than saying my wife is “a little faded.” (And I would take that pretty seriously!).

You cannot say you love Jesus and abuse His wife.

Unfortunately, there is a prevailing wind currently blowing across Western Evangelicalism that has caused an ecclesiological (church) drift into dangerous waters. Research stalwart George Barna documented the trend in a longitudinal study released in 2005. One alarming element of the study showed that 70 percent of respondents found their primary means of spiritual expression through the local church in 2000, but by 2025 he predicts those numbers to decrease by at least half. Did you get that? Now, I have some quibbles about the numbers and more about the theology. But, if Barna is right, in less than 20 years, only 30-35 people out of 100 will believe that the church holds a primary significance in their relationship with Christ. That’s stunning for someone who loves the church (like I do).

We were surprised that in our recent research on young adult dropouts, the most common reasons young adults dropped out of church were lifestyle reasons. They got too busy, moved too far away, or experienced some other life change. And the church did not make the new list of priorities. Nice.

My question is how can anyone give even a cursory read of the New Testament and miss the supreme importance given to the church by the One who is most Supreme? Paul says that we were once “alienated and hostile in mind because of [our] evil actions. But now He has reconciled [us] by His physical body through His death, to present [us] holy, faultless and blameless before Him.” Paul goes on to say that he rejoices in his suffering because his suffering is “completing in [his] flesh what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for His body, that is, the church.” (Colossians 1:21-24 HCSB)

Paul was willing to take a beating for the church because Jesus submitted to a brutal murder “to make her (the church) holy, cleansing her in the washing of water by the word. He did this to present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but holy and blameless.” (Ephesians 5:26-27 HCSB)

Seems like fewer and fewer people are willing to take the church seriously, let alone take a beating for her.