What makes churches fail? Obviously the answer has very little to do with the historical truth of scripture, or else there would be no Mormons, Muslims, Christians or Jews. But one very popular answer is that it has to do with a lack of conviction. On this theory, it doesn’t matter what you believe, so long as you are firm and unyielding in the way that you believe it. The popular tabloid formulation of this was to ask what would happen if the trumpet gave an uncertain sound, but since this is a biblical quotation, it has rather lost its force.