Thus says the Lord: "Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.
But they said, 'We will not walk in it.'" --Jeremiah 6:16

 

20 February, 2006   comments: (0) Today's Pragmatism   Drawing Crowds With Sex Therapy Sermons I'm usually suspicious of conspiracy theories, so I realize that if you are like me, you're going to want proof that what follows is a REAL conspiracy. I'm going to attempt to convince you that - when churches abandon biblical doctrine in favor of repetitive themes on "how to have great sex", their true motives are often concealed beneath a pious cover story of "helping people understand what the bible teaches on this topic". Here's a look at the real motivation behind this new trend within growth-driven churches, in which audiences are bombarded by an inordinate amount of Sunday morning sex training, often advertised in a risque' manner. If your pastor sounds more like a sex therapist lately, than a minister of the gospel, this may be why. On one of the national news shows Sunday morning, the pastor of Granger Community Church was interviewed about his new billboards that are showing up all over town; they promote the "Pure Sex" sermon series that will be going on for an entire five weeks at his church. But what you can't tell from looking at the billboards, including the one above the Hooters parking lot, is that it's an ad for a church. That's a bit of trickery which two of Granger's pastors were feeling pretty clever about in their weekly radio show. All that the public sees on these billboards are two pair of bare feet and the website MyLameSexLife.com. It's unfortunate that a church has to have their morals questioned by a more discerning general public, which is the case in complaints like this one, from a mother in the neighborhood: "I was appalled. I couldn't believe that someone would put this up, that you'd be going down the street with your children and there it is. And I'm fielding questions from my children that I just feel shouldn't be an issue because it shouldn't be up. They're just really inappropriate. They're extremely provocative. I've never seen anything like it before. I think that they should take them down, just out of courtesy to the rest of us who think they're appalling." One blog commented that, in addition to the TV news shows, Granger could also end up landing a spot on the morally perverse Howard Stern show. Even one of Granger's staffers boasts that they could be good enough for Leno. The Primary Concern: But the primary concern of Christians shouldn't be the public decency aspect of this story; they should be even more concerned about the compromise of the biblical message. We are told that churches like Granger, who just completed an extensive sermon series aimed at helping people manage their finances, have not changed the age-old biblical message, but have simply re-packaged it in a relevant and contemporary format. Their pastor - Mark Beeson - has this to say: "At Granger Community Church we're very concerned about people understanding their value," Beeson told NEWS22. "And so the important topics they're wrestling with in their lives, we want them to know that God sees their lives as important, they're treasures, and so we want to help them with the important issues of life." As Robert Reymond explains, this propping-up people's self-esteem and making them feel treasured, is a therapeutic Gospel substitute that derives from a lack of trust in God's true Gospel message. The man-centered idea of preaching on topics that people want to hear (ie: sex and money), instead of what they need to hear, is defined in David Wells' book No Place for Truth: "In the overwhelming proportion of [modern] sermons analyzed - more than 80 percent - were anthropocentric. ... Contemporary sermons are reserving the center for the issues that engage us in the course of life, or, more specifically, for the self. It is around this surrogate center that God and his world are made to spin". What Granger and others want us to believe, about the message not changing, has become indefensible, as the evidence clearly shows the opposite. To see this for yourself, simply compare today's sermons to the ones preached by almost any noteworthy preacher prior to 1900. Examining The Sermon Content: As one news article said, some of the topics in Granger's series aren't your typical church chat. One of the sermons is called "The Greatest Sex You'll Ever Have", which is also the promo title currently showing up on the cover page of their website. Even their teenagers are going to be talking about sex. Let's be clear about this issue, I'm not talking about the average church that preaches an occasional sermon on intimacy in marriage or sexual purity. What I am talking about, is a new trend that is far more pervasive in the kinds of things talked about, as well as the amount of time spent talking about it. It's often the kind of thing where the pastor takes on the role of a pseudo sex therapist, giving his own highly-detailed advice, and sprinkling in a few verses from the Song of Solomon to make his talk sound like it's biblically-derived. "Thank God For Sex" is a sermon series that was announced by a cheesy flyer mailed out by Eastlake Community Church in Kirkland WA. Their Sunday morning sex talks will last six weeks, and include sermons such as: Heat it up!, When it doesn't stay in Vegas, and Bedroom: Playground or Battleground. Their website describes it as "one of the most important topics of our lives: SEX. The church has too often positioned itself as anti-sexuality and society distorts our view of sex. Because of this, many of us go unfulfilled. This may shock you, but God wants you to have GREAT SEX in His time and His way." Here again this church's emphasis is on you being fulfilled, rather than God being worshipped. Another church set up their own Granger-like website to promote their sex sermon series: DesperateSexLives.com To make the case of how in-depth and therapy-like these 'talks' can get, I'll use the example of one sermon entitled "Creative Sex" from Pastor Gary Lamb of Ridgestone Church. You can listen to this recorded Sunday morning sermon in it's entirety, but here are some excerpts: Pastor Gary Lamb: Let me tell you how I connect with [my wife]. I can tell her all day long how good looking she is, I can pop her on the butt all day long (that really doesn't turn her on at all), but let me tell you how I turn her on. If come home, and take the kids from her, and give her time alone, and I cook dinner and do the dishes and bathe the kids and then get them in bed, it's amazing how I go from being a fat redneck that's loosing his hair to being one sexy stud. That's how you communicate with my wife. Dont YOU try to communicate with her like that... I don't think any man in his right mind would turn down sex. I can have the worst day, I could have a 105 degree temperature, and my wife could say "lets go have sex" - man I'm strapping a bag of ice on my head and we're having sex. ... Sex before you go to bed, with the lights off, [next detail censored], gets old real fast. If you want to have a great sex life, you have to be willing to try creative and new things. You need to try things that involve all of the senses. Church History Listen to a short audio clip by John MacArthur: The Preaching of the Reformers Compare modern preaching to what was preach about in the 16th century, and how it was preached. 6 minutes, 750k MP3 You need to try new places. Im not going to share with you this morning where my wife and I have tried new places, but here is what I'm going to tell you: when you get arrested call a [certain] lawyer. (laughter). But if you get caught on one of those hidden cameras, I will show it in church on Sunday morning. Try some new 'clothing'. ... Try new ways of pleasing each other. And the question I get asked more than any other question is, what does the bible say about [a certain sex act which he mentions]. Well, from "first book of opinions", I say this: if you're both comfortable with it, then I say go for it. [He elaborates with more details]. How many of you are happy that God wants you to enjoy sex? [crowd: YEAH!!] ... Hey, I want you to see your sex life be all it can be. Stay out of jail and stay off the TV, lets pray [closing prayer]. And Gary Lamb's sermon had this bit of advice for people who are not motivated to read their bibles . . . try reading the sections on sex: Many of you have a hard time reading your bible on a regular basis. Well I've got a book that will help you start reading your bible - it's called the Song of Solomon - it's a book about sex. It's my favorite book in all the bible. Like Granger, Gary Lamb uses secular music in his church services: We have always used secular music in our services, especially if it had a "spiritual" message. But lately, we have been using a lot more secular music with no spiritual message but it goes along with the message. Next week we are playing, "Feel Like Making Love" by Bad Company and the week after that we are playing "Your Body is a Wonderland" by John Mayer. The Bad Company song is for our message entitled, "What Every Guy Wants." The John Mayer song is for our message on "Creative Sex." They both fit and work with the message. We are about the unchurched and have discovered playing secular songs instantly connects with these people. The most ironic thing Gary Lamb said, is something I hear a lot from seeker pastors, in attempting to justify the reason for their extensive focus on sex: [Some] preach the bible like it's a buffet line. You pick out the subjects that you WANT to talk about. ... My concern is not about offending you. So save your emails about how offended you are by this sermon. In other words, "the bible talks about it therefore I have to talk about it". That's fine. But what's ironic is that the seeker pastors who say that kind of thing, never seem to preach very much on a whole host of other biblical topics, namely - those things that have a negative tone in the bible. For example, Jesus talked about Hell more than he talked about sex. Do these churches preach a whole series about Hell, and send out expensive postcards to announce it? After all, Hell is a "relevant" topic, is it not? Another example: The apostle Paul talked about "Election" more in the bible than he talked about sex. When was the last time Gary Lamb, or Granger, ever had a sermon specifically on the doctrine of election? The bible does talk about it, so why shouldn't they? The point is, they have their own "buffet line" of biblical topics that they pick and choose from. But why have they chosen "sex" as a topic to talk about so heavily? What's The Hidden Agenda: So what is the motivation behind this inordinate amount of discussion about sex? After all, Granger is preaching this 5 week series after having already covered this topic at their church. Some of their past 'talks' include: Reality Sex, Clearing the Path to Great Sex, and Desperation in the Bedroom. I think the answer goes back to Warren and Hybels. In one of Bill Hybels' books he repeats a story of how he once asked his congregation: "How many of you this week have been thinking about Calvin's doctrine of predestination?" No hands went up. Then he said, "How many of you this week have had any sexual thoughts?" So there again, Hybels' idea is to preach on the topics that people want to hear, and the things that they are thinking about. Similarly, Rick Warren said: "It is my deep conviction that anybody can be won to Christ if you discover the key to his or her heart, and the most likely place to start looking for that key is within the person's felt needs." Apparently in some cases, we are to believe that the only way to win somebody to Christ, will be to help them get their carnal felt-needs (even 'sexual needs') taken care of somehow. Let's be sure not to confuse felt-needs with actual-needs (like eating, sleeping, and shelter). Clay Miller is one pastor who correctly believes that "felt-needs evangelism" demonstrates a misunderstanding of the depravity of the human heart. He says: "We shouldn't care one bit about someone's felt needs. We don't need a survey to determine a pagan's felt needs, I can save $20,000 for somebody that's thinking about doing [such a survey]. A pagan's felt needs are comfort, sex, money and recognition - there you go, you don't need a survey. And what we care about is the true need which is reconciliation to God . . . that's the need that we care about." [read more] Today's seeker churches may feel that frequent sermons on sexual themes are a sure-fire way to get a certain type of people into church, namely - unregenerate men. For a variety of reasons, some of which are outlined in this article, unchurched men are more difficult to attract to a church environment. So the bottom line is, when churches advertise a way to have a better and "more fun" sex life, they are essentially employing the same tactic seen in beer and sports car commercials, but with a different end-goal. Often times, these commercials use sex (bikini clad models, etc.) to attract men to their product. Even Sports Illustrated advertises their annual swimsuit issue (which has nothing to do with 'sports') in order to help sell their sports product to men. The type of preaching that I've outlined on this page is simply a carnal carrot on the end of a stick, designed to get people (especially men but also including women) into their church system. But if you dare question these churches on 'why' they are employing this pragmatic mechanism, be prepared to hear the more pious-sounding "cover story". Plain and simple, they will not admit to the fact that they are using sex as a draw-card for increased church attendance. They will never admit that they are using sex to sell their product, like Sports illustrated, Budweiser, and Ferrari does. The reality is, you will need to be a discerning Berean and see through this pragmatic ploy for yourself. Could This Type of Preaching Actually Be Harmful?: Could it be that all of this talk about how great and fulfilling and wonderful sex is, repeated over and over for weeks, might actually aggravate many sexual problems? Consider single adults for example, sitting through these sermons on a Sunday morning. John MacArthur expresses his concerns related to this, about church and society in general: I believe that sex in marriage, in the beauty of which God has designed it, was meant to be a very personal discovery--not something plastered all over billboards and taught in classes and presented in books. I think it's something very private, special, and unique. The fact that we incessantly teach and talk about sex - only serves to elicit evil responses out of the hearts of evil men and evil women. It doesn't do anything to help the situation. For example, we find explicit sex seminars and books. There are people constantly preaching on the subject, advocating this and that. I have even heard the strangest kind of counseling coming from men of God that boggles my mind. I heard one man who is a minister saying that couples ought to take a shower together before they get married so that they will know what they're getting into. That kind of counsel is just exactly the thing that Jesus is saying is so wrong and is nothing more than a manifestation of sinfulness. I don't think ever in the history of the western world since the death of Greek and Roman paganism have we seen the unbridled indulgence of sexual passion so encouraged and so elicited and so praised as we do today. MacArthur also talks about how today's marriage teaching often strays away from the sufficiency of the bible, turning instead to the techniques and gimmicks that we've seen from the type of churches that we've been talking about: One of the great statements of traditional evangelical theology is that the Scripture is adequate for all matters of faith and conduct. That [belief] is being attacked today. ... Further, another category in which we see this kind of abandonment of the belief of biblical sufficiency is in the matter of marriage and family, for one. There was a time when we believed that the Bible gave us adequate insight into marriage and the family. That if we studied the Word of God, we would be able to live life in the family to its fullest, that marriage could be all that God ever intended if lived by biblical principles. Families can be all that God ever intended if lived by biblical principles but now there is a proliferation of tricks and gimmicks and sex techniques and just a plethora of things that are added to the Scripture to try to deal with family problems. And in an underlying and subtle way, they are making the comment that the Bible is to one degree or another insufficient or inadequate. Calling For a Return To Biblical Preaching: We need a return to biblical preaching, where pastors stay within the safe confines of scripture, rather than giving a weekly 'talk' that's based on their own personal philosophies, or in this case - their own sex techniques. It's NOT a matter of style or personal preference, the issue is really biblical versus non-biblical. This is one of the reasons I really like what I'm seeing over at the 9 Marks ministry. Their approach to expositional preaching and evangelism is anchored solidly in the bible, rather than on one man's pulpit-opinions. CrossTV's video series entitled "A Workman Approved By God" also includes an excellent video entitled: Who's Teaching You?. It provides Christians with tools for evaluating whether their pastor is teaching a truly biblical message. This video helps believers to see through the fog of sermons that mention bible verses, but in reality - are not authentically biblical. More Information and Resources: More news stories on Granger's billboards: Fox28, WSBT, and WNDU From Granger's sites and blogs: Promo, JP1, JP2, KM1, MW1 Read seeker-pastor Perry Noble's expression of support for the billboards Hear a TV 'Housewives' audio clip played in one of Granger's services David Wells shows how most of today's sermons are not even biblical Read how today's pulpits are often pirated by pop-psychology Learn how churches have changed the message to 'relationships' Find out about a German youth group's idea of nudity-evangelism Posted by: Jim B.   Link: http://www.oldtruth.com/blog.cfm/.id.2.pid.214   Be the first to post a comment about this article        Home  |   About  |  RSS Feed  |  Contact