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

 

5 March, 2007   comments: (0) Postmodernism   Is "Sin Assisted Evangelism" Culturally Justifiable? "I frankly wonder how any Christian who takes the Bible at face value could ever think that in order to be culturally relevant Christians should participate in society's growing infatuation with vulgarity. Didn't vulgarity and culture used to be considered polar opposites?" That's the way John MacArthur ended a recent article in which he, amongst other things, calls-out a popular church leader who was labeled "the cussing pastor" in a book by one of his peers. Never mind centuries ago, just a few decades ago, there would have been no Christian who would have disagreed with MacArthur on this point, but that's not the case today. We are seeing a fine example of this underway on one blog that seems to prioritize cultural relevance above right and wrong. I remember seeing a discussion thread on a popular Emerging Church website in which the case was being made that it's better for evangelism to use the F-word than to not use it. Using such a word in the presence of unbelievers 'assists' by making you seem more real and relate-able. Then evangelism is more effective, or so the thinking goes. That's likely similar thinking to that of the cussing pastor mentioned above. More about that below, but first, absorb John MacArthur's accurate analysis of today's evangelical landscape: You have no doubt heard the arguments: We need to take the message out of the bottle. We can't minister effectively if don't speak the language of contemporary counterculture. If we don't vernacularize the gospel, contextualize the church, and reimagine Christanity for each succeeding generation, how can we possibly reach young people? Above all else, we have got to stay in step with the times. Those arguments have been stressed to the point that many evangelicals now seem to think unstylishness is just about the worst imaginable threat to the expansion of the gospel and the influence of the church. They don't really care if they are worldly. They just don't want to be thought uncool. That way of thinking has been around at least since modernism began its aggressive assault on biblical Christianity in the Victorian era. For half a century or more, most evangelicals resisted the pragmatic thrust of the modernist argument, believing it was a fundamentally worldly philosophy. They had enough biblical understanding to realize that "friendship with the world is enmity with God. Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God" (James 4:4). But the mainstream evangelical movement gave up the battle against worldliness half a century ago, and then completely capitulated to pragmatism just a couple of decades ago. After all, most of the best-known megachurches that rose to prominence after 1985 were built on a pragmatic philosophy of giving "unchurched" people whatever it takes to make them feel comfortable. Why would anyone criticize what "works"? Whole churches have thus deliberately immersed themselves in "the culture"--by which they actually mean "whatever the world loves at the moment." We now have a new breed of trendy churches whose preachers can rattle off references to every popular icon, every trifling meme, every tasteless fashion, and every vapid trend that captures the fickle fancy of the postmodern secular mind. Worldly preachers seem to go out of their way to put their carnal expertise on display--even in their sermons. In the name of connecting with "the culture" they want their people to know they have seen all the latest programs on MTV; familiarized themselves with all the key themes of "South Park"; learned the lyrics to countless tracks of gangsta rap and heavy metal music; and watched who-knows-how-many R-rated movies. They seem to know every fad top to bottom, back to front, and inside out. They've adopted both the style and the language of the world--including lavish use of language that used to be deemed inappropriate in polite society, much less in the pulpit. They want to fit right in with the world, and they seem to be making themselves quite comfortable there. [Read the rest of his article] The cussing pastor that MacArthur goes on to highlight is Mark Driscoll, and rather than the expected refrains of "shame on Driscoll" that we would have heard in Christianity gone by, now we instead hear "what's wrong with that?" or at least "well he is reaching people". Here is one example worth noting: If you are familiar with Todd Rhoades' Monday Morning Insight blog, you probably know already that this popular hang-out for trendy pastors is about as opposite to Old Truth as is imaginable. So it's no surprise that MacArthur's remarks were cause for some Monday Morning chafing. Unfortunately, as we are about to see, the resulting insights from that blog seem to have been based more on dubious 'spin' than on anything else. Todd writes of John MacArthur: "Just a question... I'm assuming here that 'grunge' people need Jesus. (I hope I'm correct)." and a few sentences later Todd says: "After all, those [expletive deleted] people need Jesus too!" Note how Todd subtly shifts the "grunge" label from the way that MacArthur was using it to something else altogether. In the article, he uses the term to describe Driscoll's style once, Seattle's music history once, and uses grunge to describe an approach to religion once. Nowhere in the article does John MacArthur talk about unbelieving "grunge people". After applying this spin, no doubt - some of Todd's readers are left with the sense that MacArthur is somehow looking down his nose at grunge people, while the brand of Christianity that Todd favors is made to seem more willing to eat with tax collectors. Todd goes on to say: "Who will better reach them? Mark Driscoll or John MacArthur? Let's take it a step further... who IS currently reaching them? Driscoll or MacArthur?" As usual with pragmatists, the issue of right or wrong, sin or no sin, takes a back seat to whether the thing in question "works" or not. Notice how quickly Todd is willing to change the subject from cussing to perceived evangelistic success instead. But even according to those flawed standards, MacArthur has a church that is comparably sized to Driscoll's, and I happen to know that a lot of young people attend MacArthur's church (probably more than some would expect). But apparently Todd Rhoades feels that MacArthur is no Driscoll; and after hearing some of Driscoll's crude language myself, I am all too happy to agree with him on that point. Here's an interesting question that we could just as easily throw into the mix: Which of those two churches has least-narrowed their audience to one age segment? Sometimes when you encounter the reasoning of guys like Todd, really - on his whole blog and not just this one post alone, you have to ask: Did Christ come to save only GEN-Xer's?, does the Great Commission apply to anyone else today? So if comparisons are insisted upon, one could just as easily ask: Which one of these two churches is demographically generalized in such a way as to preach the Gospel to the widest possible target audience? Todd may not wish to think of it that way, but it's clear that in such a comparison, MacArthur comes out ahead, having a church that is not narrowly specialized. Todd says "I'm not sticking up for 'cussing preachers'", and yet he does exactly that, for one such pastor who seems to be doing what "works": "And if a [bad] word slips out here or there, and yet a few more people make it into the Kingdom, I can accept that." That sounds a lot like a Monday Morning wink and a nod for the new breed of cussing pastors everywhere, so long as whatever they are doing "works". Christians in past generations would not have entertained the idea of "sin assisted evangelism", and as one Puritan preacher reminds us, maybe we shouldn't either: "Whatever religion or doctrine condones or makes allowances for sin is not of Christ. The Doctrine of Christ everywhere teaches self-denial and mortification of worldliness and sin. The whole stream of the gospel runs against those things. Scripture emphasizes the 'holy' and the 'heavenly' (not the sinful and the worldly). The true gospel has not even the slightest tendency to extol corrupt nature, or feed it's pride by magnifying it's freedom and power. And it rejects everything that undermines or obscures the merit of Christ, or tries to give any credit to man, in any way. And it certainly never makes the death of Christ a cloak to cover sin, but rather it always speaks of it as an instrument that destroys it!" --John Flavel Posted by: Jim B.   Link: http://www.oldtruth.com/blog.cfm/id.2.pid.629   Be the first to post a comment about this article        Home  |   About  |  Videos   |  Calvinism