Truth is ancient; it's grey hairs may make it venerable;
it comes from Him who is the ancient of days. --Thomas Watson

 

20 January, 2008   comments: (0) Changed Message   American Christianity: Like Easy-Listening 'Muzak'    Quoting White Horse Inn . . . I meet a lot of people who drive two hours each Sunday just to find a church that proclaims Christ from the Scriptures. I grew up hearing people saying they left their mainline protestant or Roman Catholic churches because they never heard the Gospel, and now I hear them say they left evangelicalism for the same reason. Most Americans believe in God, affirm in some sense that Jesus Christ is divine, and that the Bible is the Word of God. 86% of American adults describe their religious orientation as Christian, while only 6% describe themselves as atheist or agnostic. Judging by it's commercial, political, and media success, the evangelical movement seems to be booming. But is it still Christian? I'm not asking that question glibly or simply to provoke a reaction. My concern is that we're getting dangerously close in everyday American church life where the Bible is mined for quotes but largely irrelevant, God is used as a personal resource rather than known, worshiped, and trusted. Jesus Christ is a coach with a good game plan for our victory rather than a savior who already achieved it for us. Salvation is more of a matter of having our best life now, than being saved from God's judgment by God Himself, and the Holy Spirit is an electrical outlet that we can plug into for the power we need to be all we can be. As this new "gospel" becomes more obviously American than Christian, we all have to take a step backwards and ask ourselves whether increasingly evangelicalism is a cultural and political movement with a sentimental attachment to the image or trademark, or experience of Jesus, more than a witness to Christ and Him crucified. We have shown in recent decades that we really don't have much stomach for this message that the apostle Paul called, "a rock of offense", "foolishness to Greeks", and "a stone that causes stumbling". Far from clashing with the culture of consumerism, American religion seems not only at peace with our narcissism but gives it a spiritual caste. Now before [we] protest, I want to be clear about what we're not saying. First, we're not saying that Christless Christianity characterizes all churches in the United States today. There are a lot of marvelous exceptions and I hope you are a member of one of them. Second, we're not going to be standing on a denominational high-horse, hurling critiques at other denominations and traditions below. ... So much of what we're calling Christless Christianity isn't really profound enough to constitute heresy. Like the easy listening Muzak playing ubiquitously in the background of popular culture in elevators, at malls, and at the airport, the message of American Christianity has simply become trivial, sentimental, and irrelevant. Driven more by distraction than outright denial, Christless Christianity is killing us softly. Our charge is not necessarily that evangelicalism is becoming theologically liberal, but that its becoming theologically vacuous. Far from engendering a smug complacency, core evangelical convictions centering on Christ and Him crucified drove three centuries of evangelical missions. The ministry of [one popular 20th century English pastor] - a key leader of post-war consensus, has embodied this integration of this Christ-centered proclamation with a passion for mission. Yet when asked in a recent issue of Christianity Today how he evaluates this worldwide evangelical movement, he could only reply, "The answer is growth without depth". There certainly are signs that the movement's theological boundaries are widening, and we'll touch on some worrying examples as we go along. Furthermore, vacuity and liberalism have typically gone hand in hand when it comes to the church's faith and practice. Nevertheless, it's not as much heresy as silliness thats killing us softly. God isn't denied, but trivialized; used for our life programs rather than worshiped and enjoyed. Christ is a source of empowerment, but is He widely regarded among us as a source of redemption for the powerless? He helps the morally sensitive to become better, but does He save the ungodly, even Christians? He heals broken lives, but does he raise those who were dead in trespasses and sins? Does Christ come merely to improve our existence in Adam, or to end it, sweeping us into His new creation? Is Christianity all about spiritual and moral makeovers, or about death and resurrection, radical judgment and radical grace? Is the Word of God a resource for what we've already decided we want and need, or is it God's living and active criticism of OUR religion, morality, and pious experience? In other words, is the Bible God's story, centering around Christ's redeeming work that changes our stories, or is it something we use to make our stories a little more exciting and interesting? Christ's person and work are largely taken for granted in the interest of other more supposedly practical and relevant concerns of our day. When it comes to what happens on an average Sunday, and in the ordinary diet of Christian ministry, I just don't think there's a remarkable difference between liberal mainliners and conservative evangelicals. Some may take their cues from the New York Times, and others from Fox News, but the real question is to what extent churches in America are really convinced that the proclamation of Jesus Christ from His Word is the power of God unto salvation. When the diet becomes "What would Jesus do?" instead of "What has Jesus done?" the labels just don't matter anymore. Amazingly, protestant liberalism survived despite its abandonment of the Gospel, just as the health and wealth gospel promoted today by Joel Osteen, Joyce Meyer, and T. D. Jakes attracts a wide following, even though it's exchanged the central Christian claims for the American dream. Religion, spirituality, and moral earnestness, what Paul called a form of godliness that nevertheless denies its power, can continue to thrive in our environment precisely because they avoid the scandal of Christ. Folks, whatever we say, our practice does not support the contention that the evangelical movement today is Christ-centered. Christ may be used for personal and public purposes, His trademark might be spread across America, He may even in some sense be followed as a prophet and a king, but as our High Priest - Christ and Him crucified, He seems more peripheral to our own agendas. From:  Michael Horton's intro to Christless Christianity series   Posted by: Jim B.   Link: http://www.oldtruth.com/blog.cfm/id.2.pid.904   Be the first to post a comment about this article        Home  |   About  |  Videos   |  Calvinism