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

 

31 October, 2005   comments: (0) Today's Methods   NBC Exposes Superficial American Evangelicalism Friday evening NBC ran an hour-long special with Tom Brokaw entitled "In God They Trust". Although much of the show focused on the influence evangelicals have on American politics, Brokaw was able to put his finger on much of the superficiality of modern American Christianity. Here's a closer look at what was said. A key excerpt from the show's transcript: New Life Church (in Colorado) is one of the phenomenally popular and successful mega-churches in America, with a membership of 11,000. They can seat 8,000 here in what they call the "living room". They don't have pews or stained glass, but this is the new wave in the evangelical movement. On a typical Sunday, tens of thousands of worshippers attend services at a sports arena at Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas, at TD Jake's Potter's House in nearby Dallas, and at Rick Warren's Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California. The number of mega-churches in the U.S. has tripled in the last decade. At New Life, when the parishioners are through worshipping, they can come out to the coffee bar, the child care center, to the book store, or to the prayer center nearby. This is a community in every sense of the word. Evangelicals have created their own highly profitable pop universe, including Christian rock, video games, and books such as Rick Warren's phenomenal world wide best-seller "The Purpose Driven Life." And the New Life Church embraces that culture, opening its services with an hour of Christian rock-gospel. Ted Haggard, New Life's pastor, is a 49-year-old graduate of Oral Roberts University. New Life Church is non-denominational, with an emphasis on the Holy Spirit, exuberant prayer style, and a belief in angels and demons. After the music, Haggard takes the stage for a Bible based lesson in how to be a good Christian. Tom Brokaw: A traditional Catholic who comes here or an Episcopalian may walk in and walk out and say, "that's more a concert and pep rally." Ted Haggard, New Life pastor: That's right. Actually, it really is a rally atmosphere. But we teach the scriptures. We have worship, which are the fundamentals of Christian worship for the last 2,000 years. But I like the lights. I like the fun. I like it fast moving. When I stand up and teach I try to make the Biblical principles real. So that it applies to how they relate to their husbands and wives and bosses and co-workers that week. I remember, as a little boy, my dad leaning down and saying into cute little Teddy Haggard's face; if you get into trouble at school, you're into twice as much trouble at home. Brokaw: Most of the churches that I know of, and certainly the ones I attended, at some point, you out loud acknowledge that you were a sinner or that you came face-to-face to guilt that you may feel. Haggard: Right. Brokaw: I didn't see any of that here. Haggard: Well, we do talk about sin. But, see, the issue is Jesus took care of our sin. And Jesus removes guilt from our life. So the emphasis in our church isn't how to get your sins removed because that's pretty easy to do. Jesus did that on the cross. The emphasis in our church is how to fulfill the destiny that God's called you to. Brokaw: You're making it easier for them. Haggard: Making it easier for them just like Jesus did, just like Moses did. What follows is from Robert Reymond's book, A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith. Although this book was written years earlier, it seems to address the state of affairs revealed in the Brokaw interview. "The problem in our day, which gives rise to highly questionable church growth methods, is twofold: On the one hand, we are seeing a waning confidence in the message of the gospel. Even the evangelical church shows signs of losing confidence in the convincing and converting power of the gospel message. That is why increasing numbers of churches prefer sermons on family life and psychological health. We are being overtaken by what Os Guinness calls the managerial and therapeutic revolutions. The winning message, it seems, is the one that helps people to solve their temporal problems, improves their self-esteem and makes them feel good about themselves. In such a cultural climate, preaching on the law, sin and repentance, and the cross has all but disappeared, even in evangelical churches. The church has become "user friendly," "consumer oriented," and as a result evangelical churches are being inundated with "cheap grace" (Bonhoeffer). Today's "gospel" is all too often a gospel without cost, without repentance, without commitment, without discipleship, and thus "another gospel" and accordingly no gospel at all, all traceable to the fact that this is how too many people today have come to believe that the church must be grown. On the other hand, we are seeing a waning confidence in preaching as the means by which the gospel is to be spread. As a result, preaching is giving way in evangelical churches to multimedia presentations, drama, dance, "sharing times," sermonettes, and "how to" devotionals. Preaching is being viewed increasingly as outdated and ineffective. Business techniques like telemarketing are now popular with the church growth movement. Churches so infected also look to the multiplication of programs to effect their growth. They sponsor conferences and seminars on every conceivable topic under the sun; they subdivide their congregations down into marrieds and singles, single parents and divorced, "thirty-something" and "twenty-something," teens, unemployed, the child-abused and the chemically dependent, attempting to arrange programs for them all. And once a person joins such a church, conventional wisdom has it, the church and the minister must meet his every felt need. Accordingly, ministers have become managers, facilitators, and motivators - everything but heralds of the whole counsel of God - and this all because they have lost confidence in the preaching of God's Word as the primary means for the growth of the church and the individual Christian. What is the answer? A restored confidence in the Reformed doctrine of the sovereignty of God in salvation!" Posted by: Jim B.   Link: http://www.oldtruth.com/blog.cfm/id.2.pid.93   Be the first to post a comment about this article        Home  |   About  |  Videos   |  Calvinism