Trailblazing on the Broad Path

I had no intention of writing or hopefully even thinking about TD Jakes ever again. But then I saw this article in my twitter feed, and here we are.

Short version, he's OK with "gay marriage" (or at least the government backing off and allowing whatever), his views on homosexuality are "evolved and evolving", and he thinks at least some churches should openly embrace unrepentant homosexuals. In fairness, for now his Potter's House isn't yet openly gay-embracing, but these statements definitely open the possibility.

I'll let others dive into the more fun aspects here, such as his anti-inspiration description of Paul's letters and his postmodern "I'm not God, so I can't know what any of this means!" hermeneutic, and focus on why he's doing this now.

Above all else, remember that Jakes is a money-grubbing televangelist whose primary theological aim is prosperity - his personal enrichment at the expense of the gullible. This is almost certainly a trial balloon, just wanting to see what kind of reception they get from their victim/donors.

In the wake of Obergefell, it's only a matter of time until churches, even false-gospel outposts of hell like Potter's House, lose tax-exempt status if they continue to oppose homosexuality. Not only will they need to start paying taxes, their income is likely to fall, as people may not be willing/able to give as much without the accompanying write-off. It makes sense to compromise to keep that exemption.

Unless, of course, the outcry against the decision is strong enough. If a large percentage of existing donors are angry enough about the change and stop donating, it could be worse financially than losing tax exemption. In that case it would make financial sense to hold firm and suffer the consequences - and maybe even pick up new donors in the process.

We could add that a church might hold firm because of the clear teaching of God's Word, but, well, TD Jakes.

So I think this is a trial balloon. They no doubt have run numbers on what losing tax exemption will cost, and they're gathering data to project loss (or even potential gain!) from openly affirming homosexual sin. If the numbers are right, expect them to make the formal move soon enough.

And don't be naïve enough to think this stops here. How many megachurches with debts in the tens of millions and budgets that are already stretched too thin can afford to lose tax exempt status? Do you see Andy Stanley or Ed Young or your local Creek holding the line on clear biblical truth, at the potential cost of millions a year?

So give TD Jakes credit. He's nothing if not a shrewd businessman and a trailblazer. Many others will follow the path he's blazing, which is coincidentally broad and leads to destruction.

A Common Word Between Christians and Sabellians

Friends, it's time for something I rarely participate in - some hardcore, full-throttle ecumenism.

A big stink is being raised - yet again - over a Trinitarian church group mixing with Sabellian (or modalist, or oneness pentacostal, whichever you prefer) pastors. This time the group Phillips, Craig, and Dean, consisting of three modalist pastors, has been invited to lead worship at a Southern Baptist event. By now you can probably predict the arguments being made on both sides, from the "we shouldn't be led in worship by pastors who preach damnable heresy and worship a god who is different from the actually-existing God" to the "come on, aren't they Trinitarian enough?!?".

Enough already! All this divisiveness is just so... divisive? Anyway, I think we can all agree that this bickering over things like "should we extend the right hand of fellowship to rank heretics and false teachers in gross violation of scriptural commands" just needs to end. What we need is a solid middle ground, somewhere we can stand with one foot firmly planted in both camps. Here is my modest proposal for an awesome solution which should make everyone happy:

One God, two persons.

Genius. It's so incredibly brilliant, I'm surprised the team writing for the sock puppet known as the 'Mark Driscoll' didn't propose it sooner.

I suggest we all agree to this immediately, and work out the fine details later. Does God eternally exist as two persons, or manifest himself in two forms at various times? I guess we need to pass it to find out what's in it!

Just think of the alternative! We'd have to go on carefully considering scripture, practicing discernment, learning from church history, parsing statements designed to deceive to reveal the true intent, putting up with whining and accusation when we warn that someone's favorite teacher/musician is a wolf trying to lead astray God's people with destructive heresy, and worst of all, thinking. It's just so... so... so... HARD. Ain't nobody got time for that!

No friends, this is clearly the way forward. You're welcome.

Something Worse Than Shame

There is something worse than feeling shame when you do something shameful. As God said through Jeremiah:

How can you say, ‘We are wise,
    and the law of the Lord is with us’?
But behold, the lying pen of the scribes
    has made it into a lie.
The wise men shall be put to shame;
    they shall be dismayed and taken;
behold, they have rejected the word of the Lord,
    so what wisdom is in them?
Therefore I will give their wives to others
    and their fields to conquerors,
because from the least to the greatest
    everyone is greedy for unjust gain;
from prophet to priest,
    everyone deals falsely.
They have healed the wound of my people lightly,
    saying, ‘Peace, peace,’
    when there is no peace.
Were they ashamed when they committed abomination?
    No, they were not at all ashamed;
    they did not know how to blush.
Therefore they shall fall among the fallen;
    when I punish them, they shall be overthrown,
says the Lord. (Jeremiah 8:8-12)

But there's something significantly better than shame, too. So here, from worse to best, are the three typical responses to shameful acts.

Worst: No shame at all, not even knowing how to blush. Being convinced that there's nothing wrong with it - or worse, that it's actually good. Some go so far as to demand the church and society formally bless and honor their shameful sin. We could call this a hard heart or seared conscience. It's really, really bad.

Sorta better-ish: Feeling shame when you do something shameful - but that's all. You know it's wrong, you feel it's wrong, you're convicted about your sinfulness, but you have no idea what to do about it. By the grace of God this may become godly sorrow. But too often it leads the other way. Instead of repentance unto life, worldly sorrow leads to death. Worldly sorrow attacks the symptom, trying to assuage the conscience by self-justification, or killing the conscience by heart hardening. It's better than being incapable of blushing, depending on which way you go from here.

Best: Repentance and faith unto salvation. Confess sin as sin, agree with God's righteous judgment against it, and admit that there is nothing you could ever do to atone for it. Turn to Jesus in faith, trusting in God's great mercy displayed in the atoning death and resurrection of Jesus. The sorrow and shame of lawful conviction lead you to repentance and trust in the only one who can save.

The world is constantly trying to eliminate shame by pretending that sin is OK. The saddest thing is when the church joins them in this self-destructive quest. What we have to offer is so much better than deadening the conscience - the actual removal of shame through the forgiveness of sin which comes only through the gospel of Jesus Christ. Brothers, don't hate them by telling them their sin is fine; love them by telling them how their sin can be forgiven.

Might As Well Preach It

Four years ago, there was a big kerfuffle about Rick Warren praying at the Obama immaculation. Warren, who's never met a fence he can't straddle or a hard gospel truth he can't soften, is about as inoffensive and safe as they come. But he's been known to occasionally tell the truth about sin such as homosexuality, and so he was incessantly vilified by many in the party of tolerance.

Ain't nobody less offensive to the reprobate world than Joel Osteen. Smilin' Joel may well be the happiest, smilingest, friendliest, most golly-gee-likable person on the planet, and his false gospel of how great you art doesn't come anywhere close to the Biblical truth. He's everything the Satan-following world could want in a pastor. But on a few occasions, he's been asked about homosexuality, and his answers have been - well, not great, I mean it's Joel freaking Osteen and all, but so far he's at least been willing to identify it as sin. And so the pastor adored by goats everywhere became the object of their scorn and derision.

This week it's Louie Giglio's turn. Giglio, of course, is on the 'right' side of all sorts of social causes. Most notably he's possibly the most prominent opponent of sex trafficking. His activism has earned him enormous cred. But sometime fifteen to twenty years ago, he preached a message calling sinners of all kinds to repent of their sin and turn to Christ in faith for forgiveness and healing - including sinners who engage in homosexuality. A decent enough statement of the requirement and power of the gospel - and for that, he had to go. For the past decade-plus he's meticulously avoided mentioning anything about that particular sin, but still, because he has not openly embraced perversion, he's not welcome. Under pressure from the White House to recant of being a Christian and to lie to people about their sin, he chose to step aside quietly.

So what do we make of all this?

We have three prominent case studies of attempts to court worldly favor to different extents. You have preaching a false gospel of the glory of man, blunting the gospel so as not to offend, good works the likes of which many of us can't dream of pulling off, avoiding taking a difficult stand on anything at all costs, and much much more. Yet when any of these guys - even the rank heretic Osteen - comes within sniffing distance of the actual gospel, what happens? The world's hatred of God pours out in full fury.

So I have a modest proposal. They're going to hate you anyway if you even come close to proclaiming the truth. So why not just go ahead and proclaim the full gospel of Christ?

They're going to hate you anyway. Might as well preach it.

Samson and Biologos

I recently was reading through the story of Samson again, and one incident in particular stood out this time. I've always found this vignette a little puzzling:

Samson went to Gaza, and there he saw a prostitute, and he went in to her. The Gazites were told, "Samson has come here." And they surrounded the place and set an ambush for him all night at the gate of the city. They kept quiet all night, saying, "Let us wait till the light of the morning; then we will kill him." But Samson lay till midnight, and at midnight he arose and took hold of the doors of the gate of the city and the two posts, and pulled them up, bar and all, and put them on his shoulders and carried them to the top of the hill that is in front of Hebron. (Judges 16:1-3)

What exactly is the point of this story? To illustrate Samson's great strength? Check that - supernatural strength. The gates of a walled city of that era would have weighed many tons. To rip them out of the wall and carry them miles away and up a hill - I don't know that any modern construction equipment could even do that! So if the author wanted to describe God's empowering of Samson, and tearing a lion apart by hand or single-handedly killing 1000 Philistines with a jawbone didn't get the point across, this would certainly hammer it home.

But there's much more than that going on here. More than just bragging about his God-given strength, this passage is a lament over how pointlessly he squandered it. Samson's God-ordained, angelically-announced mission in life was to kill Philistines, and as this an many other incidents from his life show, God had thoroughly equipped him for the task. He was given physical strength like nothing the world has seen before or since, and he should have been using it to fight for God's people and against God's enemies. Instead, we see over and over again throughout Samson's life that he wanted to be buddies with the Philistines, wanted to marry one even. Instead of fighting them, he was constantly trying to win their approval.

Consider the absurdity of this situation. Samson went to Gaza, one of the chief Philistine cities. To fight? No, to shack up with a Philistine prostitute. When the Philistines figure out he's there, they send a bunch of soldiers to set an ambush for him. When Samson wakes up, what does he do? Go out and kill them? No, he uses his supernatural strength to do tricks for them! As he rips the gates out of the city wall, it's hard not to picture him acting like a 5th grader trying to impress the cool high school kids. "Hey guys, look at what I can do! Please like me!" Instead of using his divine gift to fight God's enemies, he uses it to try to win their approval.

And for some reason, it seems awfully similar to what they're doing at Biologos.

Felix's Folly

I just finished reading through Acts, and was really struck by this passage. It describes Paul's interaction with Felix, the Roman governor of Judea. Felix was married to a Jewish woman and was at least somewhat familiar with "the Way". Paul had been imprisoned and was under Felix's authority, and Felix decided to check into this newfangled Christianity he'd heard about.

After some days Felix came with his wife Drusilla, who was Jewish, and he sent for Paul and heard him speak about faith in Christ Jesus. And as he reasoned about righteousness and self-control and the coming judgment, Felix was alarmed and said, "Go away for the present. When I get an opportunity I will summon you." (Acts 24:24-25)


Fascinating. Felix couldn't wait to hear about this Jesus fellow and all the neat things he did. I bet he really enjoyed hearing about God's love, and all about grace, and how he works all things for good to those who love him, and maybe even about heaven. Oh, how interesting and intellectually stimulating and compelling all this was! Felix may have even been emotionally moved and felt downright 'worshipful'.

And then Paul had to ruin it by bringing up that pesky "righteousness and self-control and the coming judgment". Once the inescapably personal demand for repentance and warning of God's wrath came, Felix was outta there. Not very seeker-sensitive there, Paul.

Obviously Paul did the right thing in preaching the whole counsel of God, the whole gospel. What good would it do to entertain Felix with stories about Jesus, to tickle his itching ears and satisfy his curiosity, if he was never called to true faith and was left dead in his sin? How many of our churches need to follow Paul's example here and resist the temptation to entertain the lost, stop leaving the call for repentance unspoken for fear of offending them and driving them away, and boldly preach the whole gospel?

But this isn't about them. It's about us. You, and me, and everyone who sits in the pews on Sunday and listens to the word of God being proclaimed and expounded. What do we do with it? Do we enjoy it as long as it's an entertaining story, or intellectually stimulating discourse on God's sovereignty and man's responsibility, or a message about God's wonderful promises to his people - and then, like Felix, check out when the demand to repentance and holiness comes? Do we receive the message only until it personally challenges us to get rid of our hidden idolatries, root out our pet sin, and actually obey God by living in radical love? Are we content to soak up the fascinating knowledge of all the deep things of God, so long as it leaves us completely unchanged?

What do we do with a message like this? We can be happy to learn about the theory of being lukewarm, acknowledge the theoretical need to repent, and gain some conceptual understanding of honoring Jesus rather than making him vomit. Or we can examine our lives for evidence of lukewarmness, repent, and live to glorify Jesus. Like Felix, many choose the former. How about you? How about me? We know the truth - what will we do with it?

I Don't Want Every Post To Be About Them, But....

Yesterday (via Justin Taylor) I read a retrospective of the last ten years of the Emerg* Church movement (also see the expanded interviews if you care). One story recounted there does a great job of illustrating exactly why I have a major problem with this movement. As an added bonus, the money quote is straight from the mouth of Tony Jones. Normally, when a critic of emerg* makes this claim it's dismissed as hateful nonsense, so it's great to see Jones unapologetically claim exactly what critics have been suggesting. Well, great that he's being honest about it, not so great that he actually believes it and teaches it.

Anyway, it's from a meeting between emerg* leaders Jones and Doug Pagitt and the most definitely non-emerg* and all-around awesome John Piper. They all work in Minneapolis (Pagitt 'pastors' or 'facilitates' (not sure which term they use this week) Solomon's Porch, and Piper pastors Bethlehem Baptist Church), and the emerg*s wanted to try to form some sort of coalition and work together. From the article:

But it appeared that John believed that there had to be some foundational theological agreement before any kind of partnership could be struck. Their conversation centered on the meaning of the atonement, specifically, the penal substitutionary theory. Tony and Doug did not believe that agreement on this specific doctrine was necessary for mutual endeavor. Tony used the incident to illustrate his Dispatch #7 in his recent book The New Christians:

Emergents believe that an envelope of friendship and reconciliation must surround all debates about doctrine and dogma.

Tony reiterated this principal in our interview with him: “It concerns me when leaders who were formerly friends of mine back away from me and from emergent because they find my theology too risky. I think that’s sin, plain and simple. Friendship should trump doctrinal differences, and I’m quite sure that Jesus would agree with me on that”.

So yeah. The emerg*s wanted to work together. Before doing so, Piper wanted to know that they at least agree on the heart of the gospel. The emerg*s didn't see the point in agreeing on the gospel. Why not just set such things aside and work together? Apparently to them, the gospel just isn't nearly as important as getting everyone to work together and be friends. (The same could of course also be said of "ecumenical" ideas such as ECT.) But the real meat comes from the Jones quote. Let's see, where to begin...

"It concerns me when leaders who were formerly friends of mine back away from me and from emergent because they find my theology too risky". I object to the term risky. Risk implies that there is a chance of either reward or consequence. That is simply not the case with Jones's theology. We know what the Bible says, we know what Jones teaches, and they are far, far apart. There is no "risk" involved in accepting his theology, any more than there is "risk" in putting your head in a hydraulic press and turning it on. We know exactly where it leads. Rejecting such a foolish course of action is not fear of risk, but an absence of stupidity.

"I think that’s sin, plain and simple." In the world of Tony Jones, standing firm for the gospel is sin. Got it. I'd be remiss if I didn't point out the irony of a man who has dedicated his life to promoting the denial of sin and an "anything goes" view of sanctification - because we can't really actually understand what the Bible says, and we can't know what truth really is, so who can say that something is a sin anyway, right? - calling something a sin. Apparently to Jones, the only real sin is believing the gospel as proclaimed by Jesus, attested by the apostles, and confirmed by the Father through signs and wonders and various miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.

"Friendship should trump doctrinal differences, and I’m quite sure that Jesus would agree with me on that.” Why should the gospel matter? Why can't we just be friends? Again, when concerned Christians claim that emerg* leads to such places, we are ridiculed as spiteful haters. So in a way, it's refreshing to see such an influential emerg* as Jones come right out and say it. (See another prime example here).

And of course, Jesus would agree with this. He has no concern for truth whatsoever, he's just interested in getting us together to hold hands and light candles and sing Kum Ba Yah. Well, let's see how this picture of Jesus just wanting us to be friends without regard to faith or practice lines up with scripture. Hmmm. Nope. Not here. Or here. Nah. Maybe... nope. What about... nuh-uh. No. No. Repeatedly and clearly, no. Well, I'm sure that somewhere in the world, there's a Jesus who agrees with Jones here. It's just not Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who Jones claims to worship.

Well, maybe Jesus thinks that what we believe is slightly important - you know, important enough to determine whether we spend eternity rejoicing in heaven or suffering in hell. But surely elsewhere in scripture there's gotta be license for what Jones wants to do, right? I mean, just because someone may deny the heart of the gospel, there's no reason we can't overlook that and be the church together, right? No reason we can't church up together and be friends just because they're totally off on the gospel. What say ye, Paul?

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel — not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man’s gospel. For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.

Well then. It seems that maybe friendship doesn't quite overrule the gospel. Huh. Of course, this quote is from the introduction to Galatians, where Paul takes the church to task for allowing false teachers to peddle their heresy. It doesn't matter if they're friends, or Paul himself, or even an angel. If they teach something other than the true gospel, they are cursed, and the church should not tolerate them.

I end with something tragically humorous. This post imagines what the response would be if Galatians was published in Christianity Today. Of course, as Dan Phillips points out, there's exactly zero chance that CT would publish something so good, so it would be merely fantasy. And the letters don't come close to matching the histrionics the perpetually offended crowd would no doubt produce. But it is a pretty accurate snapshot of the response whenever discernment is applied. Check the comment thread on any critical review of The Shack, f'r'instance. So it's humorous in that it captures the self-parody of the evanjellybean crowd so well, which completely expresses the "doctrine doesn't matter as long as we get along!" rubbish spouted by Jones. And it's tragic that this garbage has so completely infiltrated the church.

Schwarzenegger and the Emergent Church

Hey, did you know we just had some elections? If so, you probably heard that the Republicans got smoked. Lost the presidency, bigger deficit in the House, and thiiiiis close to not even having the theoretical threat of a filibuster in the Senate. One of the main questions that naturally arises is: where do they go from here?

The governor of California, Mr. Arnold Schwarzenegger, had some comments on this during an interview with Brian Kilmeade. (Unfortunately, the clips I could find online didn't have him saying it, only Kilmeade relaying the quote. It's part 2 of the interview, during the closing 30 seconds or so.) The Terminator says that for the Republicans to return to power, "they should move away from some of their core principles, those conservative principles, and start spending on programs Americans want." I find this response fascinating because of how it relates to current (and historical) ideas in the church. But before getting to that, there are at least two problems I see with it.

First, as many have pointed out, his prescription is largely how the Republicans got into this problem in the first place. This would be more than a post of its own (I'm sure there are a few books detailing it), but suffice to say that the mere existence of the term RINO (Republican In Name Only) shows much of the problem. These guys speak the conservative message to get elected, then govern like liberals. Unconscionably high spending is but one symptom. They just nominated the most "moderate" Republican in decades and he got destroyed. I could go on and on, but suffice to say, I don't think that becoming more liberal in a country that is largely conservative is a recipe for success.

But there's an even more fundamental problem with this idea. You would hope that these guys are conservatives because they believe that the conservative worldview is the best way to govern. They believe that these principles are the best thing for the nation, for the states, for the individual people living under that authority. They are convinced that if these principles are enacted, the country will benefit; if liberal policies are enacted, the country and its people will suffer.

Given that, here is a rough paraphrase of Ahnold's vision. "You believe that conservative principles are the best way to govern the country - best for the nation, best for the people. But you may have a better shot of getting elected if you abandon those principles. So you should intentionally do what you believe to be detrimental to the nation and harmful to people, so that you can have more power."

Am I the only one who has a problem with this? How could someone even think about doing such a thing in good conscience? If one truly holds that his view is beneficial and the opposing view is harmful, how ghastly must he be to change positions just to get into power? What Ah-nold is suggesting as the future for Republicans is utterly reprehensible (at least, it is for the actual conservatives in the party - for the RINO's it'd actually be a refreshing bout of honesty).

To see just how ridiculous this is, take one of the pet liberal causes and suggest the same thing. Think back to 2000, when the Republicans have just won the presidency and clean majorities in both houses. The Democrats were no doubt searching for ideas to get back into power. Imagine someone suggested in all seriousness: "You know, we believe that a woman has a fundamental right to abortion without restriction or negotiation. But the R's oppose abortion, and they're kicking our butts. So maybe we should switch sides on this issue, oppose abortion, and maybe then we'll win more elections." Is it even possible to imagine this conversation happening? Would it not be absurd for them to take a core value and speak/work/govern in opposition to it in order to win elections? Yet here is a prominent Republican, suggesting in all seriousness that this is not only a viable option, but their only choice. Unfortunately, there's no sign he was joking (and based on the way he's governed, he's quite serious).

In the political arena, this idea is an absolute joke. How could someone even think of abandoning core principles like that in order to be more popular or powerful? If someone could even consider this, would it not show that he doesn't really believe that position and/or doesn't consider it very important? Or if he does really believe it, and believes it to be highly significant, yet is willing to oppose it for personal gain, how utterly despicable would that person be?

But enough about politics. Hopefully it's obvious why such an idea - abandoning core principles to have better "success" - is either ridiculous or reprehensible in the political arena. But how about in the church? Would the foolishness/wickedness not be exponentially greater, since the issues at stake are of eternal significance?

And yet, this is a constant refrain within the church today. The culture is postmodern, we are told, and so the church must embrace postmodernism. People don't like truth claims, so we need to stop saying the Bible is true. People are offended by talk of sin and hell, so we need to stop talking about them. They don't want doctrine, so we need to forget about that and just tell stories (from which they can make their own meaning). We need to stop preaching the gospel and just meet their felt needs. People don't like hearing about the exclusivity of Christ, so we need to pretend all paths lead to God. And if we do these things, our churches will be full and we'll have all kinds of influence!

This nonsense is coming most strongly today from the emerg* camp - Brian McLaren, Rob Bell, Doug Pagitt, etc - who claim we need to abandon Christianity and embrace postmodernism (or a pomo/Christian syncretism). A century ago the claim was that the church needed to embrace modernism. Before that... It seems there's no worldview so anti-Christian that the church hasn't been told - by well-meaning individuals, no doubt - that it must abandon the gospel and embrace the unbiblical teaching. If it insists on the gospel, the church will fade into irrelevance. But if we just stop insisting on Biblical truth and embrace the current prevailing worldview/fad, well, the church will really be strong and be able to reach a lot of people!

So here's the question I have for them. Let's just say we do create the perfect Christian/postmodern blend they want, and we reach a lot of people with it. What exactly are we reaching them with? Because it sure isn't the gospel. And if the gospel is true, abandoning it to "reach" them just leaves them in their sin and under God's wrath. So what, exactly, is the point of doing so?

Logically, there are only three possible reasons someone would suggest setting aside the gospel in this manner.
(1) They don't believe the gospel is true. This is no doubt the case for some if not all of them. For instance, it's really hard to believe that Brian McLaren actually believes pretty much any part of the gospel, let alone the whole thing. Of course, given the pomo view of truth, it's tough to say that any of the emerg*s actually believe anything.
(2) They don't believe it's important. I guess it's possible that someone believes the gospel, but just doesn't think it's significant enough to be beyond compromise. I'm not sure how someone could actually believe the gospel - that we are sinners facing God's wrath, who can only be reconciled to God by embracing the life, sacrifice, and resurrection of Jesus on our behalf, resulting in a life of increasing holiness and faithful endurance to the end even in the face of persecution, and that all who reject the Son and persist in rebellion face eternal conscious torment in hell, but those who through God's grace embrace the Son receive eternal joy with God in heaven - then decide that it's not really all that important, and we can negotiate it away for a good enough offer. The position I guess exists logically, although I would suggest that anyone who would fit here really fits #1.
(3) They are more concerned with personal gain/power. In this position, someone is convinced that the gospel is true, that it's the only hope for people about to be on the receiving end of God's eternal wrath - but they would rather have a full church or sell some books or something. The wickedness of this position is unspeakable.

The idea that the church needs to embrace the latest cultural trend, even though it means abandoning the gospel, is presented by many as the loving way. But upon even cursory analysis, it's obvious that it's either a total lack of faith in the gospel, or an utterly wicked decision to grab personal status at the cost of their souls. There is absolutely nothing loving about abandoning or compromising the gospel. At best it's a sign that the person doing so is still lost in their own sin; at worst it's a sign that they're both lost and really hate people with unspeakable hate. When politicians talk about doing this, it's ridiculous. When people ostensibly representing the church do so, it's a reprehensible evil.

Relevance - How Utterly Irrelevant

Those of you who don't read Al Mohler's blog really need to. Just go subscribe right now. It's OK, I freely admit that everything he writes is better than this stuff. Go subscribe, then maybe come back.

Back? OK, good. The most recent entry there is describes the outrage directed at The Obama because of a truly despicable act - he invited Rick Warren to pray at his coronation. The horror! Turns out the anger is primarily from gay groups, who despise Warren because he has the audacity to be a pastor who believes what the Bible says regarding many things, including homosexuality. It seems nothing is more infuriating to them than an actual, practicing Christian.

Now, what's really interesting to me is that this "controversy" is surrounding Rick Warren. Because he's also been criticized, often quite harshly, by the more conservative (i.e. Biblical) Christian camp. Warren is the face of evangelicalism to reprobate world, their idea of how far someone can actually follow that Christian stuff without going too far (at least not very often). At the same time, to Biblically-faithful evangelicals, Warren is the face of the compromise camp, those who are so "seeker-sensitive" they take the edge off the gospel and make it more palatable to the unsaved.

The idea is to make the message more 'appealing' to sinful ears; the basics of the gospel are there in a sense, but with plenty of padding on the rough parts and some candy thrown on top. One of the main buzzwords you hear from that group is relevant - how can we make the gospel relevant to the unsaved around us? How can we keep the church relevant? How can we provide relevant help to the felt needs (another buzzword) they have? Warren has made quite a name for himself leading the relevance movement and soft-selling the gospel for years - and as Mohler pointed out, all that relevant goodwill amounts to less than a hill of beans as soon as he takes a stance on sin. The gospel of relevance, the gospel of being liked by the world, the gospel of having the world think you're cool and with it and not so bad after all - as soon as you take an actual fully-Biblical stance on one of someone's pet sins, all that relevance and coolness and he's-not-so-bad-after-all-ness goes right out the window.

So that's the first problem with the gospel of relevance. To those still in full rebellion against God, the gospel is the most offensive message imaginable. "For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life" (2 Cor 2:15-16). If your ministry is based on getting people to like you, and hoping that because of how much they like you they'll just naturally embrace the gospel, you are sadly, horribly mistaken. When you finally get to the gospel - or as in this case, even in the same ballpark - your likability is gone. Either you will offend them to the core at some point, or you perpetually compromise the message to make sure that doesn't happen.

The second, funnier issue with trying to be relevant comes from attempts to dress up the gospel in pop culture (often with justification found from a terrible point-missing reference to Acts 17). You know what I'm talking about - looking for 'creative' ways to 'witness' through showing that we Christians can do the pop culture just the same as everyone else. The problem with this approach is perhaps best explained by (warning: pop-culture reference) Abraham Simpson: "I used to be with it, but then they changed what 'it' was. Now, what I'm with isn't it, and what's 'it' seems weird and scary to me." As the culture continually changes, attempts to make the gospel "cool" inevitably end up... Well, I suppose the best way to explain it is to just show some examples. Take a few minutes and look through the Graveyard of Relevance. Then when you're done laughing, take a few minutes to think how ridiculous that "The Day the Earth Stood Still" Jesus-y T-shirt is going to look in a few years (as if it doesn't look ridiculous already).

But I would be remiss if I didn't mention the fundamental problem with attempts to make the gospel 'relevant'. Namely, what could ever possibly be more relevant than the gospel? What 'felt need' could ever be more urgent than the need to be reconciled to the sovereign creator and lord of the universe? What felt need is stronger than the need to be forgiven and made righteous? What could ever be more relevant than a message that applies urgently to every person who has ever been and ever will be?

The entire idea of 'relevance' is at its core a lack of faith. Trying to make the gospel relevant says you don't believe God when he commands all people everywhere to repent (Acts 17:30), or maybe you think we're really not all that bad and won't be judged, or maybe that Jesus isn't really for everyone. Or for some, you don't believe that the gospel is powerful enough on its own, and we need to help it along by dressing it up in cultural trends. The Word of God - which, mind you, only created the entire universe out of nothing - apparently needs help from a Billy Idol song or a Ben Affleck movie if it's ever going to reach people. Right.