Theology? Ain't Nobody Got Time For That!

Over the weekend I saw numerous reports of the death of Myles Munroe. At first I thought they were talking about this guy:

...which is odd, since I thought he died before the 138th episode spectacular, but I digress. Myles Munroe was a prosperity shill and heretic extraordinaire; your soul would probably have been in better hands with the incompetent Simpsons psychiatrist.

One of the clips making the rounds in the wake of Munroe's death puts the heretical focus of his prosperity teaching on full display:



Pure evil. This is prosperity teaching showing its true wickedness: Christ is at best a bit player in your quest for kingdom authority and blessing. Reprehensible.

Now that we have that out there, let me ask: just how different is that from the ministry philosophy of many churches in America today? This isn't an issue just in the extreme fringe that comprises 99.44% of Charismania; a (milder?) form of this problem hits even ostensibly orthodox churches all around us.

Preaching about "felt needs" at the expense of doctrine. The Willow Creek model of saccharine bare-minimum (aiming down to the lowest denominator, and often overshooting) sermons on Sunday, withholding any imitation of doctrine for mid-week services for the super-spiritual. The Saddleback model wherein everything is about you finding your special purpose, where somehow the book of Daniel is about dieting.

Youth ministries where scripture, if taught at all, takes a backseat to games and fluff messages 'to help them get through school this week'. Churches that never preach anything but how to have a better life - better friendships, a better marriage, doing better at work, better sex, better sleep, better breathing, better fitness, better whatever.

If I remember correctly, I was once told not to bother teaching about the doctrine of providence because people don't care about that, they just want to know how they're going to make it through the week.

So yeah, this Munroe character was a reprehensible heretic, and his idea that we shouldn't tell people about Christ and the cross is poison from the deepest pits of hell. But don't be fooled into thinking he was alone, or that his heresy died with him. That same wicked attitude permeates the church all around us.

The Awesome Power of The Word

Not long ago I heard an entertainer-type give his testimony, telling his story of how he was brought to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. He had almost zero exposure to Christianity or scripture until he was 30-ish, when a friend suggested he should read some of the Bible. He chose at random, and read Ecclesiastes. Then he read it again, and again. Solomon's writings cut him to the core, laying low his pride and self-righteousness, and exposing his absolute need for a savior.

RC Sproul has half-joked that he may be the only person in history who was saved through the preaching of Ecclesiastes 11:3: "Whether a tree falls to the south or to the north, in the place where it falls, there will it lie." Read more of the story of his conversion here.

I was a freshman in college, thinking I was saved because I went to church a lot when I was a kid, but completely lost. I was hypocritically involved in a Christian group on campus, because hey, what better way to soothe my conscience after a week of wanton sin? I was reading the Bible for some reason, got to Ephesians 4:17ff, and was crushed. This passage describes the night-and-day difference between those who are reborn in Christ and those who remain dead in sin, and there was absolutely no doubt which group's description I fit. At that point the choice was to repent and come to faith in Christ, or walk away entirely; either way, continuing to pretend was not an option. Thankfully, God raised me and brought me to faith.

What do all these vignettes have in common? In each case, someone was brought to repentance and faith through scripture that will never be described as evangelistic. I mean, Fred Butler will write Jar Jar Binks fan fic before someone puts Ecclesiastes 11:3 in an evangelistic presentation. Every evangelism class will have you learn Ephesians 2:8-9, but I can't imagine one having you learn Ephesians 4:19. Yet these passages, being the Word of God, are fully capable of convicting of sin and the need for Jesus, the only Savior.

"All Scripture is breathed out by God" (2 Tim 3:16) - and as our Arminian friends uncritically say, all means all. And this scripture, as Paul says, is "the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus" (2 Tim 3:15).

The Word of God is powerful. Preach it.

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.

Relevance! Catch the fever!

When a church is looking to be "relevant", there are few ways it can better accomplish this than through its music. Many such churches believe the ultimate in relevance is achieved by singing secular songs as praise, but others choose a different route: taking the same songs but changing a word here or there to "Christian them up". When the latter method is chosen, you often get a true masterpiece of 'worship'.

As you might expect, I have a few comments on this.

1) If you're going to take an atrocity and pretend it's worship, at least don't imitate the exact plot of a South Park episode ridiculing the practice (and since this church is clearly hyper-relevant, certainly someone on the 'worship' team has seen this episode - come to think of it, maybe that's where they got the idea). According to one plot synopsis, Cartman forms a Christian band that "rocketed to the top of the Christian rock charts, with Cartman simply tweaking the lyrics of love ballads, changing words such as "Baby" to "Jesus". While effective, the band eventually comes under some scrutiny when one of the songs involves more passionate lyrics. Cartman manages to manipulate his way out and the band continues in its success."

If you're familiar with the original tune by Dead or Alive, you'll note that there was exactly one lyric change - from Baby to Jesus. Yeesh. Also, you no doubt see that the changed lyrics make this song a lot of things - sickening, sacrilege, disgusting, creepy, disturbing, and blasphemous come to mind - but worship is not one of them.

2) What was the deal with the socks? Spinning socks = praise? Alllllrighty then. I did think of one potential use for the spinning, though. If you were to place a heavy object in the sock - say, a cue ball, or a big rock, or maybe a stadium or quarry - you could spin it, release it, and hit one of the people responsible for this atrocity.

3) It can often be difficult to know when exactly to walk out of a church. When in doubt, you can't go wrong leaving at the first mention of the "Holy Spirit Hoedown". Although I think Spurgeon might've used that phrase a time or two, and John MacArthur uses that as a sermon title every other week, so maybe I'm jumping the gun here.

4) Isn't the point of "relevance" to make the gospel "more appealing" to the lost? Who, exactly, is this going to appeal to? Dead or Alive plus a square dance plus the O'Jays, all with swirling footwear? Sounds great! I'm so impressed, I need to hear more about Jesus!

HT: Luke MacDonald, who is one of our worship leaders at Harvest. Thankfully, we can be certain he'll never subject us to anything like this.

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.