Max Lucado is a wonderful and inspiring writer. Few can match his ability to bring fresh insights, infuse substance, and bring clarity to both the commonplace and complex things of life. One of his website posts was titled “Simply ‘Church’.” He posed two questions, “…what would happen if all the churches agreed, on a given day, to change their names simply to ‘church’?…if there’s no denominations in heaven, why do we have denominations on earth?”[1] His point was that we should not attend a church based on the sign outside, but we should join our hearts to the hearts of the people on the inside.[2]

This is a noble sentiment and reflects the Apostle Paul’s admonition to the Romans, “Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be like-minded one toward another according to Christ Jesus: That ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” [Romans 15: 5-6. KJV] In other words, the church should be in unity in thought and message.[3] Matthew Henry’s writings three hundred years earlier agree with Lucado’s sentiments, “The foundation of Christian love and peace is laid in like-mindedness. This like-mindedness must be according to Christ Jesus…” In other words, Christ should be our pattern because the unity of Christians glorifies God. However, Henry warned that our prayers for like-mindedness “…must be first for truth, and then for peace…it is first pure, then peaceable.”[4] [emphasis in original]

In our search for like-mindedness with other Christians, we must return to Henry’s admonition that our quest must first be for truth and then for peace. In that quest for truth, labels are invaluable and become a type of shorthand for what we know to be true or not true.[5]

Throughout the ages language has been the means of achieving order in culture. Knowledge of truth comes through the word which provides solidity in the “shifting world of appearances.” Richard Weaver called words the storehouse of our memory. In our modern age humanists have effectively used semantics to neuter words of their meaning in historical and symbolic contexts, that is, words now mean what men want them to mean. By removing the fixities of language (which undermines an understanding of truth), language loses its ability to define and compel. As the meaning of words is divorced from truth, relativism gains supremacy, and a culture tends to disintegration without an understanding of eternal truths upon which to orient its self.[6]

Therefore, the problem with simply “Church” is that we live in a fallen world, and there are competing voices each professing truth. Removing the labels and being simply “Church” won’t work when we must give priority to truth. Without truth, simply “Church” won’t achieve like-mindedness in a world immersed in a relativistic sea of shifting appearances. In such a world labels become our anchors to truth. But like “Church,” there are other words that have lost their ability to define and compel and be relied on to reveal truth. One of those words is “evangelical.”[7]

The evangelical label and what it means to be evangelical

“The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind.” This is the opening sentence of Mark Noll’s book The Scandal of the Evangelical mind. Noll was a professor of history at Wheaton College at the time of its publication in 1994. The book was well received in academic and intellectual circles and in a wider audience on the liberal side of the evangelical spectrum. Although Noll praises evangelicals for their generosity, involvement with the hurting elements of society, sustaining the church and its supportive organizations, and spreading the gospel message, he contends that evangelicals have failed to cultivate a serious intellectual life because they have forsaken the universities, the arts, and other spheres of “high” culture. In essence, Noll is saying that the scandal of the evangelical mind is that it has failed to “think like a Christian” about the physical world (its nature and workings), human social structures (government and economy), the meaning of history, and non-evangelical perceptions of the world.[8]

Noll’s prescription for the mindless evangelical is that we first must jettison any beliefs regarding “creationism”—a theory that claims the earth is ten thousand years or less old. Noll summarizes one writer’s assertion that creationism is “…a fatally flawed interpretive scheme of the sort that no responsible Christian teacher in the history of the church ever endorsed before this century…” Also, evangelicals must dispense with dispensationalism and its fascination with the end of the world which he labels as radical apocalyptic speculation that wrongly interprets world affairs.[9]

Once the distractions of these intellectually toxic beliefs are banished to the closet of superstition and anti-intellectualism, Noll believes that evangelicals can concentrate on what is essential for Christianity and not what is merely distinctive about American evangelicalism. By subordinating the distinctives to the essentials, Noll believes there is a greater chance for developing a Christian intellectual life. Noll elaborated on the differences between distinctives and essentials. He cites the evangelical distinctive of activism as opposed to the larger Christian essential of a profound gratitude to God which can be found in contemplation as well as activism. Other evangelical distinctives marked for subordination include a “literal” interpretation of Scripture, preoccupation with the doctrine of biblical inerrancy, and a fascination with the apocalypse. Superior to these distinctives and an essential for Christianity is a “profound trust in the Bible as pointing us to the Savior and for orienting our entire existence to the service of God.”[10]

Religious liberalism invades evangelicalism

More than a half century ago, A. W. Tozer wrote that the evangelical branch of the church is the only one that “even approximates New Testament Christianity.” However, Tozer went on to say that over the half century preceding his writing the evangelical church had “an increasing impatience with things invisible and eternal and have demanded and got a host of things visible and temporal.”[11] In hindsight, we can say that what Tozer was seeing was the evangelical church in its autumnal season. But through the work of the progressives and modernists within the evangelical church since the time of Tozer’s writing, its autumnal season has transitioned into an evangelical winter, an apt description of the prevailing spiritual coldness and lethargy in much of American evangelicalism. As a result, large segments of American evangelicalism no longer identify with the truth, passion, and power of New Testament Christianity. The roots of their defection are found in religious liberalism birthed in the nineteenth century.

Certain of the humanistic elements of the eighteenth century Enlightenment entered German universities and gained wide influence among their faculties. This influence led nineteenth century German theologians to adopt a rationalistic theological liberalism which taught a “higher critical” view of the Bible as containing many mistakes.[12] The influence of higher biblical criticism migrated to the United States from Germany during the nineteenth century as thousands of American university students attended German seminaries. Under higher criticism, Christianity was perceived as being the result of evolving religious ideas and customs. Therefore, Scripture was not divine revelation but a product of changing conceptions of God within an evolving culture.[13] As a result Christianity must be flexible as it was the result of changing religious ideas and customs. These beliefs came into full flower in American liberal Protestant churches by the end of the nineteenth century, and a half century later it spread to some evangelical churches and seminaries in the form of modern critical approaches (see Chapter 33). Dr. Noll’s book is a leading example of the outworking of these modern critical approaches. He has sacrificed truth in his efforts to achieve peace and unity in evangelicalism.

Homogenized evangelicalism – Amorphous essentials replace solid doctrinal distinctives

Fifteen years after Noll’s book, Carl Trueman challenged Noll’s conclusions in a small book titled The Real Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. Trueman is a vice president of Westminster Theological Seminary and professor of Historical Theology and Church History. Trueman agreed with Noll that there is a scandal of the evangelical mind, but it is a different scandal than described by Noll.

More concerning is the lack of any consensus about evangelicalism’s intellectual identity…there must be not just a mind, but also a readily identifiable thing call an “evangelical” and a movement called “evangelicalism”—and the existence of such is increasingly in doubt.[14]

Trueman questioned whether such a thing as evangelicalism still exists because it has become such a meaningless term. He cites one historian who attempted to give evangelicalism definition and meaning by listing four of its hallmarks: the Bible as the primary source of truth (biblicalism), the atoning work of Christ on the cross (crucicentrism), spiritual conversion (conversionism), and public proclamation of the gospel and living life according to it (activism). Yet, these hallmarks in some form or fashion are claimed by many disparate groups within an ecumenically-oriented evangelicalism. Therefore, evangelicalism’s identity remains blurred because of a lack of institutional or clerical direction, the subjectivity of experience, and most importantly because of a casual tip-of-the-hat to important but generalized biblical concepts that have not been given the necessary solid doctrinal structure and gravitas upon which a definitive evangelicalism may rest.[15]

Trueman presents a solid case for his view that the problem is not that there is no evangelical mind, but there is no longer a definitive evangelicalism. He points to many varieties of evangelicalism who do not sing “variations of a single melody so much as different songs altogether.”[16] At its beginning in the early 1700s and even in the Indian summer of American Christianity during the 1940s and 1950s, evangelicalism had a number of distinctive and recognizable stand-alone doctrinal traditions and voices whose similarities gave form and substance to evangelicalism. But even during the 1950s, two things began happening that would eventually blur the meaning of evangelicalism as a result of a sustained assault by a culture saturated with humanistic concepts of relativism, tolerance, and inclusion. First, to maintain a degree of cultural authority, some in the evangelical camp began incorporating, changing, or abandoning doctrines, beliefs, and activities in ways that conflicted with two hundred and fifty years of evangelical thought, belief, and practice. Second, other non-evangelicals and non-Christian organizations began to appropriate for themselves the attractive, culturally-respected “evangelical” brand. This book has documented many of these groups, organizations, ministries, and movements that no longer offer variations of a single evangelical melody but sing different songs from non-evangelical and even non-Christian hymnals. This is one of the reasons for the title of this book. There is an evangelical winter because there are many in the big tent of evangelicalism that no longer sit or have never sat in the warm sunshine of New Testament Christianity.

Future of evangelicalism

Because “evangelical” has such a broad usage and has become so inclusive, it has been rendered meaningless as an identifier of truth. It seems as though almost everyone has become evangelical. Trueman states that if the evangelical church is losing the ability to be “salt and light” in the culture, the reason is not that evangelicalism has failed to win a place at the cultural table. Rather, it is because they do not have a solid grasp of the basic elements of the faith, as taught in Scripture and confirmed by the doctrinal understandings of their faith.[17] The reasons for this rampant biblical illiteracy in the evangelical church were discussed in Chapter 26.

Evangelicalism has become fragmented as never before. In a recent CNN article Russell Moore, a leading spokesman for the Southern Baptists, was quoted, “The problem is that many secular people think that all evangelicals are alike, when there are multiple streams and theological and generational divides within evangelicalism.” As an example of this fragmentation of evangelicalism, the CNN article listed seven different evangelical approaches to politics and voting for candidates: the old guard (traditional), institutional, “Arm’s length,” entrepreneurial, millennial, liberal, and cultural evangelicals.[18]

Trueman believes doctrinal fragmentation within big-tent evangelicalism will cause a fundamental realignment among evangelicals as the various players coalesce around either a mainstream secularism or a return to New Testament Christianity, once the heart of evangelicalism.

Those institutions that cherish their place at the cultural table will have to accept the legitimacy of homosexual relationships and to abandon a fully Pauline gospel of salvation predicated on a historical Adam. Those institutions wishing to maintain traditional orthodoxy on these points will have to accept their status as marginal figures in a broader world, objects of scorn and not serious contributors to the public square.[19]

Trueman’s expected division within evangelicalism is in its early stages as shown by stirrings among some Christians and churches that are disassociating and distancing themselves from many mainstream evangelicals that have abandoned the tenets of biblical Christianity. That said, Christians should reconsider Trueman’s last statement in which he believes Christians following the beliefs of traditional evangelicalism will not be serious contributors to the public square. As will be shown in the next chapter, the obligations of the church to influence culture are not abrogated by cultural hostility and marginalization of Christianity. All through history, it is the suffering church that has spoken most compellingly to a decadent and hostile culture.
______

Among the humanists’ and liberal theologians’ calls for peace through ecumenical promotion of cooperation, unity, and tolerance, we must remember that truth must precede peace in achieving like-mindedness. As a consequence, those that stand with truth may need a truth identifier other than evangelicalism—perhaps it should be New Testament Christianity which, according to Tozer, evangelicalism was originally intended to mirror.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Max Lucado, “Simply ‘Church’,” Max Lucado, November 4, 2013. http://808bo.wordpress.com/2013/11/04/max-lucado-simply-church/ (accessed November 6, 2013).
[2] Larry G. Johnson, “In Defense of Labels,” CultureWarrior.net, November 13, 2013. https://www.culturewarrior.net/2013/11/15/in-defense-of-labels/
[3] Ibid.
[4] Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, Ed. Rev. Leslie F. Church, Ph.D., (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1961), p.1794
[5] Johnson, “In Defense of Labels,” CultureWarrior.net.
[6] Richard M. Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences, (Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 1948), pp. 148-149, 152, 158, 163.
[7] Johnson, “In Defense of Labels,” CultureWarrior.net.
[8] Mark A. Noll, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1994), pp. 3, 7.
[9] Ibid., pp. 13-14.
[10] Ibid., pp. 243-244.
[11] A. W. Tozer, Man—The Dwelling Place of God, (Camp Hill, Pennsylvania: WingSpread Publishers, 1966, 2008), p. 150.
[12] Francis A. Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live?, (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 1976, pp. 175-176.
[13] Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth, (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2004, 2005), p. 426.
[14] Carl R. Trueman, The Real Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, (Chicago, Illinois: Moody Press, 2011), p. 12.
[15] Ibid., pp. 14-15.
[16] Ibid., p. 37.
[17] Ibid., pp. 38-39.
[18] Daniel Burke, “7 types of evangelicals—and how they’ll affect the presidential race,” CNNPolitics.com, January 25, 2016. http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/22/politics/seven-types-of-evangelicals-and-the-primaries/index.html (accessed February 4, 2016).
[19] Trueman, p. 38.

For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind. The standing grain has no heads, it shall yield no meal; if it were to yield, aliens would devour it. [Hosea 8:7. RSV]

Many modern evangelical churches have foolishly sown to the wind and are reaping a whirlwind. As a result, many of their once faithful members are abandoning evangelicalism and seeking solace elsewhere, having found that much (though not all) of modern evangelicalism is merely a confused and pitiful shadow of the once stalwart champion and defender of New Testament Christianity but which now has little to offer other than what the world already has given. The abandonment of evangelical New Testament Christianity in America is being hastened by two significant occurrences—one of recent emergence and the other having been active since the beginning of the church. The first is the rise of the emergent church and the second is doctrinal decay in evangelical churches because of its wavering on inerrancy of the Bible.

Emergent church

One of those aliens is post-modern evangelicalism and is called the Emergent church. Gary Gilley wrote that the rise of the emergent church in America was generated by a void in evangelicalism as a result of the dominating presence of the Church Growth movement during the latter half of the twentieth century.

The emergent church has largely been a backlash against the seeker-sensitive movement, with its slick programs, high-octane entertainment and superficial worship. The postmodern generation wants something more authentic, something with substance, even something that is other-worldly. Whereas the seeker-sensitive movement attempted to make the church look like the world, emergent youth want a sense of the sacred. Where the seekers wanted to offer everything the world offered in purified form, the emergents want unique experiences the world does not have and cannot give. Where the seekers repudiated church history and behaved as though the church was born yesterday, the emergents want not only a link to the past but a return to the past.[1] [emphasis added]

Notice that the young emergents were said to be in search of “unique experiences” as opposed to searching for God. The young emergents and their parents have been well indoctrinated by decades of humanistic emphasis on experience as the sole basis of truth. However, the experiences sought by emergents are not the same experiences sought by the evangelicals in the first two Great Awakenings and thereafter. We must remember that the primary goal of the Awakenings was to rouse the faithful from their spiritual lethargy characterized by coldness and indifference and not so much on the making of new converts. The faithful had to be revived not through their head knowledge but through their hearts. The evangelicals were not against intellectual knowledge of God, but they saw the heart-felt conversion experience as necessary to counter the coldness and indifference that permeated the Reformation church.[2] To be converted, mere intellectual assent had to be replaced by New Testament notions of a “new birth,” and as any mother will attest, the birthing process is an emotional experience felt by both mother and child. The conversion experience is also dependent on heeding the message of the cross as discussed in Chapter 29. For men who choose Christ, of necessity, must choose death to self and sin for they cannot otherwise follow Him.

To provide these unique experiences to the young emergents, a number of leaders in the emergent church adopted themes surrounding the Ancient-Future faith movement (hereafter called “A-F”) founded in 1977 and 1978 following the publication of two best-selling books: Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth by Richard Foster and Robert Webber’s Common Roots: A Call to Evangelical Maturity. A-F classifies church history as having six periods: “primitive (first century); ancient or classical (100-600); medieval (600-1500); Reformation (1500-1750); modern (1750-1980); and postmodern (1980 to the present).” A-F adherents believe that the solution for the future of the postmodern church is to model it on the ancient or classical traditions of the church (100-600). The younger evangelicals want to encounter God beyond emphasis on doctrinal matters such as conversion and self-denial as professed by traditional evangelicals. They also reject the shallow, pragmatic ministry-driven programs of the Church Growth movement. Young emergents see these two forms of Christianity subsiding as the emergent evangelicals begin to dominate Christianity during the twenty-first century.[3]

It is important to note that the emergent church looks to the ancient-classical period as its source for molding Christianity as opposed to the apostles and New Testament church of the first century. Emergents deem the rich traditions developed in the classical period of church history (100-600) to be superior. As a result, emergents have adopted much of Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox dogma and practices. (see Chapters 3 and 4 for a discussion of these beliefs and practices).[4]

But emergents do not stop there. They believe that the Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox traditions can be united if doctrinal distinctives are subordinated to ancient practices and creeds. Emergents consider the Reformation as being “an unnecessary schism perpetrated by Protestants” and reject the Reformers’ sola Scriptura in favor of Rome’s view that the church presides over scripture and final authority rests in the church.[5]

How is it that emergent evangelicals (in name only) could have sat in evangelical churches for any length of time and subsequently have bought into the absurd beliefs and teachings of the emergent church? The answer is that for over a half century they have warmed the pews of thousands of churches in America that forsook the pristine doctrines, power, and authority of the New Testament that once marked the character and demeanor of evangelical churches. Also, they resembled the Hebrews who were immature in their knowledge of the Bible (see Chapter 26 for a discussion of biblical illiteracy). In the apostle’s letter to the Hebrews (believed to have been Paul) he wrote of those immature believers who were dull of hearing.

About this we have much to say which is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need some one to teach you again the first principles of God’s word. You need milk, not solid food; for every one who lives on milk is unskilled in the world of righteousness, for he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their faculties trained by practice to distinguish good from evil. [Hebrews 5:11-14. RSV]

The Church Growth movement is partially responsible for this general immaturity and shallowness which is aggravated by its methods and through its incessant spoon-feeding milk to seekers while neglecting provision of solid food for mature Christians. They justify themselves by wrongly asserting that the more mature on the spiritual growth continuum are responsible for their own spiritual growth and not the church. This error arises because of a basic misconception as to the purpose of the local church. The existence of this misconception is confirmed by the great discontent of the more mature Christians in churches of the Church Growth movement and especially the Willow Creek and Purpose Driven models of doing church (see Chapter 31). It is also confirmed by the general defection of younger evangelicals to the emergent churches for they are children who cannot distinguish good from evil.

Doctrinal decay – evangelical wavering on inerrancy of the Bible

If one imagines a raindrop falling somewhere in North America, its location in relation to the continental divide will ultimately determine whether the little drop will eventually become a part of the Atlantic or the Pacific Ocean. Unlike our little raindrop, Christians may choose which side of the theological divide they will inhabit with regard to the question of biblical inerrancy. But their choice, one way or the other, will have consequences for virtually all of their beliefs about God, the Bible, Creation, mankind, and a host of other theological issues, questions, interpretations, and worldview.

Those that reject inerrancy of the Bible fall into the trap of focusing on the particulars to justify their less authoritative view of the Bible. An analogy of two puzzle boxes will illustrate the fallacy of using particulars to dismiss the inerrant view of the Bible. The boxes are identical and each contains a lifetime’s supply of puzzle pieces to be sorted and arranged in such a manner to make sense of the mess man inherited from his ancestors.

One box is held by the forces of humanism. They claim that by man’s efforts alone the pieces can be sorted and arranged to supply the understanding and satisfactions that man so desperately seeks. No help from the outside is needed, thank you, for everything required is contained in the box. Through science and reason they proceed to examine each piece (the particulars) and arrange them in all sorts of configurations, but all of their efforts are of no avail. Frustrated with their elders’ failure, each succeeding generation applies their new, better, and more progressive ideas to solve the puzzle of life, but without God they fail to find cohesive answers to the pervasive disorder and mystery of evil.

Christians hold the other box. Unlike the humanists, they look outside the box and beyond the confines of nature. They discover a picture that reveals the truth of the universe and all therein. It contains all that man needs to understand the mess he has made and as well as instructions for putting the pieces back together to match God’s plan for mankind. That picture is the unchanging, eternal, and inerrant Truth revealed by the Bible. And from that man finds truth, not in the particulars but the grand meta-narrative of creation, the Fall, and redemption.

Here we see a fundamental distinction between humanism and Christianity. To discover truth, humanists dismiss the supernatural. There is no God. All is material and found in the physical confines of the universe—the puzzle box. By reducing everything to their most basic elements (the puzzle pieces, i.e., the particulars), they seek to discover the scientists’ coveted “theory of everything” from which they will fashion answers to alleviate the chaos of life in which man finds himself mired. For those Christians that reject inerrancy of the Bible, they too have chosen to follow humanistic methods by examining the particulars and discarding those portions of the Bible which they have determined are not truth.

The defense of inerrancy is not the same as an apologetic or defense of the faith as Peter commanded. “…Always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence.” [1 Peter 3:15b. RSV] Rather, it is a polemical defense of inerrancy against those in doctrinal error within the faith as opposed to an apologetic defense of the faith to those primarily found outside the faith.

Anselm was a great Christian thinker of the eleventh century whose words capture the essence of a Christian’s understanding of truth through faith. “For I do not seek to understand so that I may believe; but I believe so that I may understand.”[6] Truth resides in the biblical revelation to mankind, the grand mural painted by God of as opposed to the mundane particulars of creation. In an article titled “On the Origin and Nature of Things,” A. W. Tozer adds to our understanding of the puzzle box analogy and the meaning of Anselm’s profound statement regarding the means by which Christians receive truth.

Such truths as men discover in the earth beneath and in the astronomic heavens above are properly not truths but facts. We call them truths, as I do here, but they are no more than parts of the jigsaw puzzle of the universe, and when correctly fitted together they provide at least a hint of what the vaster picture is like. But I repeat: They are not truth, and more important, they are not the truth. Were every missing piece discovered and laid in place we would still not have the truth, for the truth is not a composite of thoughts and things. The truth should be spelled with a capital T for it is nothing less than the Son of God, the Second Person of the blessed Godhead. [emphasis in original]

The human mind requires an answer to the question concerning the origin and nature of things. The world as we find it must be accounted for in some way. Philosophers and scientists sought to account for it, the one by speculation, the other by observation, and in their labors they have come upon many useful and inspiring facts. But they have not found the final truth. That comes by revelation and illumination.[7] [emphasis added]

Here Tozer gives us a clue as to why the non-Christian cannot see truth and why a Christian can. Final truth comes by revelation and illumination. Illumination comes by faith as the apostle tells us in Hebrews. “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” [Hebrews 11:3. KJV] But where does the Christian get the requisite faith spoken of by the apostle? Faith is a gift of God. It is a work wrought in the Christian by the work of the Holy Spirit.

Now we return to the question of inerrancy. If the Bible is truth, then by inference it must be inerrant. To say otherwise is to say that truth is not truth. J. I. Packer assists with our understanding of this concept.

If the words of Scripture are God breathed, it is almost blasphemy to deny that it is free from error in that which it is intended to teach and infallible in the guidance it gives. Inerrancy and infallibility cannot be proved (nor, let us note, disproved) by argument. Both are articles of faith.[8]

Francis Schaeffer sums up the concept of biblical inerrancy.

Christianity is not a series of truths in the plural, but rather truth spelled with a capital “T.” Truth about total reality, not just about religious things. Biblical Christianity is Truth concerning total reality—and the intellectual hold of that total Truth and then living in the light of that Truth.[9]

Inerrancy of the Bible has been the defining mark of evangelical orthodoxy since the beginnings of evangelicalism in the early 1700s to the 1960s. However, in the early 1960s through the late 1980s, American evangelicalism became caught up in a series of controversies that eventually focused on “whether the adoption by evangelical scholars of modern critical approaches to biblical studies could be reconciled with traditional views of the authority of Scripture.”[10]

These modern critical approaches of critiquing the authority of the Bible varied in the degree of their departure from inerrancy. Some called for retention of the concept of inerrancy but with room to explain or define it in such a way as to allow for intellectual examination and probing. At the other extreme some evangelicals believed that inerrancy and infallibility with regard to the spheres of science and history could not be maintained. In their view, Scripture was infallible only as it applied to its divinely intended purpose.[11]

One recent example of the slippery slope of modern critical approaches to reconcile biblical inerrancy with humanistic science is the BioLogos Foundation’s promotion of a significant and well-funded effort to “…change the way Christians understand Genesis and the origin of man.”[12] For those in agreement with the core beliefs of BioLogos Foundation, creative evolution is an established or accepted fact (as we are frequently reminded by evolutionists of all stripes). For BioLogosians, all other truths and interpretations must bow to the absolute truth of creative evolution when studying the natural world and the Bible.[13]

But man’s effort to explain the nature of God and His creation through creative evolution is both unnecessary and impossible. It is unnecessary because God’s invisible nature is already plainly understood by man’s perception of the things He created (see Romans 1:20). It is impossible because imperfect Nature cannot add clarity to the picture of divine reality as revealed by the Bible. The biblical record brought clarity to nature, not the other way around. This is the fundamental error of BioLogos when it attempts to humanize religion by embracing creative evolution in order to give a better understanding of divine reality through the workings of imperfect Nature.[14]

The push for relaxation of evangelicalism’s staunch support of biblical inerrancy arose as a result of cultural pressures to succumb to what seemingly appeared to be a widening gulf between biblical inerrancy and the presumed superiority of scientific evidence to the contrary. However, humanists and others inappropriately interchange the usage of “literal” and “inerrant.” The meaning of “literal” implies a concern mainly with facts, and for the humanist that means facts that can be scientifically validated. But the Bible is a book of history, poetry, prophecy, parable, and allegory. All are part of the inerrant word picture that God used to reveal His character and nature and His relationship with man. The point is that humanists and Christians pursuing modern critical methods attempt to force the Bible into a laboratory test tube to prove or disprove its claims, but as previously stated the Bible deals with the non-material things that are outside the capabilities of science to decipher but are just as real in our human understanding and experience as any scientifically-proven hypothesis.[15]

Does this seeming disconnection between science and the Bible mean that the evangelical must surrender inerrancy on issues such as the six-day creation, dispensationalism, and other presumed contradictions with science? Absolutely not! What it does mean is that there is a gap between scientific “facts” and what the Bible says. Christians must begin with an unfailing belief in the inerrancy of the Bible, but they must also recognize that if certain scientific facts are correct, then a gap exists in their knowledge which prevents them from reconciling the two.

There are many things God has chosen not to reveal at this point in man’s history and may never reveal this side of eternity. But we know He is God, that He created the universe, and that He has the answers to fill in the knowledge gaps. The humanist attempts to fill in the knowledge gaps by separating reason from faith which artificially separates scientific truth from religious truth. But reason and faith are inseparable allies. Therefore, Christian faith is not a “blind faith.” Reason is important in our journey to the door of faith, but we enter the door of faith through the inerrant revelation from God and the illuminating work of the Holy Spirit within.
______

As stated at the beginning of this chapter, much of the modern evangelical church has foolishly sown to the wind and is reaping a whirlwind. Hosea’s prophecy revealed sin and pronounced judgements on a people that would not be reformed and had become apostatized over several generations.[16] But whirlwinds need not be followed by obituaries. God is ready to redeem returning sinners and restore relationship with Him.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Dr. Gary E. Gilley with Jay Wegter, This little church had none, (Carlisle, Pennsylvania: EP Books, 2009), p. 37.
[2] Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth, (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books, 2004, 2005), pp. 269-270.
[3] Gilley, This little Church had none, pp. 39-41.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid., pp. 43, 59.
[6] Anselm, a quotation from Chapter 1 of the Proslogion, published in The City, VIII, no. 2 (Winter 2015): 1.
[7] A. W. Tozer, Man—The Dwelling Place of God, (Camp Hill, Pennsylvania: WingSpread Publishers, 1966, 1997), pp. 19-20.
[8] James I. Packer quoted by Roger Nicole, “James I. Packer’s Contribution to the Doctrine of the Inerrancy of Scripture,” Doing Theology for the People of God, Eds. Donald Lewis & Alister McGrath, (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1996), p. 176.
[9] Pearcey, Total Truth, p. 15. Quoting Francis Schaeffer’s address at the University of Notre Dame, April 1981.
[10] Brian Stanley, The Global Diffusion of Evangelicalism, (Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Academic, 2013), pp. 105-106.
[11] Ibid., pp. 107-108.
[12] Daniel James Devine, “Interpretive dance,” World, November 29, 2014, 35.
[13] Larry G. Johnson, “Creative evolution – Screwtape’s science for Christians – Part I,” CultureWarrior.net, January16, 2015. https://www.culturewarrior.net/2015/01/16/creative-evolution-screwtapes-science-for-christians-part-i/
[14] Larry G. Johnson, “Creative evolution – Screwtape’s science for Christians – Part II,” CultureWarrior.net, January23, 2015. https://www.culturewarrior.net/2015/01/23/creative-evolution-screwtapes-science-for-christians-part-ii/
[15] Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), p. 177.
[16] Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1961), p. 1105

As noted in Chapter 1, the church over the course of its history has suffered attack from within (theological compromise) and without (cultural compromise), but the principal thrust of both attacks can be described as nothing less than the diminution and final abandonment of biblical truth.

Within the theological realm, the diminution and abandonment of truth has occurred because the church has failed to recognize and resist the spirit of the world which has invaded the church. The spirit of the world during an age of rampant humanism has redefined and compartmentalized the meaning of truth in all spheres of American life. Decades of this humanistic view of truth has been absorbed in varying degrees by most American Christians and many evangelical churches. As a result the critical importance of biblical truth has been diminished in the minds and hearts of many.

Along with humanism’s infiltration into the thinking of the church, there has been a marked decline in biblical literacy of Christians during the last decades of the twentieth century and in the twenty-first century to the present day (by which is meant a remarkable lack of familiarity with the Bible, its doctrines, central themes, and teachings). Because of the growing ignorance of the Bible’s commands, the evangelical church has not only failed to resist the humanistic spirit of the world but has accommodated much of it within the church.

On the cultural front, the American evangelical church no longer has the power and authority to speak truth to a diseased and dying culture. One hundred years ago the liberal church knelt at the altar of humanism and secularism (see Chapter 13). It appears that the evangelical church is doing the same in the post-Christian world. Their “new vision for the church” is undermining long held doctrines and is producing a powerless church. Without repentance and turning from sin, the church will lose its saltiness and “…be good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.” [Matthew 5:13b. KJV]

The Great Apostasy

Apostasy refers to the once faithful who have renounced, deserted, or become traitors to their faith. In 2 Thessalonians 2:3, the Apostle Paul spoke of a time when a great falling away would occur just before the second coming of Christ. The falling away is a rebellion of many in church against God and is called the great apostasy. The coming of the Lord will not occur unless the rebellion comes first.

Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, that ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition. [2 Thessalonians 2:1-3, KJV]

Here Paul is speaking of the last days which began at Pentecost and will continue until Christ’s second coming. The falling away (Great Apostasy) of the church will occur near the end of the last days. That the church is in the time of Great Apostasy is revealed by the emergence of three significant trends, all of which that testify to the soon coming of Jesus Christ spoken of by Paul.

Chasing the world by compromising the message of God’s Word

Paul spoke of the compromise of sound doctrine in his second letter to Timothy.

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth and shall be turned to fables. [2 Timothy 4:3-4. KJV]

Many churches have incorporated questionable methods in their scramble to survive in a rapidly changing and increasingly hostile culture. By doing so they have also gradually and subtly changed and softened the Bible’s message as well. Over time the adulterated message of these churches becomes unrecognizable when compared with sound doctrine and teachings of the Bible, and without a foundation of biblical truth, they have become powerless.[1]

In 2001, Jim Cymbala wrote that as the church confronts an antagonistic culture it needs to take a look at what the church is doing.

Instead of being a holy, powerful remnant that is consecrated and available to God (in the New Testament sense of the words), the world’s value system has invaded the church so that there’s almost no distinction between the two.

Wouldn’t it be wise to ask ourselves what kind of teaching has brought about this sad state of affairs? What are we doing, or not doing, that causes such a breakdown in the spiritual fiber of professing Christians? We had better start asking some hard questions and be prepared to throw overboard whatever has made the church so weak and carnal.

Instead of that, a massive cover-up is going on. Rather than face the obvious facts around us, certain church leaders proclaim that everything is fine because they have a “new vision for the church.”[2]

When the world’s value system invades the church, the church becomes worldly. The Bible is very explicit about what constitutes worldliness. The Apostle Paul gave a very clear picture of what it means to not be worldly. “For the grace of God has appeared for the salvation of all men, training us to renounce irreligion and worldly passions, and to live sober, upright, and godly lives in this world.” [Titus 2:11-12. RSV]

Do not misunderstand, the church should reach out to the lost by being charitable, helpful, friendly, encouraging, and welcoming through our activities in the community. Churches can and should be involved in certain secular activities, but it is wrong to adopt methods that are by their very nature worldly to the point of impiety which brings reproach upon Christ’s church and the gospel message. The church must guard against a compromised message and methods that incorporate corrupting elements of worldliness that lead to impiety whose synonyms are sin, sinfulness, irreverence, transgression, immorality, and ungodliness.[3]

Mixing light with darkness

In their efforts to be ecumenical and culturally relevant, many churches have attempted to find common ground with organizations and false religions that stand in opposition to God’s word.

Do not be mismatched with unbelievers. For what partnership have righteousness and iniquity? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God… [2 Corinthians 6:14-16a. RSV]

Matthew Henry’s 300 year old commentary gives additional insight into the Apostle Paul’s words of cautioned to the Corinthians.

It is wrong for good people to join in affinity [kinship or relationship] with the wicked and profane. There is more danger that the bad will damage the good than hope that the good will benefit the bad. We should not yoke ourselves in friendship with wicked men and unbelievers. We should never choose them for our bosom-friends. Much less should we join in religious communion with them. It is a very great absurdity. Believers are made light in the Lord, but unbelievers are in darkness; and what comfortable communion can these have together?[4]

There are numerous examples of nationally recognized churches and Christian leaders that attempt to find common ground with anti-Christian secular organizations and false religions in direct contradiction of biblical commandments. When ministers, ministries, and churches mix the light with darkness, they effectively have disobeyed God’s word and bring reproach on their ministry and the gospel of Jesus Christ.[5]

Here we must clarify the difference between being mismatched with unbelievers and Christ’s command to make disciples. Where possible, Christians and the church should reach out to individual non-believers with love and kindness in the hope of a sharing the truth of the message of Jesus Christ. Further, Christians and churches are not prohibited from working with government and private non-Christian organizations in worthy causes, activities, and programs (e.g., foster care, disaster relief, adoption, provision for the poor). However, the church cannot join with other organizations and those parts of our government that actively promote goals, programs, and activities that stand in opposition to God’s word (e.g., abortion, same-sex marriage).[6]

Nonjudgmental Love as a substitute for repentance and turning from sin

Christians must not make judgements in a hypocritical or condemning manner with regard to fellow believers. Also, Christians are to use discernment when making judgement of some who appear to be Christian but are really false teachers and false prophets whose goal is to lead the flock astray (see Matthew 7:15-20).

The world often chastises the Christian for judging the non-Christian and point to the phrase “judge not lest ye be judged.” Those who demand Christians should “judge not” demand tolerance for non-Christians who think and act in ways contrary to the Bible have taken this commandment out of context and ignore the distinctions the Bible makes between judging sinners and fellow believers (see Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 7:1-5). However, when Christians lovingly and graciously present the gospel to sinners, judgement is not based on their opinions or theories but on what the Bible says. Christians are called to judge between right and wrong based on morality and truth as revealed in God’s word, but such judgement must be done in a spirit of love, kindness, and concern for the sinner, not in a spirit of condemnation.

However, many churches have embraced the world’s definitions of love and tolerance and by doing so have compromised the gospel message. As a result the message of many churches is that God’s love is nonjudgmental and so vast that He will overlook sin if one will only acknowledge Him. In other words, love is all that matters. If this message is true, then sin is of no consequence in determining our eternal destination. And if sin is of no consequence to God, then He does not care about how we live our lives. If the presence of sin is not ruinous of man’s relationship with God, Christ’s death on the cross to purchase forgiveness for mankind’s sin becomes irrelevant. The new concepts of love and tolerance are expressed as unconditional acceptance which is presumed superior to the biblical approach that requires repentance and turning from sin.[7]

To become culturally accepted, the church has resorted to feel-good messages focused on fixing the self in the here-and-now as opposed to salvation and eternity. But, the modern gospel of nonjudgmental love is not new. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a brilliant German theologian who stood against the Nazi regime during the 1930s and 1940s until his death on a cold February day in 1945 when he was hanged on a Nazi gallows. He warned against the gospel of nonjudgmental love which produces a counterfeit grace.[8]

Anyone who turns from his sinful way at the word of proclamation and repents, receives forgiveness. Anyone who perseveres in his sin receives judgment. The church cannot loose the penitent from sin without arresting and binding the impenitent in sin…For its own sake, for the sake of the sinner, and for the sake of the community, the Holy is to be protected from cheap surrender. The Gospel is protected by the preaching of repentance which calls sin sin and declares the sinner guilty…The preaching of grace can only be protected by the preaching of repentance.[9]

Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church…In such a Church the world finds a cheap covering for its sins; no contrition is required, still less any real desire to be delivered from sin…Cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner…Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.[10]

Decline of the evangelical church

The reason for the decline of many churches in America is not that the rising tide of secularism and humanism are stronger than the transformational power of the gospel. Rather, in an attempt to continue as a moral force within the culture by becoming culturally relevant, many churches gradually (and for some almost unknowingly) have compromised the biblical message, mixed the light with darkness, and preached nonjudgmental love without the necessity of repentance and turning from sin. However, these doctrinal compromises and non-biblical activities translate into spiritual weakness and generally start with the “what we do” (methods) part of the equation but soon extends to the “what we believe.”

In nations with a strong Christian influence, Satan must resort to guerilla tactics against the church by chipping away at the edges of the gospel message through compromise as opposed to a frontal attack. But as many American churches embrace an anemic and powerless message in the post-Christian and post-modern era, the church has steadily grown weaker and has begun to experience a greater number frontal attacks by Satan’s guerillas (e.g., challenges to the legitimacy and influence of the church in the public square and all spheres of American life).[11]

The Romans at the time of the early church saw value in all religions. Modern multiculturalists would call them “inclusive” and “tolerant.” The Pantheon in Rome was built to honor all gods, and the Christian God was welcomed if only the Christians would make themselves culturally relevant by giving some tribute and deference to the Roman gods.[12] But those early Christians refused to compromise their beliefs and unequivocally held to God’s commandment, “You shall have no other gods before me.” [Exodus 20:3. RSV]

Evangelical winter

World systems have predicted the death of the church from its beginning two thousand years ago, but the true church cannot die. As Tozer has written, “The true Church is the repository of the life of God among men, and if in one place the frail vessels fail, that life will break out somewhere else.”[13] Many evangelical churches, denominations, and fellowships in America have become frail vessels that have been depleted of their spiritual vitality within and have lost their effectiveness in speaking to the larger culture without. Beginning over a half century ago, a large number of evangelical churches in America and other parts of the Western world have undoubtedly entered a wintry season which has endangered their survival because they have lived too close to the world. Finding that many modern evangelical churches have little to offer other what the world already has given, many of the once faithful are abandoning evangelicalism and seeking solace elsewhere.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Larry G. Johnson, “Strange Fire – The Church’s quest for cultural relevance – Part II,” culturewarrior.net, December 26, 2014. https://www.culturewarrior.net/2014/12/26/strange-fire-the-churchs-quest-for-cultural-relevance-part-ii/
[2] Jim Cymbala, Fresh Power, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2001), pp. 22-23.
[3] Johnson, “Strange Fire – The Church’s quest for cultural relevance – Part II.”
[4] Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, Ed., Rev. Leslie F. Church, Ph.D, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1961), p. 1832.
[5] Larry G. Johnson, “Strange Fire – The Church’s quest for cultural relevance – Part III,” culturewarrior.net, January 2, 2015. https://www.culturewarrior.net/2015/01/02/strange-fire-the-churchs-quest-for-cultural-relevance-part-iii/
[6] Ibid.
[7] Larry G. Johnson, “Strange Fire – The Church’s quest for cultural relevance – Part IV,” culturewarrior.net, January 9, 2015. https://www.culturewarrior.net/2015/01/09/strange-fire-the-churchs-quest-for-cultural-relevance-part-iv/
[8] Ibid.
[9] Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer, (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, 2010), pp. 292-293.
[10] Erwin W. Lutzer, When a Nation Forgets God, (Chicago, Illinois: Moody Publishers, 2010), pp. 117- 118.
[11] Larry G. Johnson, “Strange Fire – The Church’s quest for cultural relevance – Part IV.”
[12] Alvin J. Schmidt, How Christianity Changed the World, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2004), p. 25.
[13] A. W. Tozer, Man—The Dwelling Place of God, (Camp Hill, Pennsylvania: WingSpread Publishers, 1966), p. 155.

“Ouch!” was Bill Hybels’ response to the results of a 2004 survey of the spiritual growth and well-being of the congregants at Willow Creek Community Church near Chicago. Hybels had pastored Willow Creek Community Church for thirty years (as of 2005) using the seeker-sensitive Church Growth movement model of doing church. Since 1992, Hybels also had indoctrinated twelve thousand churches and their leaders with those same methods and practices through the Willow Creek Association (WCA). As a result of the 2004 survey, the church commissioned a three year study to delve into the reasons for the discontent and lack of spiritual growth in a large segment of those attending Willow Creek. The reasons for the survey results that shocked Hybels and his staff gradually emerged over the course of the three year study which was published in 2007.[1]

In 1975, twenty-three year old Bill Hybels and his wife Lynne began Willow Creek Church in Palatine, Illinois. In 1977 they purchased land and built Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois, which became the central church among six regional campuses that have a combined weekly attendance of twenty thousand.[2]

Hybels’ approach to ministry was inspired by Dr. Gilbert Bilezikian, a New Testament professor at Trinity College, when he vividly described the Acts 2 church as it grew in Jerusalem (See Acts 2:42-47). Bilezikian (see Chapter 21) was born in France, grew up under Nazi occupation during World War II, immigrated to the United States in 1961, and became a minister and teacher at Wheaton College in Illinois. Bilezikian developed the mega church model that emphasized bringing people together in small groups to help each other accomplish their missions.[3] Similar to Rick Warren, Hybels attended Robert Schuller’s Institute for Church Growth seminars. As Hybels often states, “the church’s mission, to turn irreligious people into fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ, remains its singular passion.” But over thirty years later the Willow Creek study revealed that something was fundamentally wrong in the Church Growth movement’s formula to build a church similar to the one found in Acts 2.

The Willow Creek Study

The study was conducted by Greg L. Hawkins, executive pastor of Willow Creek, and Cally Parkinson, brand manager for REVEAL, a WCA initiative that utilizes research and discoveries to help churches with spiritual growth among their congregants. They were assisted by Eric Arnson, an independent research and strategy consultant with twenty-five years of brand and consumer strategy experience with various consulting firms that primarily dealt with Fortune 500 companies.[4]

In 2004, the Willow Creek conducted its periodic congregational survey, but that survey was different than those conducted in prior years. Rather than just focusing on numbers and activities, the survey attempted to gauge “the movement of people toward Christ, toward deep love for God and genuine love for others.” Hybels was stunned at the results of the survey, “…nearly one out of every four people at Willow Creek were stalled in their spiritual growth or dissatisfied with the church—and many of them were considering leaving.” What followed was an on-going three year study aimed at revealing the reasons for the spiritual condition of a large segment of Willow Creek congregants.[5]

The study defined spiritual growth as “An increasing love for God and for other people.” The study accumulated 2.6 million data points and eleven thousand completed surveys from Willow Creek and six other churches across the United States which included denominational, seeker-targeted, and independent/Bible churches of various sizes, ethnicity, and both city and suburban churches.[6] The results of the study revealed six key discoveries.

1. Involvement in church activities does not predict or drive long-term spiritual growth. But there is a spiritual continuum that is very predictive and powerful.[7]

The researchers found that there was a positive connection between participation in church activities and behaviors such as tithing, service to others, evangelism, and praying. The researchers identified four levels of commitment across a spiritual continuum: exploring Christianity, growing in Christ, close to Christ, and Christ-centered. Where one is located on the continuum is highly predictive of the level of their spiritual growth, and the farther along one is on the continuum, the greater the level of spiritual growth. However, the finding that astounded the researchers was that higher levels of church activity did not mean a person had an increasing love for God or increasing love for others. In other words, participation in church activities does not drive spiritual growth. A growing relationship with Christ, as opposed to increasing involvement in church activities, moves one along the spiritual continuum (and which result in increases of spiritual behavior and activity).[8] From this finding, one may say that spiritual growth is driven from within rather than being externally driven by the church. Although the church cannot create spiritual growth, it can facilitate it.

2. Spiritual growth is all about increasing relational closeness to Christ.[9]

The researches asked the question as to why there is not a solid connection between participation in church activities and spiritual growth when the purpose of church activities is to turn people to Christ. Their answer is “Because God ‘wired’ us first and foremost to be in a growing relationship with him—not with the church…As we draw closer, we begin to see a dramatic change in how we live our lives and relate to other people.”[10]

3. The church is most important in the early stages of spiritual growth. Its role then shifts from being the primary influence to a secondary influence.[11]

The researchers conclude that the church is extremely important in the early states (Exploring Christianity, Growing in Christ) and a less important place to go for spiritual development and to find spiritual relationships for those in the later stages of spiritual growth (Close to Christ and Christ-centered). Rather, it is a “platform” that provides serving opportunities. They suggest that the church plays a lesser force and personal spiritual practices play a greater role in driving spiritual growth. The personal spiritual practices include “prayer, journaling, solitude, studying Scripture—things that individuals do on their own to grow in their relationship with Christ.”[12]

It is here that the researchers’ conclusions blatantly ignore an obvious and exceedingly important observation about those in the Close to Christ and Christ-centered segments of the spiritual growth continuum. A major part of spiritual growth and well-being of any Christian should come from preaching and worship directed at the church rather than preaching and worship that is directed week-after-week towards unchurched seekers. Therefore, the conclusion that spiritually mature Christians are less interested in small groups and weekend services is self-fulfilling because the spiritual fare is almost exclusively directed to seekers as opposed to the church (See Chapter 26). The Church Growth movement’s incessant focus on customizing its services (especially preaching and worship) to meet the needs and likes of unchurched seekers through a weekly evangelistic-topical message ignores or abandons preaching and worship directed to the church and which should be the primary purpose of the weekly services.

Thus, it is not surprising that the more mature, faithful, and spiritually advanced Christians have less interest in weekend gatherings. But the underlying reason for this decline in interest is not because they are relying on personal spiritual practices. It is because they are not receiving essential spiritual sustenance traditionally gained from weekly preaching, worship services, and Sunday school directed to the church. Should the researchers have recognized that weekly preaching and worship services directed to the church as being highly important aspects of spiritual growth and spiritual well-being (especially the Close to Christ and Christ-centered segments of the spiritual continuum), such recognition would have presented an irreconcilable conflict with the Church Growth movement’s substantial focus on the seeker-sensitive paradigm. As noted in discoveries 1 and 2 above, the church cannot drive spiritual growth in the Close to Christ and Christ-centered segments but it can facilitate it by directing services and worship to the church and not the seeker-sensitive.

4. Personal spiritual practices are the building blocks for a Christ-centered life.[13]

This discovery led to two key observations by the researchers. First, people are propelled along the spiritual continuum by a deep internal desire to fill the spiritual void in their souls. As one advances along the spiritual continuum, influences beyond the church become more important in spiritual growth. Second, the church declines in influence as one proceeds along the spiritual continuum. From these observations, the researchers concluded that, “The church doesn’t need to handhold people who are moving along in the later stages of the spiritual continuum.” In other words, a growing Christ-centered life is a result of a growing personal relationship with Jesus Christ.[14]

In this discovery, the researchers have again misread the needs of the church’s more spiritually advanced members. These members are not asking that their hands be held, but they desperately need regular spiritual support that should be received at weekly services but which the Church Growth movement continually and substantially focuses toward the seeker-sensitive elements at the lower end of the spiritual continuum.

5. A church’s most active evangelists, volunteers and donors come from the most spiritually advanced segments.[15]

The substantially higher levels of activity (evangelism, tithes and offerings, and volunteer service) come from the Close to Christ and Christ-centered segments of the spiritual continuum. This finding was contrary to the Willow Creek assumption that evangelistic fervor was highest in the early stages of one’s journey on the spiritual continuum.[16]

It is interesting to note that in advising pastors who are considering adopting a Purpose Driven church model, Rick Warren states that opposition will most likely come from the “pillars” of the church. He cavalierly suggests that those pillars (those in the Close to Christ and Christ-centered segments) are interfering with the pastor’s vision (holding things up) and should be allowed or even encouraged to leave the church.

Be willing to let people leave the church. And I told you earlier the fact is that people are gonna leave the church no matter what you do. But when you define the vision, you’re choosing who leaves. You say, “But Rick, yes, they’re the pillars of the church.” Now, you know what pillars are. Pillars are people who hold things up … And in your church, you may have to have some blessed subtractions before you have any real additions.[17]

If the pillars of the church are the most active evangelists, volunteers, and donors, why would Warren and other Church Growth advocates have such casual contempt for this segment of the church? Perhaps it is because they are so enamored with the Church Growth paradigm that focuses on the seeker.

6. More than 25 percent of those surveyed described themselves as spiritually “stalled” or dissatisfied” with the role of the church in their spiritual growth.[18]

The researchers state that stalled spiritual growth generally occurs in the early to middle stages of the four-segment spiritual continuum. Those stalled in their spiritual growth represent one out of every six surveyed. In the stalled group, 40 percent are satisfied, 28 percent are dissatisfied, and 25% are considering leaving the church.[19]

The dissatisfied group generally comes from the more “Christ focused,” that is, the evangelists, financial contributors, and volunteers. This group, unlike the stalled group, is committed to daily spiritual practices (prayer, Bible study, etc.). In other words, these are true Christ-followers and not just believers. Ninety-six percent attend church three to four times each month, 61% volunteer at least once each month, and 31% tithe. Yet, 63% report they are the considering leaving the church due to much lower levels of satisfaction with the church across the board.[20]

Ignoring the 800 pound gorilla in the room

Because the researchers are committed to (or perhaps “blinded by”) the Church Growth paradigm, they blame the stalled and dissatisfied congregants for their discontent because they haven’t taken responsibility for their own spiritual growth. .

But at the heart of their unhappiness may be the fact that neither segment seems to realize that much of the responsibility for their spiritual growth belongs to them. This is the big “aha.”

The decline of the church’s influence as people mature spiritually suggests that the church may have put too much emphasis on the spiritual equivalent of the diaper-changing and homework-helping stage of care.

As people work to grow in their personal relationship with Christ—a relationship that presumably has benefited from a foundation of solid theology and encouragement from church teaching—the institution of the church becomes less central to their faith development.[21]

The researchers have wrongly presumed that their members have a foundation of solid theology and encouragement from church teaching. But those progressing on the spiritual continuum grow beyond the elementary weekly fare of most seeker-sensitive churches. As they mature they aren’t given anything beyond the basics which will allow them to continue growing. This conclusion is confirmed by the study when it states that dissatisfied Christ-followers in seeker-sensitive churches say they “desire much more challenge and depth from the services,” whether it is church services, Bible classes, or small groups. Only 20% rate services as “outstanding or excellent” versus 71 percent of the total surveyed.[22] This supports the author’s conclusion in discovery 3 that to address the dissatisfactions of the Christ-followers in Purpose Driven and other seeker-sensitive churches presents an irreconcilable conflict with the Church Growth movement’s focus on the seeker-sensitive paradigm. This arises because the overall purpose of the local church’s weekly services has been wrongly redirected from ministering to the body of Christ to almost exclusively ministering to the needs and desires of seekers.

Rather than “more challenge and depth” from church services, the researchers promise additional and larger studies to

…evaluate the effectiveness of small group strategies, service formats and a host of other church activities…and detail the impact of things like Internet-based products and services on people’s spiritual lives, as well as different approaches to prayer, journaling, solitude and other personal spiritual practices.[23]

Even though Willow Creek’s leadership remains married to the idea that weekend services have less value for those farther along the spiritual continuum, the study’s findings have forced them to see the need to “extend the impact of our weekend services” to these disaffected groups. One example of their efforts is the provision of a free journal, pages for taking notes, questions for use during the week to reflect on the week’s passage of scripture, study questions for small groups, and insights from a biblical commentary. However, such halfway measures are merely pacifiers and will never satisfy the dissatisfied as long as the fundamental purpose of the local church’s weekend services are substantially directed to the seekers and their needs and desires.

Has Willow Creek’s spiritual continuum left out accepting Christ as one’s savior?

The Willow Creek study is primarily concerned with an adherent’s progress on the spiritual continuum. A continuum is “a range or series of things that are slightly different from each other and that exist between two different possibilities.”[24] In Christianity, the beginning of the spiritual continuum occurs when one accepts Jesus Christ as his or her Lord and savior. The other end of the spiritual continuum is reached when one leaves this earthly life as a Christian.

For Bill Hybels and the researchers, the foregoing definition appears to contradict Willow Creek’s definition of the spiritual continuum. This becomes apparent when their definitions of the segments of the spiritual continuum are examined.

Exploring Christianity – “I believe in God, but I’m not sure about Christ.” These people are taking the first steps in spiritual growth and are marked by significantly lower levels of agreement with belief statements such as “I believe salvation comes only through Jesus Christ.”

Growing in Christ – “I believe in Jesus, and I’m working on what it means to get to know him.” These believers are growing in their faith through church experiences and are also starting to incorporate personal spiritual practices into their normal routine outside the church.

Close to Christ – “I feel really close to Christ and depend on him daily for guidance.” These believers report much higher levels of spiritual practices than earlier segments. Serving emerges as an important expression of their faith. While their devotion to Christ is growing they still hold back from full commitment.

Christ-centered – “God is all I need in my life. He is enough. Everything I do is a reflection of Christ.” These people have fully surrendered their lives to Christ, demonstrated by their significantly higher levels of spiritual behaviors across the board. They “very strongly agree” that they seek God’s guidance in every area of their lives-at two times the level of any other segment.[25]

In the entire book that presents the study’s findings, no reference can be found as to the requirement that to be a Christian one must accept Jesus Christ as one’s Lord and Savior. Many people in the Exploring Christianity phase of Willow Creek’s spiritual continuum apparently believe in God but not Jesus Christ. They attend church, participate in church activities, sing, worship, and pray. But if they do not believe in Jesus Christ (and most importantly have not also accepted Him as their Lord and Savior), then they are not Christians. They are lost sinners, not on the spiritual continuum, and therefore not growing spiritually. The seeker may be under conviction of the Holy Spirit, but they are not saved and therefore not growing spiritually. It is only when one accepts Christ as his or her Lord and savior that they begin their spiritual journey. Those in the Growing in Christ segment have professed a belief in Jesus, but again that is not the same as accepting Christ as one’s Lord and Savior. Here we have people supposedly moving along the spiritual continuum but with no mention of the life-changing encounter with Jesus Christ which is the true beginning of one’s journey on the spiritual continuum.
______

The substitution of man’s efforts to replace the redeeming work of the cross appears to be one of the great failings of the Church Growth movement and seeker sensitive churches (see Chapter 29). Paul’s second and final letter to Timothy warned what the last days would be like, “Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.” [2 Timothy, 3:5. KJV] Matthew Henry wrote of Paul’s warning. “In the last days would come perilous times, not so much on account of persecution from without as on account of corruptions within…A form of godliness is a very different thing from the power of it; men may have the one and be wholly destitute of the other.”[26]

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Greg L. Hawkins and Cally Parkinson, Reveal – Where Are You? (Barrington, Illinois: Willow Creek Association, 2007), pp. 3, 111.
[2] “Willow History,” Willow Creek Community Church. http://www.willowcreek.org/aboutwillow/willow-history (accessed December 29, 2015).
[3] George Mair, A Life With Purpose – Reverend Rick Warren, (New York: Berkeley Books, 2005), pp. 101-102.
[4] Hawkins and Parkinson, p. 111.
[5] Ibid., pp. 3-4, 8.
[6] Ibid., p. 29.
[7] Ibid., p. 33.
[8] Ibid., pp. 35-37.
[9] Ibid., p. 39.
[10] Ibid., pp. 38-39, 41.
[11] Ibid., p. 41.
[12] Ibid., pp. 42-43.
[13] Ibid., p. 44.
[14] Ibid., pp. 44-45.
[15] Ibid., p. 45.
[16] Ibid.
[17] Rick Warren, “Building a Purpose-Driven Church,” Seminar at Saddleback Church, January, 1998. Rick Warren Quotes. http://rickwarrenquotes.blogspot.com/2010/04/driving-under-influence-of-rick-warren.html (accessed January 12, 2016).
[18 Hawkins and Parkinson, p. 47.
[19] Ibid., pp. 47-49.
[20] Ibid., pp. 50-53.
[21] Ibid., pp. 54-55.
[22] Ibid., p. 53.
[23] Ibid., p. 59.
[24] “continuum,” Merriam-Webster Dictionary. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/continuum (accessed January 12, 2016).
[25] Hawkins and Parkinson, pp. 38-39.
[26] Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1961), pp. 1896-1897.

Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas, is the largest congregation in America having over 40,000 who attend the 16,800 seat nondenominational Christian mega church. From their base at Lakewood, Pastor Joel Osteen and wife Victoria preach an upbeat message to a worldwide audience of 200 million. The essence of their message can be found in Osteen’s best-selling book Your Best Life Now.

Too many times we get stuck in a rut, thinking we’ve reached our limits. But God wants us to constantly be increasing, to be rising to new heights. He wants to increase you in his wisdom and help you make better decisions. God wants to increase you financially, by giving you promotions, fresh ideas, and creativity.”[1]

In other words, God wants you to be happy; it’s all about you. Therefore, it was not surprising that an undated video clip began circulating in August 2014 which captured Ms. Osteen, with her husband standing close behind and nodding his approval, admonishing the congregation that the purpose and intent of obedience to God and worship was to make the people happy.

I just want to encourage every one of us to realize when we obey God, we’re not doing it for God—I mean, that’s one way to look at it—we’re doing it for ourselves, because God takes pleasure when we’re happy. That’s the thing that gives Him the greatest joy…

So, I want you to know this morning: Just do good for your own self. Do good because God wants you to be happy…When you come to church, when you worship Him, you’re not doing it for God really. You’re doing it for yourself, because that’s what makes God happy. Amen?[2]

But is the primary purpose of obedience and worship of God to make people happy in this life? A quick survey of several scriptures quoted in the previous chapter says otherwise. For the born-again Christian, this life is about cross bearing, dying to self, living the resurrection life, and following Christ’s example. Cross bearing and dying to self may not fit the world’s image of happiness but it will result in eternal happiness as we commune with God forever.

A biblical perspective on worship

Both the Old and New Testaments have a number of things to say about worship.

Worship is commanded: “O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the Lord our maker.” [Psalm 95:5. KJV]

Worship is to accompany our best offering–our first fruits: “Give the Lord the glory due unto his name: bring an offering, and come before him: worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.” [1 Chronicles 16:29. KJV]

Worship requires a right attitude: “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” [John 4:24. KJV]

If we teach the doctrines of men, we worship in vain: “Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.” [Matthew 15:7-9. KJV]

We must be vigilant that our worship does not turn to idolatry: “Take heed to yourselves that your heart be not deceived, and ye turn aside, and serve other gods, and worship them.” [Deuteronomy 11:16. KJV] “I am the Lord; that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images.” [Isaiah 42:8. KJV]

Although not a comprehensive examination of the church’s worship of God, His commands and expectations are clearly revealed in these verses. Worship of God is not optional for the Christian, and it is not about making us happy. Our worship is rejected if we worship with the wrong attitude, we teach man’s doctrines, and is in vain when it accompanies an offering of less than our first fruits. True worship is an expression of our love, adoration, reverence, respect, devotion, and praise of God. Can much of what we see in many evangelical churches of today come close to this description of true worship?

Entertainment disguised as worship

Francis Schaeffer has said that God uses different ways in different moments of history, but he cautions that this freedom to use various ways in accomplishing His work has limits.[3] The Church Growth movement and particularly the Purpose Driven techniques and methods espoused by Rick Warren have gone far outside acceptable limits in their worship services. One of those ways the Church Growth movement has crossed the line is the manner in which they have incorporated man’s ideas in marketing God to the unchurched—the consumer. The unchurched seekers are the target market and must be given what they want. And what attracts them is entertainment. Entertainment is now disguised as worship. As a result, seeker-sensitive churches are incorporating world-centered entertainment designed for and directed at the seeker-consumer instead of being Christ-centered worship directed toward God.

In Chapter 26 it was noted that Warren and the other Church Growth advocates have committed a fundamental error that underlies the entire concept of the Church Growth movement. They have wrongly redirected the purpose of preaching and weekly church gatherings from being primarily focused on the body of Christ to weekly seeker-sensitive services aimed at the unchurched. Similarly, they have redirected the worship service toward the unchurched seeker as opposed to worship that is directed to God. The truth of this statement could not be more strongly validated than through the words of Victoria Osteen, “When you come to church, when you worship Him, you’re not doing it for God really. You’re doing it for yourself, because that’s what makes God happy.” [emphasis added]

Chapter 13 of Warren’s The Purpose Driven Church is titled “Worship Can Be a Witness.” He states that “Everything we do in our weekend services is based on twelve deeply held convictions.” These convictions all center on the various elements of worship such as “style” of worship, witnessing, seeker expectations, and seeker understanding.[4] What he does not talk about is what the Bible says about worship. In Chapter 15, “Selecting Your Music,” Warren states that the church must match its music to the kind of people God wants your church to reach. But where in the Bible does it say that churches should specialize in the type of sinner they wish to reach?

Several quotes expose Warren’s faulty beliefs about music in the church.

Music is the primary communicator of values to the younger generation. If we don’t use contemporary music to spread godly values, Satan will have unchallenged access to an entire generation. Music is a force that cannot be ignored.

I reject the idea that music styles can be judged as either “good” or “bad” music. Who decides this? The kind of music you like is determined by your background and culture.

Churches need to admit that no particular style of music is “sacred.” What makes a song sacred is its message. Music is nothing more than an arrangement of notes and rhythms; it’s the words that make a song spiritual.[5] [emphasis in original]

On one page Warren writes that music is the primary communicator of values to the younger generation. He contradicts himself on the next page when he says that music is nothing more than an arrangement of notes and rhythms, it’s the words that make a song spiritual. Style is immaterial and only words matter. Let’s examine these statements in greater detail.

This author visited a mega church style service at which one of my wife’s school students was being baptized. Before the baptismal service, we had to “endure” the worship service conducted by a writhing twenty-something in skin-tight attire backed by five guitars players. It was only after the service we learned that because the rock-styled music was so loud the church routinely provided ear plugs at the entrance of the sanctuary for people that can’t endure the noise level. I can honestly report that during the entire worship production I did not recognize any words of the songs and certainly had no clue as to their messages. If words make the song spiritual and the message makes it sacred as Warren intones, I and most others in the building received nothing spiritual or sacred from the worship service that evening.

Music and song are chief expressions in a church’s communal worship of God. When music and songs that mirror the world are brought into the house of God and presented as worship, what distinguishes these from worldly entertainment and true worship of the living God? Is it words alone? The Old Testament had much to say about defiling God’s house, and things that defile included much more than words. “But they set their abominations in the house, which is called by my name, to defile it.” [Jeremiah 32:34. KJV]

A substantial portion of the music of Warren’s church and many others following the Church Growth model is centered on rock music. Writing thirty years ago, the late David Wilkerson delivered a devastating indictment of rock music. He began with a quotation from the second book of the Chronicles.

“And the Lord appeared to Solomon by night, and said unto him, I have heard thy prayer, and have chosen this place to myself for a house of sacrifice.” [2 Chronicles 7:12. KJV]

Every time a child of God preaches, prays, praises, or sings—he is bringing a sacrificial offering unto the Lord. Every Christian concert or record is an offering unto the Lord.

What has this to do with rock music in the church? How can it apply to Christians who perform or listen to it? It should be obvious. In worship or praise, our Father will not receive, but rather He will furiously reject any offering that is polluted or spotted in the least bit.

I hear sincere Christians say, “Satan doesn’t own music. It belongs to God. The music doesn’t matter as long as the words are right.” Dead wrong! The devil owns all music that is ungodly and evil. And Satan had all the right words when he tempted Christ. The Israelites dancing around the golden calf had all the right words. Were they not singing, “This is the god that brought us out of Egypt”? Same people, same words—but their god had changed. It is much more than holy, intelligent words. Satan has always spoken in temptation with accurate words mingled with a lot of Scripture, and so has every angel of light who has come to deceive.[6]

Wilkerson wrote that rock music can’t be defined or judged on technicalities because it is primarily a soul and spirit matter. The line between satanically inspired punk or heavy metal rock and other forms of popular music cannot be drawn by legalistic rules—it is a matter of spirit and truth.[7] But spirit and truth receive little attention in many Church Growth/Purpose Driven churches as they compete for the best musical hook to snare the seeker surfing the church scene. This is not a condemnation of all non-sacred music. There is much music in the world, although not sacred music intended for worship, which is not ungodly or evil in and of itself. However, even when “non-spiritual” popular music passes the spirit and truth test, it still doesn’t belong in God’s house of sacrifice.

Even in non-Christian circles, the evils of certain types of music are recognized and condemned in terms far more powerful than used by David Wilkerson. One of those voices was Robert H. Bork who wrote Slouching Towards Gomorrah – Modern Liberalism and American Decline. In 1987 Bork, a Constitutional originalist, was nominated by President Ronald Reagan for the U.S. Supreme Court. An intense and orchestrated campaign by liberals in government, the media, Hollywood, and the American Civil Liberties Union viciously attacked Bork and eventually scuttled the nomination through a sustained flood of lies and distortions.

Bork’s book argues that the forces of modern liberalism have brought the nation to the brink of disaster. He states that the nation’s only hope is to recognize and understand the problem which must be coupled with a will to resist. Along with the collapse of popular culture and a general weakening of intellect, he also cites “trouble in religion.”[8]

Bork wrote that in keeping with the themes of liberalism and its progress in the 1960s, popular entertainment embraced the hedonistic concept of the unconstrained self. The importance of self was expressed in the music of the era—rock ’n’ roll which evolved into hard rock[9] and its various iterations such as punk, heavy metal, acid, and rap. Bork quoted Michael Bywater who wrote of the modern music industry.

[The music industry] has somehow reduced humanity’s greatest achievement—a near-universal language of pure transcendence—into a knuckle-dragging sub-pidgin of grunts and snarls, capable of fully expressing only the more pointless forms of violence and the more brutal forms of sex.[10]

Bork contended that the rock music business clearly understood that a large part of the appeal of rock music to the young was its subversion of authority through its incoherence and primitive regression.[11] Rock ‘n’ roll was the rebellious cadence to which many in the Boomer generation and their liberal elders marched.

Recall that Warren wrote, “Music is the primary communicator of values to the younger generation.” Whether or not it is the primary communicator of values is debatable, but Warren is correct insofar as he means it is an important communicator of values. And here we speak not just of the words that communicate values; it is the whole package in which the words are wrapped. When people think of rock music, it is not the music of Pat Boone’s “April Love” of the 1950s but the music of the 1960s and thereafter beginning with the Beatles who proclaimed themselves to be more popular than Jesus Christ. It is the music of drugs, sex, rebellion, and the autonomous self. And that is the message of rock music which still communicates the values of much of the rebellious Boomer generation to the present day. It has no place in the lives of the followers of Christ, and it certainly has no place in the house of God.

Ravi Zacharias wrote, “The lesson from history is that sanctity within the temple ultimately defines life outside the temple, and without the former, life becomes profane. Just as reverence is the heart of worship, profanity is at the heart of evil.”[12] Zacharias was speaking of worship in the larger sense of living a Godly, holy life. But if applicable in the larger sense, it is also applicable to corporate worship. There is certainly no sense of reverence in the type of rock music discussed above. Regardless of the change of words, it is not sacred or secular but profane.

Richard M. Weaver wrote that, “…it is admitted that what man expresses in music dear to him he will most certainly express in his social practices.”[13] One need only look at the social practices that have grown over the last half century as rock music became the anthem of popular culture. In every facet of American life including much of the church, there has been a decline of the sacred and a breakdown of what it means to be a civilized and moral society.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Ross Douthat, Bad Religion, (New York: Free Press, 2012), p. 183, quoting Joel Osteen from Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential, (New York: Time Warner, 2004), p. 5.
[2] Heather Clark, ‘Do Good for Your Own Self’: Osteen Says Obedience, Worship ‘Not for God’, Christian News Network, August 28, 2015. http://christiannews.net/2014/08/28/do-good-for-your-own-self-osteen-says-obedience-worship-not-for-god-video/ (accessed December 18, 2015).
[3] Francis Schaeffer, “Interview with Francis & Edith Schaeffer – God’s Leading in L’Abri & Our Lives,” How Then Should We Live? DVD – Gospel Communications International, Inc., (Worchester, Pennsylvania: Vision Video, 1977).
[4] Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Church, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1995), pp. 239-249.
[5] Ibid., pp. 280-281.
[6] David Wilkerson, Set the Trumpet to Thy Mouth,” (Lindale, Texas: World Challenge, Inc., 1985), pp. 98-100.
[7] Ibid., pp. 92-93.
[8] Robert H. Bork, Slouching Towards Gomorrah – Modern Liberalism and American Decline, (New York: Regan Books, 1996), Cover flap.
[9] Ibid., pp. 125-126.
[10] Ibid., p. 124.
[11] Ibid., pp. 23-24.
[12] Ravi Zacharias, Deliver Us From Evil, (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, 1997), p. 155.
[13] Richard M. Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences, (Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago Press, 1948), p. 87.