The theme of this series has been that the modern American church has mistakenly sought to accomplish its mission through the attainment of cultural relevance by introduction of man’s ideas and methods and abandonment of unchanging biblical truth and authority in order to make the church acceptable to a culture that no longer deems itself fallen. This abandonment is expressed in three forms within the modern church. The first expression of the quest for cultural relevance was discussed in Part II – Chasing the world by compromising the message of God’s Word. The second method used to achieve cultural relevance was discussed in Part III – Mixing of the light with darkness. In Part IV we shall discuss the third and final method used by many in the modern church to achieve cultural relevance.
Nonjudgmental Love as a substitute for repentance and turning from sin
What is the nature of God’s love? We find the answer in the verse that is usually taught first to children in Sunday school. “For God so loved the world that he gave is only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” [John 3:16. RSV] The “whoever” includes all men, women, boys, and girls. Belief in Christ means to accept Him as one’s Lord and Savior, that is, one returns that love by being a follower of Christ, and to follow Christ is to follow his commandments. However, if one expresses love for Christ in words only and does not follow his commandments, they are not followers of Christ and have no part of His kingdom.
Many churches are compromising the gospel message through incorporation of the world’s definitions of love and tolerance. 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. Without sin, 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 old-fashioned approach that requires repentance and turning from sin.
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. Bad Religion, a book by Ross Douthat (a Catholic writer), is about how America became a nation of heretics. Douthat made a stark and revealing comparison of the past ministry of Billy Graham and the vacuous sermons of non-judgmental love preached by Joel Osteen.
Like Graham, Osteen courts a worldwide audience: More than 200 million people around the globe…But there the similarities end. Graham’s persona was warm and inclusive, but theologically he preached a stark, stripped-down gospel—a series of altar calls, with eternity hanging in the balance and Christianity distilled to a yes or no for Christ. Osteen’s message is considerably more upbeat. His God gives without demanding, forgives without threatening to judge, and hands out His rewards in this life rather than in the next. (emphasis added) Where Graham was inclined to comments like “we’re all on death row…the only way out of death row is Jesus,” Osteen prefers cheerier formulations. “Too many times we get stuck in a rut, thinking we’ve reached our limits,” he writes in Your Best Life Now. “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] [emphasis added]
There are many other religious leaders who are house-hold names in America that, like Joel Osteen, are popularizing the false and hollow gospel of the nonjudgmental love with little if any mention of sin or its eternal consequences (hell).
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. His warnings with regards to nonjudgmental love have been quoted in a previous article but bear repeating.
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.[2]
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.[3]
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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 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 classical frontal attack. But as many American churches embraced 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).
The Romans at the time of the early church saw value in all religions. Modern multiculturalists would call them “inclusive.” 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.[4] 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]
The American church must also reject the lure of cultural relevance in its efforts to make the church acceptable to a lost and dying world. The transformational power of the unadulterated Gospel is enough. So what if the church’s non-compromising message and methods are rejected by the culture? The great poet T. S. Eliot answers well. “For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.”[5]
Larry G. Johnson
Sources:
[1] Ross Douthat, Bad Religion, (New York: Free Press, 2012), p. 183.
[2] Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer, (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, 2010), pp. 292-293.
[3] Erwin W. Lutzer, When a Nation Forgets God, (Chicago, Illinois: Moody Publishers, 2010), pp. 117-118.
[4] Alvin J. Schmidt, How Christianity Changed the World, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2004), p. 25.
[5] T. S. Elliot quote, Wisdom Quotes. http://www.wisdomquotes.com/quote/t-s-eliot-6.html (accessed December 26, 2014).
