This past weekend I was in Oklahoma City to visit my best friend for his birthday and to see some family. I had two different experiences that have gotten me thinking deeply about one way the Evangelical, Bible belt culture that my generation (those born in the late ’70s-early ’80s) grew up in has failed us. I know I tend to be a negative nancy on lot about the Christian culture of those times, but this goes beyond all the other issues in my mind, and should be talked about.
After a good long day of BBQ (including the best brisket I have ever smoked), old friends and lots of laughs I settled into a conversation with another old friend who I have not seen in years. We have always been very far apart in politics (although I have softened some) and that discussion rolled around as it always had. However we got to a very different place this time. This friend frankly admitted to me that he is an extreme liberal because he is consciously rebelling from the religion that he grew up in. This surprised me very much, because that is not a cause-effect relationship that I would have guessed. However the longer we talked, the more angry I became at the church and cultural forces that drove his experience. I became angry, because in many cases our spiritual forefathers have slowly traded in making disciples for more earthly, less permanent and less consequential goals.
a fatal misunderstanding of the gospel
My friend grew up in a church very similar to the one I grew up in. As he told me his story for the first time I was struck by the similarity of experiences, but the different issues we each came away with. While the baggage I carried away from my experience was centered on legalism and a lack of a deep understanding of the nature of Christ’s grace and mercy, he came away bruised to the core by the mixing of religion and politics. He came away believing, honestly, that to be a Christian meant that you must be a voting right-wing conservative. He believed that the Religious Right was the earthly expression of our faith. As a result he was repulsed and left the faith when he left his childhood home.
When we look at stories like this we must understand that an individual point-of-view and personal paradigm have to be taken into account. The key question for me in this story is not really ‘what did the church teach?’ but rather ‘what did my friend learn from their teaching?’. This may be a subtle distinction for some, and a foolish one for others but for me this is key to understanding if the intended audience is truly hearing what we aim to teach them. The job of teaching is not one of articulating your view and letting the audience sort it out, but to impart your understanding to your pupils, so that they know how and why you think or believe what you do.
By not teaching either the right thing, or teaching it in the right way the message was not properly received. The gospel of Jesus Christ was, in my friend’s experience, mixed with a specific political agenda. Instead of the gospel being the good news of the sacrifice of a loving God for a sinful people, it became Jesus + voting the right way. This is where my friend’s church failed him and where many churches have failed a countless number of children of my generation.
false gospels
What my friend took away from his childhood was an incorrect view of the gospel, a bad theology. That is what bad teaching and bad leadership does, it corrupts the true message of Christ. When this happens we just don’t have a small problem, we have created something new, we have created a false gospel.
This is where my second experience comes into play. Sunday I was visiting my aunt and uncle (along with my two awesome younger cousins) and went to church with them at Henderson Hills. There the lead pastor, Dennis Newkirk, gave a truly great and direct message on the gospel. They are kicking off a 6 week series on the definition of the gospel, based Newkirk says, on what he picked up at the Together for the Gospel Conference this year whose theme was ‘The Unadjusted Gospel’. I’ll post a link to his sermon when it’s up, and if you are interested in the T4G conference messages, you can see them here. (UPDATE: you can watch the sermon online here)
Newkirk spoke extensively about the need to be able to understand what the gospel is using 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 and other NT passages. He then went on to talk about the 5 ways to discern if what we hear is a false gospel. Here are his 5 points:
1. If it says that Jesus is anything less that fully God, man, Savior, Lord, and the Way it is not the gospel.
2. If it makes you responsible for your salvation, it is not the gospel.
3. If it suggests that, there is some way in addition to or instead of Jesus to be right with God.
4. If it says that the purpose of salvation is to give you your best possible life today.
5. If it focuses on human beings rather than Christ, it is not the gospel.
By listening to this sermon and applying it to the conversation of the night before the picture became even more clear to me. I was fully aware of the adjustment the evangelical church (and other Christian demographics) have done to the gospel. I however had not seen firsthand how dangerous this is to the mission Christ gave us. My friend’s story is a classic case of number 3 in the above list. By hearing my friend’s story and then processing through this sermon I truly have a deeper desire to never adjust the gospel in my life or words.
the remedy
So what’s the remedy? It’s simple to say, but in this age of concern for culture, growth, relevance and a host of other legitimate issues that we tend to take too much effort addressing it may be hard to pull off. But here it is: preach the gospel of the Scriptures clearly and honestly to all Christians constantly and ensure it is the basis of all activities we undertake. We must not falter on doctrine in the name of contextualization. We must not give ground in teaching to accommodate growth. We must not tie salvation to anything that Jesus or the Apostles did not tie it to. Above all, we must be honest and faithful to the Bible above all else.
Tags: gospel, henderson-hills, Newkirk, politics, teaching
