Posted on 05/03/2003 11:44:05 AM PDT by anncoulteriscool
What's Inside the Trojan Horse?
by: John MacArthur
By God's grace, I have been the pastor of the same church now for almost thirty-five years. From that vantage point, I have witnessed the birth and growth of menacing trends within the church, several of which have converged under what I would call evangelical pragmatism–an approach to ministry that is endemic in contemporary Christianity.
What is pragmatism? Basically it is the philosophy that results determine meaning, truth, and value–what will work becomes a more important question than what is true. As Christians, we are called to trust what the Lord says, preach that message to others, and leave the results to Him. But many have set that aside. Seeking relevancy and success, they have welcomed the pragmatic approach and have received the proverbial Trojan horse.
Let me take a few minutes to explain a little of the history leading up to the current entrenchment of the pragmatic approach in the evangelical church and to show you why it isn't as innocent as it looks.
Recent History
The 1970s, for the most part, were years of spiritual revival in America. The spread of the gospel through the campuses of many colleges and universities marked a fresh, energetic movement of the Holy Spirit to draw people to salvation in Christ. Mass baptisms were conducted in rivers, lakes, and the ocean, several new versions of the English Bible were released, and Christian publishing and broadcasting experienced remarkable growth.
Sadly, the fervent evangelical revival slowed and was overshadowed by the greed and debauchery of the eighties and nineties. The surrounding culture rejected biblical standards of morality, and the church, rather than assert its distinctiveness and call the world to repentance, softened its stance on holiness. The failure to maintain a distinctively biblical identity was profound–it led to general spiritual apathy and a marked decline in church attendance.
Church leaders reacted to the world's indifference, not by a return to strong biblical preaching that emphasized sin and repentance, but by a pragmatic approach to "doing" church–an approach driven more by marketing, methodology, and perceived results than by biblical doctrine. The new model of ministry revolved around making sinners feel comfortable and at ease in the church, then selling them on the benefits of becoming a Christian. Earlier silence has given way to cultural appeasement and conformity.
Even the church's ministry to its own has changed. Entertainment has hijacked many pulpits across the country; contemporary approaches cater to the ever-changing whims of professing believers; and many local churches have become little more than social clubs and community centers where the focus is on the individual's felt needs. Even on Christian radio, phone-in talk shows, music, and live psychotherapy are starting to replace Bible teaching as the staple. "Whatever works," the mantra of pragmatism, has become the new banner of evangelicalism.
The Down-Grade Controversy
You may be surprised to learn that what we are now seeing is not new. England's most famous preacher, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, dealt with a similar situation more than 100 years ago. Among churches that were once solid, Spurgeon and other faithful pastors noticed a conciliatory attitude toward and overt cooperation with the modernist movement. And what motivated the compromise? They sought to find acceptance by adopting the "sophisticated" trends of the culture. Does that sound familiar to you?
One article, published anonymously in Spurgeon's monthly magazine The Sword and the Trowel, noted that every revival of true evangelical faith had been followed within a generation or two by a drift away from sound doctrine, ultimately leading to wholesale apostasy. The author likened this drifting from truth to a downhill slope, and thus labeled it "the down grade." The inroads of modernism into the church killed ninety percent of the mainline denominations within a generation of Spurgeon’s death. Spurgeon himself, once the celebrated and adored herald of the Baptist Union, was marginalized by the society and he eventually withdrew his membership.
The Effects of Pragmatism
Many of today's church leaders have bought into the subtlety of pragmatism without recognizing the dangers it poses. Instead of attacking orthodoxy head on, evangelical pragmatism gives lip service to the truth while quietly undermining the foundations of doctrine. Instead of exalting God, it effectively denigrates the things that are precious to Him.
First, there is in vogue today a trend to make the basis of faith something other than God's Word. Experience, emotion, fashion, and popular opinion are often more authoritative than the Bible in determining what many Christians believe. From private, individual revelation to the blending of secular psychology with biblical "principles," Christians are listening to the voice of the serpent that once told Eve, "God's Word doesn't have all the answers." Christian counseling reflects that drift, frequently offering no more than experimental and unscriptural self-help therapy instead of solid answers from the Bible.
Christian missionary work is often riddled with pragmatism and compromise, because too many in missions have evidently concluded that what gets results is more important than what God says. That's true among local churches as well. It has become fashionable to forgo the proclamation and teaching of God's Word in worship services. Instead, churches serve up a paltry diet of drama, music, and other forms of entertainment.
Second, evangelical pragmatism tends to move the focus of faith away from God's Son. You've seen that repeatedly if you watch much religious television. The health-wealth-and-prosperity gospel advocated by so many televangelists is the ultimate example of this kind of fantasy faith. This false gospel appeals unabashedly to the flesh, corrupting all the promises of Scripture and encouraging greed. It makes material blessing, not Jesus Christ, the object of the Christian's desires.
Easy-believism handles the message differently, but the effect is the same. It is the promise of forgiveness minus the gospel's hard demands, the perfect message for pragmatists. It has done much to popularize "believing" but little to provoke sincere faith.
Christ is no longer the focus of the message. While His name is mentioned from time to time, the real focus is inward, not upward. People are urged to look within; to try to understand themselves; to come to grips with their problems, their hurts, their disappointments; to have their needs met, their desires granted, their wants fulfilled. Nearly all the popular versions of the message encourage and legitimize a self-centered perspective.
Third, today's Christianity is infected with a tendency to view the result of faith as something less than God's standard of holy living. By downplaying the importance of holy living–both by precept and by example–the biblical doctrine of conversion is undermined. Think about it: What more could Satan do to try to destroy the church than undermining God's Word, shifting the focus off Christ, and minimizing holy living?
All those things are happening slowly, steadily within the church right now. Tragically, most Christians seem oblivious to the problems, satisfied with a Christianity that is fashionable and highly visible. But the true church must not ignore those threats. If we fight to maintain doctrinal purity with an emphasis on biblical preaching and biblical ministry, we can conquer external attacks. But if error is allowed into the church, many more churches will slide down the grade to suffer the same fate as the denominations that listened to, yet ignored, Spurgeon's impassioned appeal.
Make it your habitual prayer request that the Lord would elevate the authority of His Word, the glory of His Son, and the purity of His people in the evangelical church. May the Lord revive us and keep us far from the slippery slope of pragmatism.
© Copyright 2003 by Grace to You. All rights reserved.
Well obviously you've never heard Jon Courson. His expository sermons last at least an hour each and often as long as an hour and a half. It took him over 12 years to get from Genesis to Revelation and every sermon is here for your listening pleasure:
Jon Courson's Sermons at Firefighters for Christ
BTW why does a sermon have to be longer than an hour in order to be effective? God was quite short on words when he issued the 10 commandments. And I think that the average reader could read all the words in red in the entire new testament in about an hour. The Sermon on the Mount was about a 5 to 10 minute sermon. So the Lord does not judge the effectiveness of a sermon by the length, but by the content. So I would much prefer listening to a preacher who can effectivley communicate the gospel in a 10 minute sermon, than a preacher who rambles on for hours and hours and does not comminicate to anyone but himself. The length of a sermon is not how it should be judged. If so, then by that standard Jesus was a lousy preacher.
So you think that memebrs of the Armstrong church are saved?
A few years ago we attended a Presbyterian church (in name only, it turned out).
We suggested an adult discussion group on the Westminster Catechism (how radical). We were voted down, as a study of the Westminster might appear too "divisive" to some.
We left the next Sunday.
LOL, do you think that John Knox would have ever been recieved into membership in such a congregation?
Some people in our denomination think that the initials E.P.C. stand for Everybody Please Come. i have been working hard to disabuse people of that idea.
Give the BGEA credit where it's due. They have kept statistics on the results of their "crusades" over the decades, and inform us that 4% of those who "make a decision for Christ" actually become active Christians. This would indicate that the "crusade evangelism" approach -- inducing conversions through various techniques of emotional manipulation -- has a 96% defect rate. People have some kind of experience induced by the event, which fails to last too far beyond the event that created the experience.
I have a personal conviction against responding to altar calls.
"I have a personal conviction against responding to altar calls."
Especially since the gospel itself is all the invitation anyone ever needs. The danger of altar calls, in my opinon, is that the evangelist tends to take over the Holy Spirit's job of giving people the assurance of salvation. It would seem that many people leave these crusades with a false sense of security.
First of all, that is E.P.C. Second, the word that we render as church is ekklesia. It is a combination of two words, ek, a prepositon meaning out of, and kaleo, meaning called. Literally, "the called out ones".
It is wrong to confuse evangelism, going into the world and preaching the gospel, with the the function of the church. Evangelism is an outreach of the church. The function of the church is as follows:
1)To worship God in Spirit and in Truth;The church is not a place where God's truth is accomodated to the culture. Rather it is a place where God's people come have their lives altered by the truth.
2) To equip it's members though the preaching of the word and right administration of the sacraments, for the purpose of carrying out the great commission;
In respect to the culture and some of it's beliefs, C.S. Lewis once made this observation;
...These things are fiction. They may be usefull fiction, and in some cases neccessary fiction, but they are still fiction. When we come into the presence of God for worship we must leave fiction outside the door.
Paul preached Christ crucified, and the Holy Spirit gave results. In engineering we have this saying: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!" It seems to me that people maintaining that it needs fixed still have to prove that it's broken. i believe you can trace the decline in the effectiveness of the church in it's outreach to the attempts to "fix what ain't broken". The church hasn't failed, the new methods have, simply because faith has been placed in method rather than the promise of God.
We are also physical beings existing in time-space, the church is also a location, a "place". Whether it is only in a building set aside for that purpose, i will leave for you to decide to your satisfaction.
You seem to be claiming that believers should meet to worship, and learn, and basically continue the process of sanctification. I agree, but I question whether that is all.
Of course that's "all". And if you consider what is the totality of the things you mention, i'd say that is quite a responsibility. One reservation however: Sanctification happens day-to-day, minute-to-minute, and is not limited to the worship service (we do have lurkers, let's be a bit more precise!)
Where should evangelism occur? Let's list the possibilities:
Crusades: widely dissed already on this thread
During church meetings: you claim these are for the edification of the saved
School: lol
workplace: maybe, depends
Perhaps some of our problem is in how we understand terms:
CRUSADES:
1)Now there were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers; as Barnabas, and Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen, which had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul.
2) As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them.
What we do see is that the Church confirms a call and sends out messengers, call them apostles, missionaries, evangelists, what ever.
CHURCH MEETINGS/WORSHIP SERVICE:
The fact is that there are unsaved members in the church. Families have unsaved members who attend. You may recall the parable of the wheat and the tares. The Lord commanded that they be allowed to grow up together. The problem is discerning which is which. Pretty hard to do, because wheat and tares look quite a bit alike until they mature, then it is easy to see which is which. It has always been understood that there are two churches: The visible church, consisting of both saved and unsaved professing or baptised members, and the invisible church, consisting of all true believers living and dead in all ages. The providence of God is such that unsaved members do come to salvation in the Church. i have no problems with the gospel being presented inside the church. We do not however, accomodate our worship to the whims of the unsaved...i.e., we don't do God-Light.
THE REST OF THE LIST:
1) I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom;
2) Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine.
Neigborhood: sure... but, how does that work? What do you do? Tell them the truth straight up, even though they won't understand half the words you use, and consider them evangelized? Or do you somehow manage to get them to listen long enough for you to explain it all fully? How do you accomplish that? Or, do you invite them to attend church?
15) But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:
16) Having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evil doers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ.
We don't seem to see that any more do we? It seems to beg a question, namely do we have anything different to observe? With the divorce rate as high or higher in the churches as in the general society, white collar crime, immorality by both clergy and laymen, and preaching more Rush Limbaugh than Christ, why would anyone be interested, it doesn't seem to have changed our lives for the better?
Once again, the indictment lays squarely in the camp of the new methods crowd, from the time of Finney on in this nation. The church has sold out to marketing and methods, and the solution given for the obvious weaknesses is to do more of the same. It sounds much like the social engineers of the last 50 years: "The reason our programmes are failing is because we haven't done enough of them". Three denominations can't even remove obvious heretics from their midst.
i have already addressed your last paragraph above.
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH USA:
1)Charles Finney: denied the sacrificial death of Jesus; instead substituted a Governmental/Moral influence theory of the Attonement. Denied the doctrine of Total Depravity, as well as just about every other doctrine in the Westminster Confession of Faith.
2)Janie Spahr: Lesbian "evangelist", "Teaching Elder in Rochester Presbytery (NY). Living in lesbian relationship with MCC "minister".
3)Kaseman: Agnostic, ordained by Capitol Presbytery. Denied virgin birth, divinity of Jesus, and inerrency.
EPISCOPALIAN CHURCH:
1)Bishop Pike: conducted seances and spoke with his dead son.
2)Bishop John Shelby Spong: what is there to be said here?
These are just names that occur off the top of my head. If i could recall the names of the UNITED METHODIST CHURCH bishops and ministers who have celebrated gay "marriages", and were acquitted multiple times by the General Conference, i would mention them as well.
Let us not forget William Sloan Coffin, Henry Emerson Fosdick, Paul Tillich, Rudolff Bultmann, and all the gang at Union Theological Seminary, as well as Albert Schweitzer. Aside from Tillich, i don't recall the denomination of these persons (Tillich was Lutheryn).
Some of these names are not household names any more, but they influenced the main denominations.
i have stayed within Protestant bounds, the Roman Catholics have their own problems with "schismatics" on the left and right.
i seriously doubt that we need to talk about Kenneth Copeland, Kenneth Hagin, Charles Capps, Benny Hinn, et al. The Christian churches should be pulling their support of such people, and denouncing them and their doctrine from the pulpit. In matters such as this, our ministers and other leaders have failed to shepherd the flock of God, and it allows things such as the false teachings of the Church Growth Movement to take root.
The good news is that God ALWAYS leaves a remnant. The gates of Hell will not prevail against the church, these events just allow believers to be able to distinguish between wheat and tares. i honestly suspect that the MegaChurch will soon be in a museum with the rest of the dinosaurs.
There's a difference between not understanding or being unaware of the Trinity and openly rejecting the Trinity, don't you think?
I am not sure let me chew on that . I know that Dougs church knows about the doctrine and rejects it. I am having a hard time seeing how one could believe in Jesus as Savior without at least a basic understanding of it
Paul wasn't trying to find common ground with the Athenians. He was trying to knock them out of their frame of reference and get them into God's frame of reference.
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