How Things Have Changed

Things have changed in many sectors of evangelicalism. There has been a shift. I'm not going to focus on what caused the shift. Although I think it can be summed up by saying that there was an overreaction to some books doing shoddy cultural analysis that amounted to nothing more than faux-intellectualism. You know, the books that essentially said that the sky was falling because humanity had fundamentally changed and backed up their claims by attaching the prefix "post" to everything. These books told us that Christianity must change or die. I say that the only kinds of "christianity" that ultimately end up dying are those that change in an attempt to ride the momentary waves of cultural preference and philosophical fad. Those waves always crash on the shore and you can only reinvent yourself so many times before you start to come off like Madonna. Alright, back on topic.

I want to compare the new and improved Christianity with the caricature of the old Christianity that was beaten up on in so many books and sermons. I think the two are very similar. They are similar because the underlying system of religion wasn't changed. Most of the old categories were kept in place and simply filled with different items. In fact the only substantive changes that have been made thus far are changes for the worse.

Both systems preach a legalistic gospel of sin management. Both systems have an us versus them attitude. Both systems have a certain class of sinner that they are ungracious toward. Both systems see their ultimate
goal as being cultural transformation. Both systems have Sunday sermons consisting of sniping rants about the decadence in the culture. Etc...

Alright, both systems preach a legalistic gospel. Put another way, both systems preach the fruit of the gospel as the gospel. This is no small error. The older system preached clean living, avoiding fornication and drunkenness, etc... The new system preaches clean living by avoiding anger, greed, etc... Let me be clear, these fruit obviously aren't bad. What is bad is when they are preached rather than the gospel of grace. When the gospel is preached these fruit will appear naturally as a response of gratitude and worship for what Christ has done. When the gospel is preached  properly these fruit aren't tied to a person's salvation, they are a result of a person's salvation. When it is preached wrong, as both the systems I am comparing do, the fruit are preached as the gospel and tied to a persons salvation. This sends the people who listen to this false gospel down a very dark road. That is the road of self justification and it will lead to one of two places, either pride or despair. Some people will be impressed with their own rule keeping and become very proud, not realizing that since their behavior modification is motivated by an attempt to justify themselves, it will be nothing more than filthy rags before the Lord. They will essentially be like the pharisee in the parable of the pharisee and the tax collector or the older brother in the parable of the prodigal son. Others who are less impressed with their ability to modify their behavior (like me) will sink into despair. They will never have assurance of their salvation because they have listened to a false gospel that has preached law as gospel. The one thing that would give this person the ability to bear fruit, the gospel of grace and imputed righteousness, is denied them.

Both systems have an us vs them attitude. Since law is preached as gospel, the people will tend to divide people into two categories, those who keep the law and those who don't. This view is completely contrary to scripture which says that all humans are law breakers, even on their best day, and there is only one law keeper, Jesus. Jesus kept the law perfectly on our behalf and that frees us from the law. Now we are free to keep the law out of gratitude and worship rather than in an attempt to justify ourselves before God. If we avoid this error and see all of humanity as equally guilty under the law, even on their best days, it is pretty hard to develop an us vs them attitude.

Both systems have a certain type of sinner they are ungracious toward. Where as the old system was said to be ungracious to prostitutes, drug addicts, etc..., the new system is clearly just as ungracious to fat cat CEO's, or Rush Limbaugh types. Both systems view a certain segment of society as being less deserving of grace.

Both systems have cultural transformation as their primary goal. The old system was fixated on battling things like homosexuality, pornography, etc... Again, this shows their focus on law keeping. Since they have distorted salvation by equating it with law keeping it is only natural that the message of the church would be distorted in this way. This distortion carries over into the new system revising only the particular societal sins it is fixated on. The new system is railing against lust for power and money (what they call the American dream) with the same fervor and in the same way as the old system railed against homosexuality and pornography.

Listen to the sermons. Do you hear the law or the gospel of grace? And don't be confused on what the law really is. Many think that they are leaving legalism and turning to love instead. They don't realize that love is the law. Consider these passages Rom 13:9, Rom 3:19-20, Rom 3:21-25. Please heed this warning! Do not go down the dark road of self salvation by law keeping. It will take you further and further from real salvation which is by grace alone.

I said in the beginning of this post that the only substantive changes were for the worse. I really believe that. The real change that I have seen is that many have rejected outright or have rejected in practice the beautiful truth of imputed righteousness. Why they have done this I have no idea. I know that N T Wright preaches this distorted gospel, but do you really have that much faith in him? Enough faith to throw out the unimaginably beautiful truth of imputed righteousness? The very truth that empowers people to produce real fruit and not simply clean the outside of the cup?  Unfortunately, rather than shedding the legalism and keeping the gospel they have done just the opposite and threw away the message of imputed righteousness which was the only thing that held their legalism and self justification in check.

P.S. - I am not writing this post AT anyone or any movement. I am writing it to them in love. I am begging, PLEASE TURN BACK! I also have no feeling of personal superiority over those who are blinded by false doctrine. I really believe that "there but for the grace of God go I". I am simply begging everyone to turn back to the gospel and the beautiful truth that Jesus fulfilled the law for us by living the life we are unable to live and that just as our sin is imputed to him, his righteousness is imputed to us.