Evangelicals
in Search of a new Gospel
A Lenten Meditation
The gospel supposedly doesn’t
change over the years but anyone who has studied church history knows that
Christians do change the way they paint the basic gospel message to people of
their age. The Apostle Paul painted a picture different than some other early
church preachers, and Martin Luther painted the gospel differently than the
Roman Catholic Church. In the 1960s many mainline churches began to paint the
gospel differently and evangelicals arose in protest touting the “old time
gospel” as their unchanging message.
The “Old Gospel” these 1960’s
evangelicals painted looked something like this:
“God has laws and expects perfect obedience from humans but you chose
to disobey his laws and incurred the wrath of God. You are guilty of sin and deserve
death. But the Father sent His Son Jesus who died in your place and turned away
the wrath of God so repent and receive God’s forgiveness so that you can escape
death and have life everlasting.”
This gospel has worked quite
well for most churches since the Reformation but it has been a mainstay for
evangelicals since the 1960’s. But this Old
Gospel is increasingly a hard-sell for American evangelicals so they’re
shopping for a New Gospel—one that might sell better. The Old Gospel just isn’t
“clicking” with people today. Why is this?
What makes this “Old Gospel” such a
hard-sell today?
1. Ignorance of God’s laws.
The Old Gospel assumed
people actually knew God’s laws—thus they could recognize they had broken them.
Americans today don’t know God’s laws so how can they be expected to know they’ve
broken them? The Old Gospel was an easier sell to my generation in the 1950’s.
We were forced to memorize the 10 Commandments in home room in the public
schools. The kids I went to Grandview School in McKeesport Pennsylvania knew
the Ten Commandments better than most Sunday School
kids do today. Preachers and evangelists in those days were specialists in proclaiming
God’s laws and they reminded listeners how far short they fell from what God’s
demands. They even told us we were sinners
and God’s wrath was about to be poured out on us. Today’s Americans don’t realize
God has laws. Well, that’s not completely true. Actually the average American
knows exactly three of the Ten Commandments. But they don’t feel guilty If they have not killed someone, been a thief or committed
adultery they believe they are off the hook—and many even think God “understands”
their adultery. The Old Gospel is a harder sell today because most Americans don’t
think they’ve broken God’s laws mostly because they don’t know them.
2. Absence of personal guilt.
Since most Americans do not
believe they have broken God’s laws they do not feel guilty. Sure, they admit
they are not perfect, but most Christians admit that so they are no different.
Americans don’t take responsibility for their sins even when they admit they
are sins. Americans blame others. They blame their surroundings; they blame a dysfunctional
home, or pin it on a chemical imbalance. Few Americans believe they are
actually guilty of sin. The Old Gospel required guilty sinners yearning for forgiveness.
The market of guilty sinners is a shrinking market.
3. Rejection of the idea that we are worthy of death.
Perhaps today’s greatest
barrier for the Old Gospel is that all Americans deserve death because of their
sins. Even many of today’s church folk reject
the idea of a wrathful God. They see God as having fallen totally head over
heals in love with them. God’s law and God’s wrath is simply not on their radar.
But even if Americans did accept the
idea that they were sinners they reject the notion that these sins deserve the death
penalty and God is wrathful enough to actually carry out such a threat. They simply
don’t believe God would be so vengeful as to issue a death penalty just because
we didn’t live up to His laws. They think this kind of God should Himself be
executed. Since they hardly know God’s laws, and they have embraced a God who “loves
them just the way they are,” they flat out reject the notion that their mother,
and sister (and they themselves) are actually worthy of death. Yet this is a major assumption of the Old
Gospel. As Americans they feel they are entitled
to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Certainly God can’t take
these “rights” from them can he? The Old Gospel offered a not-guilty judgment from
a wrathful God that enabled a guilty sinner to escape eternal damnation and
enter eternal bliss of Heaven. Today’s Americans just don’t believe God would dare send ordinary Americans like them
to hell—so the Old Gospel gets little traction with them.
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All these factors (and
others) have sent many evangelicals shopping for another gospel. Preachers feel
they can’t preach on the wrath of God or they’ll be driven form their churches.
Few can even summon the energy to preach about hell or punishment… or even
heaven for that matter. They continue to parrot the Old Gospel during Lent or
in Good Friday services but few penitent people respond by crying out in
anguish for mercy from God. The Old Gospel is still working for some, notably
some Fundamentalist Baptists. And some Hyper-Calvinists still try to remind us
of God’s wrath, but most listeners don’t believe it. They “just know God is nicer than that.
So, hooked on popularity
among Americans, many evangelicals are shopping for a New Gospel—a gospel they
can preach to an entitled people, a people convinced that God is desperately in
love with them and has made them the center of His universe. This is a quiet
search but it is happening just as sure as you just read this sentence.
So, here are my questions….
I’d like to hear your
comments…
So
what do you think?
During the first few
weeks, click here to comment or read comments
Keith
Drury March 16, 2010