Why "A Dying Breed?"

Well, as a Christian-American living in a postmodern America it seems increasingly clear that anyone who professes an authentic and orthodox Christianity faces unprecedented attack. These attacks are in some ways the last acceptable form of bigotry and class hatred in our culture. Our postmodern culture holds dear an intellectual conceit that the concept of absolute truth is denied and anyone who claims such a truth is wrong-headed and repressive.

And yet, as Christian-Americans we are called to be a Gospel people committed to teaching and sharing the Gospel of Christ. We cannot serve two masters - e.g., ideology and Christianity. Adopting a theology of accommodation and compromise demeans the Glory of God and our witness to that glory. Unless we hold to the Gospel without compromise, we have abandoned our faith.

Trends in contemporary Christian churches threaten the integrity of our corporate witness. What trends you might ask?

First and foremost is confusion about the Gospel itself. What one holds to be the truth about the authority of Scripture is a sure sign of the orthodoxy of their faith. Scripture is the inerrant and infallible Word of God. It is not a philosophy text, a compilation of interesting history or a smorgasbord of ethical options.

Next, is that the Gospel truth is that Christ died for sinners, and that salvation is by grace alone through faith in Christ alone. Or as John told us: "Jesus said to him, I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except by me." (John 14:6)

Unfortunately much of what is presented in many pulpits -- and marketed by catchy televised feel-good gospel preachers -- bears little resemblance to this simple message. In the culture of acquisition, sinners (if acknowledged at all) are told to seek prosperity and material blessings because that is what God wants for them.

Salvation from sin and judgment has been neatly repackaged into self-actualization.

In the liberal church, the Gospel was transformed into a social and political message of liberation and self esteem. Salvation is promised as the answer to low self-esteem and emptiness. There is no concept of a holy God who offers salvation from sin and its eternal penalty.

Sin itself has been repackaged as just another form of self-expression and an alternative lifestyle choice. The self is held out as the center of existence, everything and everybody else is secondary. That goes directly counter to the Puritan and Reformed attitudes and beliefs that built and expanded this great nation - and which, by the way - insisted on a Bill of Rights that insures every American the right to believe or not believe as he/she sees fit. At least for now.

I think the day is coming when the government will legislate what can and cannot be preached in the pulpit of a Christian Church.

Is that a gross overstatement of the possibilities? I don't think so. The worldview held by many individuals in our society flatly rejects objective truths as imperialistic and arrogant. R. C. Sproul has said that we are living in the most anti-intellectual age of the church and as a result we believe nothing. The frightening part of that is that he is talking about many who are "in the church."

Far too many church goers judge churches today on how they make us feel, and not whether they preach and teach the truth of the Gospel.