Imagine a visitor from another planet visiting the average American church. This extraterrestrial would more than likely see many empty pews but also hear a gospel that is killing us. This outside intruder would here a gospel that frames God's purposes in the gospel as making our life healthy, wealthy, and prosperous.
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This ET would hear a gospel that diminishes and belittles God, painting God as a deity that is helplessly waiting on the sidelines of life for the disasters of life to pass, all the time wringing His hands in frustrated exasperation - God is a pastoral God who can only respond to difficulties and not a sovereign God who designs all things for our good and his glory. This visitor would hear a gospel devoid of sacrifice, repentance, and a striving to enter into the kingdom, a gospel that is passive and man-centered. The mantra of this gospel would be, "It's OK to be all about God so long as God is all about you!"
My fear is that this silly scenario is not far from the truth. American Christianity has lost much of its robust nature because the gospel has been reduced to a gospel without repentance, salvation without endurance, forgiveness without being forgiving, love without accountability, and eternal life without gritty, determined, committed grace. A gospel without true repentance from sin, embraced by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone for God's glory alone is not the gospel. A gospel that does not make much of God and little of us is not the gospel.
The diminished gospel we have affirmed is dangerous. In fact, this gospel is killing us. The American gospel of Christianity is ruining and spoiling us. To suffer for the gospel is now optional, even unnecessary - maybe even sinful. The gospel that some preach has only health and wealth as its goal for the Christian. To be otherwise is to be out of the will of God. The gospel that is killing us has convinced us that church is all about having our "felt needs" met; about guilt avoidance; about being successful in this life.
Source: Christian Post
Dr. Kevin Shrum has been in ministry for 29 years, currently pastors Inglewood Baptist Church in Nashville, Tennessee, and is an Adjunct Professor of Theology for Union University in Jackson, Tennessee.
