Pragmatism, the Church and the Word

by P/T

One trend that is increasing rapidly today is that more and more people are falling for the viewpoint that the truth of the Word of God is not enough, its just not sufficient for our day to move people to recognize their need for salvation or for the believer in living the Christian life. On the contrary! Truth plus the ministry of the Holy Spirit is more than adequate!

Some believe that you must be able to exhibit signs and wonders to convince unbelievers of the truth of the Word. Others feel that we must disguise the gospel in a cloak of subtlety, make it culturally relevant, or otherwise adapt it to accommodate unbelievers’ hardness of heart. They would rather operate with ‘‘synthetic seed’’ than sow the "living seed’’ of God’s Word. What do these approaches do? They are emphatically denying the inherent power of God’s Word and the convicting ministry of the Holy Spirit in salvation and His enabling in living the Christian life.

It is amazing what people have concluded that they must do to ‘‘augment’’ the power of God’s Word. The church today has begun to ape nearly every fad of secular society. Heavy-metal rock, rap, body building, brick smashing, interpretive dance and stand-up comedy have become a part of the evangelical repertoire. The so-called Christian T-V stations present the same parade of talk shows, music videos, comedy routines, musical variety shows virtually identical to the programming on secular stations. The one exception, of course, is that they do mention the name of Jesus occasionally. It appears as nothing but hedonism in the guise of religion.

The rationale given is that without some gimmick, the gospel message just won’t reach people, and unless we accommodate it to the fashion of our day, we can’t hope for it to be effective. What is more to the point today is that unholy living on the part of immature believers in Christ has rendered the church’s testimony impotent. Thus modern churches feel they must plan and program for attracting unbelievers who cannot be persuaded with revealed truth probably because those same people have been repelled by the hypocrisy of church members’ unholy living.

When Peter preached at Pentecost, people were cut to their very consciences (Acts 2:37-41). He didn’t undertake to win them over. He didn’t try to charm them, entertain them, or make them feel good. He made no effort to engineer a positive response; he just proclaimed the truth. That’s the only methodology the Holy Spirit uses. Those who employ any other technique are operating on their own. A single minded commitment to glorifying God characterized every facet of the ministry of the New Testament church.

There seems to be no limit to what some churches will do to entertain people. Some are offering musical extravaganzas that include dancing and secular rock music, exhibitions almost indistinguishable from Las Vegas shows. When one pastor was asked recently why he allowed such a performance at his church, his reply, ‘‘It attracts people.’’ That’s a pragmatic approach to ministry, whatever seems to work is thought to be acceptable.

There is a major flaw with the pragmatic view in that it regards methodologies that ‘‘work’’ as being more important and more viable than those of the Word! The pragmatist is in actuality ignoring the biblical priorities of the church. According to Scripture, as we have seen in our study, the church comes together for worship, fellowship, edification, and mutual encouragement of that body of believers (Acts 20:7-38; 1 Cor. 16:1-2; Eph. 4:12-13; Heb 10:24-25). The teaching of God’s Word is to be the essential focal point for all corporate worship and ministry (2 Tim 4:2).

Those who substitute entertainment for a clear proclamation of the truth are in conflict with God’s design for the church. Although they believe the external results justify their methods, they are doing more harm than good, no matter how large the crowds they draw. Methodology used simply to excite an otherwise indifferent society is a poor substitute for the clear teaching of Scripture. A few months of strong, straightforward, no-frills teaching of the Word would undoubtedly reduce the attendance at those churches, but it would also reveal who are the redeemed and desire to live producing the fruit of the Spirit in their lives.

Much of the preaching today tends to be man-centered and dominated by a relational mentality that attempts to reconcile man to men, not man to God. Its often unstated but real goal seems to be to salve people who are totally immersed in themselves, their hurts, and their perceived needs. Thus it is fueled by and further inflames society’s bent toward selfishness.

One prominent T-V preacher, Robert Schuller sketched a pragmatist’s manifesto, if you will, almost a decade ago: ‘‘For the church to address the unchurched with a theocentric attitude is to invite failure in mission. The non-churched who have no vital belief in a relationship with God will spurn, reject, or simply ignore the theologian, church spokesperson, preacher, or missionary who approaches with Bible in hand, theology on the brain and the lips and expects non-religious persons to suspend their doubts and swallow the theocentric assertions as fact. The unconverted will, I submit, take notice when I demonstrate genuine concern about their needs and honestly care about their human hurts. For decades now we have watched the church in Western Europe and in America decline in power, membership, and influence. I believe that this decline is the result of our placing theocentric communications above the deeper emotional and spiritual needs of humanity.’’

That is an overt appeal for the church to proclaim a man-centered, not a Christ-centered message. In fact he believes that the basic defect in modern Christianity is ‘‘the failure to proclaim the gospel in a way that can satisfy every person’s deepest need, one’s spiritual hunger for glory.’’ (quotes are from Self-Esteem: The New Reformation by Robert Schuller)

In far too many churches today the most basic truths of our faith have fallen victim to this self-centered theology. Many modern-day evangelists have reduced the gospel message to little more than a formula by which people can live a happy and more fulfilling life. Sin is now defined by how it affects man, not how it dishonors God. Salvation is often presented as a means of receiving what Christ offers without obeying what He commands. The focus has shifted from God’s glory to man’s benefit. Jesus in the contemporary theology is your ticket to avoiding all of life’s pains and experiencing all of life’s pleasures.

Thus pragmatism has succumbed to the humanistic notion that man exists for his own satisfaction. Humanism teaches that people must have all their perceived needs and desires met if they are to be happy. To accommodate that view, pragmatism concocts a gospel message that sounds like a guarantee of fulfilled wishes rather than a call to repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation with God. Many who call themselves Christians have gone so far as to have even abandoned the gospel altogether and instead call people to pursue self-esteem; political influence; economic equality; security and significance; prosperity, health, wealth and happiness; or any number of similarly self-serving aspirations.

Walter Chantry correctly addressed this problem in his book Today’s Gospel: Authentic or Synthetic?: ‘‘Much of modern preaching is anemic, with the lifeblood of God’s nature absent from the message. Most Evangelists center their message upon man. Man has sinned and missed a great blessing. If man wants to retrieve his immense loss he must act thus and so. But the Gospel of Christ is very different. It begins with God and His glory. It tells man that they have offended a holy God, who will by no means pass by his sin. It reminds sinners that the only hope of salvation is to be found in the grace and power of this same God. Christ’s gospel sends men to forgiveness of the Holy One."

There is a wide difference between these two messages. The one seeks to blaze a trail to Heaven for man while ignoring the Lord of Glory. The other labors to magnify the God of all grace in the salvation of men.

This ‘‘needs mentality’’ has not only corrupted the gospel, but it has also distorted the doctrine of sanctification, the process of living the Christian life. In his book Need: The New Religion, Tony Walter comments: "It is fashionable to follow the view of some psychologists that the self is a bundle of needs and that personal growth is the business of progressively meeting these needs. Many Christians go along with such beliefs....One mark of the almost total success of this new morality is that the Christian church, traditionally keen on mortifying the desires of the flesh, on crucifying the needs of the self in pursuit of Christ likeness, has eagerly adopted the language of needs for itself. We now hear that Jesus will meet your every need, as though He were some kind of Divine psychiatrist or Divine detergent and as though God were simply to serve us.’’

Unfortunately it’s not difficult to find evidence of that kind of thinking in the church out there in Christendom today. Some contemporary ministries flatly admit that satisfying people’s perceived needs is their chief goal. But that’s diametrically opposed to what Scripture teaches. The goal of sanctification is to be conformed to the image of Christ (Rom 8:29), not to be self-satisfied. Sanctification is not a matter of assessing yourself and meeting your felt needs. It’s a matter of one’s relationship with Christ which only comes through knowing His Word and applying it in our lives daily.