Postmodernism Parried

Three false premises of postmodern ministry displayed in a recent seminar.

1. That the failure of the traditional and/or modern church is a failure to present the gospel in ways relevant to changing cultural attitudes and realities

2. That the church must be "relevant" in order that the message be listened to by various elements of present society

3. That people are hungry to receive the truth, and only need it to be presented in a way they can relate to before they will accept it.

1) The failure of the traditional or modern church to present the gospel relevantly

It is easy to look at symptoms such as the decline of membership, or membership of a certain demographic component of the church population, and jump on simple solutions that promise "results". This seminar says we are out of date and that we need to adapt our presentation to a particular target group (postmoderns). The underlying problem, they say, is our staleness and our lack of relevancy. But is it? Is this truly the problem, or is it only a symptom of something far more basic?

I submit that the true failure of the church is not a failure in the method of presentation of the gospel, but a failure to live the gospel and to obey it as we first received it. In other words, liberalism and worldliness. There was nothing - nothing - in the postmodern seminar that threw any new light at all on our faith. All it did was condemn our failure to live it out. If we simply studied, knew and obeyed the gospel then we would find ourselves utterly relevant to the purposes of God in giving it. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation to those that believe.

Our actual crisis is twofold. Firstly, we do not know the gospel. Secondly, we do not obey it. We do not know the gospel because those in charge over us either do not know it themselves, or do not communicate it faithfully to the congregation. We do not obey the gospel because those in charge do not obey it, or fail to make clear to the congregants the importance of obedience and the consequences of failure to obey. In either case, leadership must accept that the buck stops with them first.

There is no program, no series of shortcuts, no video, no book, no guru, no "new" teaching that is able to turn all this around. We tend to import "teachings" more because we see throwing programs at problems as the answer, hoping something will stick and magically solve them. Real leadership understands that problems are not solved instantaneously, but by identifying the root cause, changing the behaviour and working hard and faithfully at the change process. (Change designed to return us to where we should have been all along - not to some new playing field with behaviours and rules defined by the problem itself.)

It is obvious from the video that specific people have apparently found ways to bring the gospel to postmoderns. Bravo. But their success is not in their methodology. It is in their content. If weak, uninformed carnal and unsanctified people use all the techniques of this seminar to approach postmoderns they will have the same lack of success they are already having in their local congregation and in serving the people there. They will simply be expanding their unsuccessfulness. Effective outreach requires healthy and effective Christians. Before we set about evangelizing the community we ought to look to our own spiritual health. Physician heal thyself!

2) That the church must be "relevant"

The true church is made up of people in whom the Living Christ dwells by the Spirit through the obedience of faith. The more submitted and obedient to Him we are, the more He is seen in our thoughts, words and deeds. We must decrease and He must increase. In such a picture what can there be that we can call irrelevant to any age or society? What hinders Christ is nothing more nor less than our own failure to walk in Him. If we were so walking then He would be walking in us and who would dare to call Him irrelevant? He doesn't change. He is the same yesterday and today and forever. He is above and beyond past, present and future - beyond old, modern and post-modern. If our relationship with Him was all it should be we would be displaying Him by nature (not just by works) and His nature is always relevant.

Effectiveness "for" Christ is not found in what we do, but in who we are in Him. If we are in Him all else will spring naturally from Him through us. On that Day we will say to Him, "When were you in prison and we visited you, and when were you thirsty and we gave you to drink?" Why? Because we will not think of ourselves as having done anything at all "for" Christ - but of Him having done all in and for and through us. Such an attitude can come only from an abiding submission to Him. The carnal tendency is to run off and repay Christ through "doing" something. The spiritual reality is in abiding in Him while He effects it all through us.

Which one of us can say that Christ ineffectively delivered the message in His personal evangelism? Whether they all listened is another matter, to be taken up in point 3. But Christ did only what the Father was doing and spoke only what the Father was saying. Could God be ineffective or irrelevant? Relevancy lies not in what we do, but in Who is in us doing it. Any church in which the people are abiding in Christ - obedient, submitted, sanctified by grace - will do the works that Jesus did, and even greater works, because He has sent another Comforter (the Holy Spirit).

The whole message of the gospel, seen in the lives of Christ and the Apostles is NOT the relevancy of the presentation of the gospel, but the irrelevancy (to heavenly things) of the lifestyle of the hearers. The Samaritan woman at the well, the rich young ruler, Nicodemus, the Sadducees and the Pharisees - all received the plain unvarnished truth presented by taking from the person's own behaviour the message of sin and redemption, lostness and forgiveness, unrepentance and perdition.

Too often the uninformed misuse Paul's words that he has "become all things to all men that he might by all means save some" as an endorsement of adapting gospel presentation in order to be "relevant" to different communities. But a simple examination of the context shows that he is referring to not making his freedom in Christ a stumbling block for others. He conforms to the customs of the country he is in. But he always gets right to the central message of Christ crucified for sins. And he does it not with great philosophy, oratory, signs and wonders, but in the power of the Holy Spirit, trusting the Word of Power to be at work in the sons of light.

3) That people are hungry to receive the truth, and only need it to be presented in a way they can relate to before they will accept it

The fields are indeed white for harvest. We have been sent to reap that which we did not sow. Others have sown and we have entered into their labour. But it is God that gives the increase, no matter who sows and who labours. People in Jesus' time were hungry for the bread and the miracles - He was popular for a season - but in no time at all He was rejected and despised and crucified to the cries of them all. The gospel of truth is NOT popular. If our gospel is popular then we are most likely presenting another gospel. It is His sheep who hear His voice, and He calls them by name. When the gospel is preached then the "moths" will come to the flame, but the "cockroaches", contrary to the idea that they will scurry for the baseboards, will often try to eat the messenger.

The premise is wrong. It is not the method of presentation that makes the message accepted or not - it is the message itself, falling upon ground prepared by the Holy Spirit. If the Spirit has not prepared a heart nothing will make the message acceptable to a hearer. It is false and unbiblical to create the impression that people only have to hear the gospel in order to believe. Many hear the gospel and couldn't care less. Some hear it and are violently opposed to it. Simple experience teaches us this. But to teach that getting the message across guarantees the result is to put the onus on people to deliver the message perfectly and to blame them if the message is not received universally. From this sprouts and endless analysis and carnal efforts to refine, improve, sharpen, professionalize, systematize and formularize the gospel message instead of just delivering it.

Unsaved people are in an enslaved carnal state when they hear the gospel. Some in that carnal state are under conviction of sin. Most are not. Some will come under conviction during the presentation of the gospel. Most will not. Carnal people are unable to receive the things of the spirit for they are spiritually discerned. They must first be born again, which only God can do through the gift of faith. So, no matter how we dress up the introduction to the gospel to make it palatable to unbelievers they will never receive it based on the window dressing. What some will respond to is the gospel itself, presented as it ever was, in Spirit and in Truth.

The seminar itself is not "wrong". We must "go into all the world" and we must "preach the gospel to every creature". The only trouble is in the focus upon methodology. This appeals to weak Christian churches like ours as a potential solution to the unfruitfulness of their own lack of obedience and submission. It is a way to produce fruit by "associating" with the True Vine, but without drawing the sap from Him, and so we hope to be able to have a sort of fruit that enables us to say to Him, "Look what WE did for you." That is the gospel of demons. God alone will build His church, and He will do it through the process He has ordained; our abiding in Him, believing in the one He has sent, and preaching the gospel.

Attraction to programs like this, and the whole concept of pragmatism, such as that contained in Rick Warren's books, arises from the fatal errors of the neo-evangelicalism of the 20th Century. This, in turn, is spawned out of the humanistic corruption of the gospel brought by C.G. Finney in the first part of the 19th Century. The Word of God is Spirit. We do not make it work in people's hearts. We present it. The seminar said this in a convoluted and occluded way - and I knew beforehand, and from the ensuing discussions, that our leadership was only more confused by it all. They have been, for the most part, blown around by every wind of doctrine for years. And unless God intervenes it is a hopeless cause.