Counterfeit Gospel

Selling Out the Gospel at the Altar of Politics

/ Dennis Griffith / 4 Comments

Divided Heart (Pink-Green)

I don’t do politics on social media (nor in the pulpit), but I feel an exception is warranted – on social media, anyway. With the exception that I don’t really care that Donald Trump has not previously held public office, nor do I care that neither Ben Carson nor Carly Fiorina have ever held public office, pretty much everything else Peter Wehner writes in his Op Ed for the New York Times, Why I Will Never Vote for Donald Trump, reflects my sentiments. I am disturbed by Trump’s behavior, and even more so by some of his supporters who have compromised core values and beliefs to empower him.

I know. This is politics. And Trump’s supporters have every right to support him, for whatever the reasons.  For a time I was open to the possibility, despite questions about the basis of his present positions.  I accept that people change.  But with no history, or substantive rationale for changes in convictions, I can only wonder how long it will be, or what circumstances might arise, before we see some of these key convictions shift back.

More disturbing to me than Trump are some of his supporters.  Here I do not mean the rank-and-file Trump supporters, who enjoy the bravado, and with whom the simple catch phrase “Make America Great Again” resonates.  I too am entertained, or at least I have been, to a degree. And I appreciate the vision of restoring the greatness of the USA – even if I am a little unclear whether Trump’s definition of what would make America great and my definition are similar; and even if Trump’s specific plans to usher in such restoration seem a little fuzzy to me.  I am disturbed most by those who are endorsing Trump, even when Trump clearly does not represent their core values and beliefs.  In other words, I am most chagrined by Christians – especially those claiming to be Evangelicals – who are compromising their faith to endorse Trump.

Now let me be clear here.  Every citizen of the USA has a right to support whatever candidate they want. I do not believe Christians have a responsibility to restrict their vote to only Christian candidates. Therefore, I support the right of my fellow Christians, even fellow Evangelicals, to support Trump, if they believe he would be the best leader for our country. (Check out Mark Tooley’s thoughtful piece: Trump, Evangelicals & Security.) What I do not accept are Christians – especially Evangelicals – who will rewrite the Faith to justify their support.

The poster boy of my ire is Jerry Falwell, Jr.

In recent months Falwell has made some asinine statements and decisions. Among them was to invite Trump to speak at Liberty University, where Falwell is currently president, on Martin Luther King Day.  Again, I need to be clear. I support Liberty University’s decision to have Trump speak, just as I appreciated them inviting Bernie Sanders to speak. A university is a place of ideas, where a variety of viewpoints should be allowed to be expressed.  So as long as a clear distinction is made between a chapel service (during which any speakers should intelligently and faithfully exalt the One True God) and a convocation (where any variety of ideas could be expressed) I have no problem.  But given Trump’s history, or at least his reputation, of bigoted statements, it seems more wisdom could have been exercised about the date when Trump would be invited to speak.  A day that is designated to highlight efforts to bring about racial reconciliation does not seem the most sensitive or appropriate.  Of course that is just a judgment call. (For anyone interested, my friend Marc Corbett, a Liberty University alumnus, wrote an excellent piece for The Gospel Coalition.  Take a moment to listen to Marc’s lament: Why I Will Protest a School I Love.)

Most disturbing to me is Falwell’s recent total redefinition of Christianity in his justification for inviting Trump to speak on MLK Day, and in his subsequent official endorsement of Trump.  Again, I believe Falwell has the right to support, and even endorse, whoever he wants.  In his formal endorsement Falwell said only that:

“[Trump is] a successful executive and entrepreneur, a wonderful father and a man who I believe can lead our country to greatness again.”

But Falwell’s previous justification and reasoning was this:

“I have seen firsthand that his staff loves him and is loyal to him because of his servant leadership. In my opinion Donald Trump lives a life of loving and helping others as Jesus taught in the great commandment.”

Falwell has since offered an explanation, an Op Ed in the Washington Post.  And I concur with much of his reasoning, even if I would not land on the same candidate. Nevertheless, his reasoning and his freedom – both as an American and as a Christian – to endorse Trump does not negate Falwell’s compromise of the gospel,  and his misuse of the scripture.

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Thoughts on Easter Giveaways

/ Dennis Griffith / Leave a comment

Field of Eggs

I was stunned the first time I read about the plan of a church in the area where we then lived to give away prizes at an Easter gathering.  And they were not just going to give stuff away, they were planning to create a frenzy.  A helicopter was leased, piloted by some guy in an Easter Bunny costume (which alone raises questions).  With people gathered at a rented junior high school soccer field, the Easter Bunny would drop plastic Easter Eggs each filled with either candy, cash, or with redeemable certificates for such items as i-pods, cell phones, etc. And they did this on Easter Sunday right after their services.  It just seemed wrong, but I held my tongue.

For two weeks leading up to the “drop” the local newspaper contained a full page ad promoting this “celebration”. But it was not until I read an interview with the pastor the day after Easter that I could stand it no longer.  His statement that set me off?  He said:  “We’re just loving on our neighbors.”

While that statement may seem benign enough, I felt compelled to respond. So I shot him an e-mail.  I had met the guy before, though did not know him well.  But I hoped he would at least consider his actions, or the potential effects of them.  So I wrote him a note challenging his notion of “loving his neighbors”.

I told him that he was not so much loving his neighbors as he was buying them, or bribing them.  True, he had gathered a large group to an Easter event, but it was not because of the proclamation of Christ crucified and resurrected (- though I assume that was mentioned at the actual church service).  How many in attendance were actually members of other congregations who were enticed only by the promise of goodies? (No, no one from the church I served attended their event.)  I conceded that perhaps such a giveaway would have been an expression of love had they chosen to hold it at one of the local public housing projects, and limited the participation to those with minimal incomes.  After all, that would have given to those who are without, and given to those who can give no more to the church than their presence.  But they had been advertising for weeks to the whole city – wealthy, middle-class, and poor alike.  They were merely buying potential “customers” – just like Wal-Mart, Best Buy, or any other consumer-driven business does.

Perhaps not surprising, I did not get a response to my e-mail.  The next year the church added a giveaway at the worship service – a new car to some lucky person with the correct number on their Easter Sunday worship bulletin.  I did not bother to send another e-mail.  I just mused in disappointment about what seems to be replacing the gospel in too many churches.

Apparently I am not alone in my distaste for this practice.  I recently read a post by Jared Wilson, who also has some concerns about it.  In his post Wilson gives ten spot-on-right reasons why he thinks luring people in with cash and prizes is not a good idea:

1. It creates buzz about cash and prizes, not the Easter event. When the media takes notice, nobody wants to interview these pastors about the resurrection. They want them to talk about the loot.

2. It identifies the church not with the resurrection, but with giving toys away. It makes us look like entertainment centers or providers of goods and services, not people of the Way who are centered on Christ.

3. Contrary to some offered justifications, giving prizes away is not parallel to Jesus’ providing for the crowds. Jesus healed people and fed them. This is not the same as giving un-poor people an iPod.

4. It appeals to greed and consumerism. There is no biblical precedent for appealing to one’s sin before telling them to repent of it. This is a nonsensical appeal.

5. Yes, Jesus said he would make us fishers of men, but extrapolating from this to devise all means of bait is not only unwarranted, it’s exegetically ignorant. The metaphor Jesus is offering here is just of people moving from the business of fishing to the business of the kingdom. There is no methodology being demonstrated here. (But the most common one would have been throwing out nets anyway, not baiting a hook.)

6. It is dishonest “bait and switch” methodology. Sure, the people coming for the goodies know they’re coming to church. But it’s still a disingenuous offer. The message of the gospel is not made for Trojan horses.

7. It demonstrates distrust in the compelling news that a man came back from the dead!! I mean, if nobody’s buying that amazing news, we can’t sell it to them with cheap gadgets.

8. It demonstrates distrust in the power of the gospel when we think we have to put it inside something more appealing to be effective. What the giveaways really communicate is that we think the gospel needs our help, and that our own community is not attractive enough in our living out of the implications of the gospel.

9. The emerging data from years of research into this kind of practice of marketing/evangelism attractional church stuff shows the kind of disciples it produces are not strong. I have no doubt these churches are going to see decisions Easter weekend. They’ll herald them on Twitter and on the blogs. As questionable a practice as that can be, I’d be extra interested in how discipled these folks are in a year or two years or three. Hype has always produced “decisions.” Would anyone argue that after 30 years or so of the attractional approach to evangelism the evangelical church is better off, more Christ-centered, more biblically mature?

10. What you win them with is what you win them to.

Losing Our Gospel Grip

/ Dennis Griffith / Leave a comment

Losing Grip

Evidence abounds all around that the current Spiritual climate of the typical Evangelical church is rightly described by sociologist Christian Smith as “more akin to Moralistic-Therapeutic-Deism than anything resembling historic Christianity.”   I paraphrased Smith there, but it reflects the essence of Smith’s assessment.  (If you want a refresher on what Moralistic-Therapeutic-Deism is click here & here.)

J.I. Packer, in his sagacious Introduction to John Owen‘s Death of Death in the Death of Christ, offers one of the best and most comprehensive explanations I have recently read about how we got this way.  In short, Packer suggests, we have embraced a counterfeit gospel.

Read what Packer wrote, and think about how his critique compares with what you hear from the pulpit in your church:

There is no doubt that evangelicalism today is in a state of perplexity and unsettlement. In such matters as the practice of evangelism, the teaching of holiness, the building up of local church life, the pastor’s dealing with souls and the exercise of discipline, there is evidence of widespread dissatisfaction with things as they are and or equally widespread uncertainty as to the road ahead. This is a complex phenomenon, to which many factors have contributed; but, if we go to the root of the matter, we shall find that these perplexities are all ultimately due to our having lost our grip on the biblical gospel. Without realizing it, we have during the past century bartered that gospel for a substitute product which, though it looks similar enough in points of detail, is as a whole a decidedly different thing. Hence our troubles; for the substitute product does not answer the ends for which the authentic gospel has in past days proved itself so mighty. Why?

We would suggest that the reason lies in its own character and content. It fails to make men God-centered in their thoughts and God-fearing in their hearts because this is not primarily what it is trying to do. One way of stating the difference between it and the old gospel is to say that it is too exclusively concerned to be ‘helpful’ to man – to bring peace, comfort, happiness, satisfaction – and too little concerned to glorify God. The old gospel was ‘helpful’, too – more so, indeed, than is the new – but (so to speak) incidentally, for its first concern was always to give glory to God. It was always and essentially a proclamation of divine sovereignty in mercy and judgment, a summons to bow down and worship the mighty Lord on whom man depends for all good, both in nature and in grace. Its center of reference was unambiguously God. But in the new gospel the center of reference is man. This is just to say that the old gospel was religious in a way that the new gospel is not. Whereas the chief aim of the old was to teach people to worship God, the concern of the new seems limited to making them feel better. The subject of the old gospel was God and his ways with men; the subject of the new is man and the help God gives him. There is a world of difference. The whole perspective and emphasis of gospel preaching has changed.

From this change of interest has sprung a change of content, for the new gospel has in effect reformulated the biblical message in the supposed interests of ‘helpfulness’. Accordingly, the themes of man’s natural inability to believe, of God’s free election being the ultimate cause of salvation, and of Christ dying specifically for his sheep are not preached. These doctrines, it would be said, are not ‘helpful’; they would drive sinners to despair, by suggesting to them that it is not in their own power to be saved through Christ. (The possibility that such despair might be salutary is not considered: it is taken for granted that it cannot be, because it is so shattering to our self-esteem.) However this may be, the result of these omissions is that part of the biblical gospel is now preached as if it were the whole of that gospel; and a half-truth masquerading as the whole truth becomes a complete untruth.

NOTE: One thing amazing to me is that Packer wrote this in 1958!  …Two years before Christian Smith was even born.  Our plight has been long time coming.  Recovering a thoroughly Biblical gospel is the only recipe for our recovery.