If it works, do it!
On the White Horse Inn this weekend, Using God: The Gospel of Pragmatism.
The White Horse Inn last weekend focused on the Gospel of Pragmatism, or as I call it the "God as galactic concierge" movement. In the church growth movement and in many a seminary, the focus is on methods and what works, not what is faithful. The idea of teaching seminarians to learn to study the Word, exegete the Word, proclaim the Word and apply the Word seems antiquated, out of place in a postmodern world. It seems incomprehensible that even if the numbers don't come, a church's faithfulness is measured by their devotion to the Word of God, not the number of people in the pews. Not all big churches are unfaithful (there are lots of attenders at the churches that John Piper and John MacArthur pastor) and not every small church is faithful (there are plenty of heretic with minimal attendance). But ultimately numbers are not the yardstick we measure our faithfulness to God by.
The White Horse Inn boys defined pragmatism as doing what works. I would argue that pragmatism is not doing what “works” but doing what yields the desired results. If we want “church growth”, then we have these programs and it will yield full pews. If we want X number of baptisms, then make sure we do this kind of an altar call to get people up front and dunked. If the result is not glorifying God by proclaiming the Gospel, it probably isn’t a Gospel church, no matter what the name of the organization is.
The Gospel is incredibly impractical. It calls for a method of delivery that is folly to many, preaching. It proclaims a message that is foolishness to unregenerate people. God designed the Gospel to be something that no one would embrace outside of the work of the Spirit, and that is one of the ways we know that it comes from God, not man. What these emergent/seeker-sensitive churches declare is a combination of slick marketing and dumbed down (or non-existent) doctrine to appeal to an unregenerate audience that is not, and never will, come to faith outside of a working of the Holy Spirit no matter how many lattes they drink.
Ultimately the Gospel is designed to be impractical because only then is God glorified, only then do we see people saved by the power of God instead of our own efforts. See my next post for a demonstration of what happens when you abandon sound doctrine in favor of pragmatism and relevance.
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