Where are we going, as churches? As I look at the churches, seminaries, Christian web sites, and other "realms of faith," I see both positive and negative trends developing. God will keep and uphold His church, even in difficult times. And yet, we must always be vigilant. If there is one thing the church must do, it is glorify God. We should strive to please Him in everything we do, and do it with excellence, whether it is worship, evangelism, religious education, apologetics, or anything else a church might do. On this page are things I believe are urgent for churches–and believers in general–to consider as they form their vision for the next generation of American Christianity.
There are some elements within evangelicalism that keep trying to "push the envelope" of what is acceptable doctrine. There are valid differences and in-house debates on a lot of non-essential issues. But some departures from the Bible's clear teaching must remain unacceptable. Let's not compromise on reverence for the Bible, the unique and infinite knowledge, power, and authority of one immutable, self-sufficient, transcendent, triune God, His moral righteousness, God as Father of His people alone and Creator of the universe, human moral responsibility, salvation by grace rather than by works, Jesus' deity, incarnation, atonement, and resurrection, or the promise of His physical return. Nor should we be ashamed or impassive about any of these beliefs. Every Christian ought to treat these truths as excellent and precious, and every pastor and evangelist ought to preach them.
Also, while not a doctrine per se, a passion for personal evangelism and worldwide missions is also basic to Christianity. We should take the initiative to aggressively and persuasively confront people indiscriminately with their duty to repent and embrace Christ. Any approach to the faith that lacks this sort of love for the lost, or that denies God's love for the lost, is deadly to the church, regardless of its apparent doctrinal integrity.
As our more left-leaning churches drift toward sacramentalism and many of their ministers "convert" to Catholicism, a disturbingly large number of evangelicals are trying to find theological common ground with the Roman church. I know that on the lay level, many Protestants don't understand why we left the Catholic church in the first place. The word protestant implies that we are protesting something about Catholicism. Here the differences are not merely about church government, the ordinances, or tricky doctrinal matters. The difference has to do with the very essence of the gospel of salvation: by grace through faith alone, through the finished sacrifice of Christ and to the sole glory of God. We stand justified in Christ's righteousness alone, and all saving grace and forgiveness comes to us directly from God, with no sacrament, church, saint, Mary, or priest as mediator. This is the gospel, apart from which there is no salvation. People in the Catholic church will not hear this from their own pulpits. If they are to hear the good news, they must hear it from us, and so we must never stop speaking out.
The first of Luther's Ninety-Five Theses reads, "Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, in saying 'Repent ye, etc.,' meant the whole life of the faithful to be an act of repentance." What holds true for the individual believer is also true for the church. The Protestant Reformation is not something that happened on Halloween 1517. It is a constant re-examination of our churches' developing beliefs and traditions. The worst thing we could do is establish our own way of doing things, above testing, beyond what is expressly taught in Scripture. Many of the errors of the Catholic Church began as practical, sensible ways of dealing with a present crisis, but once locked into place, those traditions were held to have as much authority as Scripture. Who knows what the situation in our Baptist (and other Protestant) churches will be four hundred years from now? If the Lord tarries, let's push beyond just the basics to pursue a faith and a practice that are rigorously biblical and submissive to God's will.
This is getting to be a big problem, especially on the Internet. It's one thing to stand firmly on the word of God. If you think Billy Graham is compromising his gospel by cooperating with Catholics and liberals, then go ahead and say so. But it's another thing to say he's a blasphemer, or lost and on his way to hell–and that you hope he stays that course–because of his approach. (Not to pick on Graham; I've actually seen professedly Christian websites that say this.) There are true men of God, called to ministry and faithful to their calling, who have just gotten some things very wrong. It's true that Jesus and the prophets and apostles sometimes used forceful language and denounced their opponents' character. But you and I are not prophets or apostles. Let's show some humility and acceptance. It's not our job to remove the tares from the wheat, and even if someone is sharing the true gospel with false motives, at least it's being shared (Luke 9:49-56; Phil. 1:15-18). Our enemies are not non-Christians, or error-prone Christians, but Satan and our own sinful desires. Oh, and let's try to reserve the word heresy for breaches of those "basics" in point 1–particularly for attempts to redefine the doctrines of God, the Trinity, and salvation in clear contradiction of the Bible.
This opposite extreme from #4 is more of a problem in pulpits, creeds and confessions, and college textbooks. Some try to give themselves "wiggle room" by using ambiguous language. Others deliberately avoid ever getting into doctrinal debates with people, evidently believing that unity is more important than truth. We need to realize that we can't have everyone happy with us. There are people out there who are morally offended at the slightest doctrinal error, and people ruled by a philosophy of doubt and almost naturalistic skepticism. You will not be able to please both groups. Let's steer a straight course by proclaiming the whole word of God without apology, probing the sins and needs of our congregations, and, when necessary, warning them away from the false teachers that pose a threat to their growth in the faith. But do it in a Christian spirit, and with a view toward the rethinking, repentance, and restoration of those who are in the wrong.
I try to make my website a model for manifesting doctrinal integrity with a Christian spirit. I maintain an overall positive tone and try to provide resources that assert the truth but give the reader the tools to discover it for himself. And hopefully, if I am wrong on some point, my treatment of the issue is fair enough that readers will see my error and not be led astray by my own imperfections. This is what I believe "discernment" means.
The most encouraging thing I see in the evangelical and fundamentalist churches is a firm stand on biblical inerrancy. But it's a narrow path, and there are dangers on either side of the issue. On one extreme, we are liable to canonize our fallible interpretations, and our English translations, so as to accuse people with relatively minor doctrinal misunderstandings of disbelieving the word of God. On the other extreme, some of the more "open" evangelicals are carefully redefining the term inerrancy so that they can lay claim to it despite admitting to errors in the Bible. The essentials of biblical inerrancy are these: that every assertion made in the Bible as originally written is and always will be true in the sense intended by its authors. Along with that, let's remember that the authority of the Bible rests on the fact that its words are ultimately spoken by God, and not because it is "our" book.
(And by the way, the "Bible as originally written" is not the King James Version; each translation stands or falls on its faithfulness and effectiveness in communicating the meaning of the Hebrew- and Greek-speaking authors when they wrote. There are at least a few modern translations that do this very well.)
It will not do simply to say we "take the Bible at its word" or that we interpret it literally. Such words lend themselves to twisting and misinterpretation. No one takes the Bible literally at every point (e.g., Jesus laying his life down for sheep, John 10:15). And nearly everyone will say they take the Bible literally except where there is "evidence" that it should be taken a different way, including those who spiritualize everything away. There are some good evangelical resources on how to study and interpret the Bible, but hermeneutics is not widely understood among people in the pew. We evangelicals would probably find consensus on more issues if we could settle on some basic "rules" for how to understand what we read, and teach them to our congregations.
Some suggestions: 1) Get "behind" the translation, and don't lay too much weight on the particular English words chosen by the translators (especially those in italics!) 2) Focus on getting at the author's meaning. 3) Learn enough about the history, the culture, and the usage of the language that you can put yourself in the original audience's place. 4) Nail down the meaning in its original context before moving on to its application to everyday life. 5) Flesh out the timeless principles involved. 6) This is where the illumination of the Spirit comes in: accept it, apply it, and live it out.
The Bible is the church's sole legitimate authority for faith and practice, and is true wherever it speaks to any aspect of life. Good enough, but how does this apply to science, counseling, apologetics, and other fields? This is one area where there is a major split between evangelicals and fundamentalists. The correct path lies between two common mistakes. The first mistake is believing that modern discoveries can overwrite the Bible's perspective, or that the Bible has little to say to modern debates. But whether we're dealing with chaos theory, personality theory, cosmology, or philosophical speculation, there are some things we already know can't be true because the Bible is so clear. The second mistake is believing that extrabiblical knowledge is so shaky that it should be shunned in every area even remotely associated with a matter addressed in the Bible. The world we live in is real, and what we observe to be true here cannot contradict the Bible's own truth. I really don't see anything wrong with using the results of well-done research for help in how to communicate and persuade effectively, how to help people with psychological problems, or how to learn more about the world around us.
The balance lies in separating the actual data (the Bible itself and the observations of human fields of study) from interpretations (developed doctrines, hypotheses, and theories). And once again, let's please try to avoid self-righteous attitudes or nasty language (like "psychoheresy" or "Freud-lover") directed against someone who's fallen for a bit of pop psychology.
The easiest way to do this is to read Jonathan Edwards' book Religious Affections. Or better, just do a biblical study. Either way, what you'll find is that there is a subjective element to the Christian life. The normal Christian life involves joy, feelings of love, sadness, conviction, tenderness, and righteous anger. And there are proper places and ways to express these religious emotions. But all these emotions ought to arise from a solid grounding in the objective elements of the faith–the truths we believe, and the fact that we have been put right with God by the grace of Jesus Christ.
It is possible to have these kinds of emotions simply due to emotionalism. You can get the warm fuzzies and the tingles in the worship service and not even be a Christian. (And if that's how you "feel the presence of God," I have some news for you.) It's also possible for these emotions to be genuine but to override our consciousness to the point that we (1) lose self-control, which is a fruit of the Spirit, or (2) associate spirituality with an emotional "experience of God" to the neglect of true, objective growth as Christians.
Is it possible to be a true Christian without these affections? Emotion has been compared to a caboose on the train of salvation; the train runs just fine without it. Well, it's true some people just aren't as expressive as others, and conversion does not always come with shakes and tears. But I would seriously wonder at the spiritual maturity of anyone who isn't emotionally affected by what Jesus has done for us, or who doesn't have a passion for the truth of God's word. One thing you'll find if you read the Bible and look for the personality of the authors is that there isn't an unemotional one in the bunch. People who stomp and shout every other second fail to communicate anything but their own enthusiasm, but there are plenty of things in the Christian life to stomp and shout about.
Whether you're a young-earther, an old-earther, or a theistic evolutionist, you know that the Genesis account of creation is a divisive issue for evangelicals. The first criticism I ever received about my website was that I had "compromised with evolutionists" on my biblical timeline. (I'm an old-earther, just so you know.) The debate about evolution is an important one; adopting evolution would be theologically disastrous for us, and would also make us look like fools if science ever finally gets its act together and realizes how hollow its evidence is. If you need an argument for why theistic evolution doesn't work, I've provided one. Otherwise, stand strong on this issue.
Counterintuitive as it may be, our divisions over the age of the earth actually make it more difficult to counter evolution. It seems that the young-earthers who are most opposed to evolutionary theory end up spending much of their valuable time putting forth evidence of a recent creation, and warning their readers away from old-earthers. Meanwhile, these very old-earthers are producing some of the best arguments and evidence against evolution, but have to spend at least a chapter of each book defending their own theological legitimacy from young-earth accusations.
Here's a quick take on the issue: Both of the current young-earth and old-earth models are only a few hundred years old, so neither can claim to be the historic teaching of the church. Good biblical cases can be made for each side. The scientific evidence I'm aware of rests pretty firmly on the old-earth side. But there are unanswered questions in science, and there's always that "appearance of age" theory. Is it within God's character to create a universe in which everything appears to be an age that it isn't, to the extent of containing evidence of specific events that never took place? How would the average reader of Genesis 1 in Moses' time perceive the "days" in that chapter? I can't honestly give infallible answers to those two questions, which I believe are the decisive ones. One thing is certain: both sides are trying to stand by God's truth without compromising to tradition or to evolution. I'll say it one more time: don't get nasty, don't get wimpy.
I don't actually think this is a problem in most churches, but some well educated "evangelical" seminary professors have started challenging the idea of substitutionary atonement. It has long been abandoned by liberals who have a difficult time with concepts of sin and punishment. But it is the heart of the Christian gospel. Here's the deal: We are sinful, and a just God demands a penalty be paid to atone for that sin. That penalty is God's wrath. Paying that penalty ourselves would mean an eternity of suffering in hell. God provided a sinless substitute, His Son Jesus Christ, and poured out that penalty on Him. Jesus willingly endured the wrath of God on the cross. Our sinful nature, and every one of our sins, past, present, and future, was paid for–once for all time–on the cross, and God is satisfied, pacified, appeased. This method of atonement is called propitiation.
This is why we do not have images of Jesus on our crosses, as if He were still paying that penalty, why we do not re-sacrifice Christ in the Mass, why we don't believe in salvation by works, and why we cannot lose our salvation once truly saved. We also believe, both Arminians and Calvinists, that only those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ actually have their sins forgiven through Christ's atonement, and that no one who comes to Christ will ever be turned away. These doctrines are not simply metaphors, and not a human attempt to explain the unexplainable. They are already well developed in Scripture. (Hebrews 3-10 is a good place to start reading.) The message of what Jesus has done for us, and what we have in Him, should permeate everything we do as churches and believers.
Here we have a serious problem. Tracts, websites, and revival invitations have convinced me that many, many people are hearing an insufficient gospel. We're telling people that forgiveness is theirs for the asking, with no obligations or expectations other than a prayer. No counting the cost, no repentance, no discipleship, no lordship, no changed life. There are a few scholars (Hodges, Ryrie, and others) who firmly teach that repentance and surrender to Christ play no part in conversion. But I think most who fall into this error are simply worried about scaring people away from the gospel by demanding too much. Coupled with eternal security (which I affirm), the result is thousands of people who "prayed to receive Christ" and think they are Christians, but live lives of sin and are confidently and joyfully on their way to hell.
I won't try to present a case for lordship salvation here. Just look up "repent" in a New Testament concordance and you'll be on your way to the discovery that only those who follow and obey Jesus as Lord are true Christians. Does this mean that people have to clean their lives up before coming to Christ? No, but they must come to Christ and bow before Him. The same Holy Spirit that opens their eyes to the gospel also opens their hearts to repentance. Let's not soft-sell the Christian life to people, because there's no free 90-day trial offer. Once you're in, you're in for life. And as my pastor has said, "The faith that fizzles before the finish was faulty from the first."
I don't expect that evangelicals will ever be united when it comes to end-time prophecy. The positions are pretty well defined, and individuals often jump from one to another over the course of their lifetime. (You'll find my current position here.) Nevertheless, I believe there are a few things we should agree on and hold one another to as evangelical "non-negotiables."
1) If God tells us something in the Bible, it's important. If it pleased Him to reveal to us His plans for wrapping up history, let's not just wait for it all to pan out. 2) The Bible and the Bible alone, not traditions, theological constructs, or claims of private revelations, should determine our expectations about the end times. 3) Believers who are absent from the body are in heaven with the Lord (2 Cor. 5:8; Phil. 1:23). 4) Jesus really is coming back, physically, to this earth. 5) Everyone gives an account to God after death (Heb. 9:27). 6) All God's people will spend eternity with Him in the new creation. Everyone else faces eternal punishment, for no other reason than their own sin and willful rebellion against God. 7) No one knows the time of Christ's return. It is astonishing that most of the major end-times "experts" have seen their specified dates come and go without losing an ounce of credibility. Those who set even broad dates (e.g., the year) should be identified and studiously avoided.
Maintaining proper unity is a matter of careful balance. I have heard evangelicals bemoan the very existence of denominations. Yet unity does not mean that every church needs to participate in ministry with every other, or that they all be tied together into one organization. I do believe that unity implies some cooperation between churches. But what is the ground of our unity? It is our common faith and fellowship with Christ, which we share if we are truly Christians. We have no such unity with churches that have abandoned the gospel (see points #1, 2 and 11). This is because Christianity is a body of belief and a way of life as much as it is a relationship to God. But minor doctrinal and moral failures do not necessarily imply a false church, and we should not cast a suspicious glare at someone who comes from another denomination.
Biblical warnings, conscience, practicality, and common sense determine what kinds of errors may be overlooked and which will hinder churches and individual believers when they cooperate in certain ministries. An Arminian and a Calvinist might make for an enlightening team-teaching seminary class, but they might not work so well as a revival team. Charismatics and cessationists can share the gospel together easily enough, but they might find it hard to join together in worship, since they differ so sharply on what it means to worship God in spirit and in truth. Churches within a denomination need to be agreed on what authority, if any, the denominational structure holds over the churches, and vice-versa. A denomination also needs to be agreed on what makes one a member of a church, and consider one another "well-ordered" churches who agree about the gospel and the ordinances. It is healthy for intrachurch and interchurch cooperative efforts to be based on confessions of faith that outline where the participants agree, and what beliefs or practices lie outside the boundaries. And I would be wary of interdenominational, parachurch organizations based on a lowest-common-denominator faith, not accountable to any church but nearly functioning as a church in their own right.
In any case, simple fellowship and friendship should be possible among all true believers. But don't get involved in "interfaith" groups that include non-Christian religions such as Judaism, Islam, and Bahai, under the assumption that we all worship the same God. The religious liberty we have in this country is a blessing, but it is the Lord Jesus Christ we should thank for that liberty, not Allah or some generic "God." (And don't even get me started on the "Grand Architect of the Universe.")
One other point that needs saying: Churches have the right to decide what other churches they will cooperate and associate with, and commonality of faith and practice is the most sensible criterion. If a denomination disfellowships your church, or if a church leaves your denomination because of doctrinal differences, don't try to start a civil war or claim that the autonomy of your church is being violated. You as a church or denomination may continue to believe and practice as you believe the Bible teaches, and churches that believe you're close enough to the truth will be happy to work with you.
Conservative Christians are as closely associated with Republican politics as with biblical doctrine. I agree with the convictions of most conservative groups, and generally support Republicans myself, but I want to raise a few caution flags. 1) If we align ourselves too solidly to one political party, we incite the other one against us that much more, and risk being taken for granted (and thus not heeded) by the party we support. 2) It should be legal to believe and practice one's own religion, even if it isn't Christianity; let's be careful not to communicate a double standard. 3) The solution to our nation's problems will not come through political action. 4) The church's primary task with regard to the world is to share the gospel; Christian politics should not eclipse the priority of evangelism. At the same time, we should not compartmentalize our faith. Liberal churches are speaking out more and more on political issues, creating a "religious left" that votes its convictions. Their theology is better suited to social transformation (though in the wrong direction). I recommend that evangelicals let their views be known but let the liberals be the ones going overboard this time. For good models of Christian citizenship in America, I hold up John MacArthur, Erwin Lutzer, D. James Kennedy, and Cal Thomas.
Charity is an important part of the Christian life, and in the Bible it has its focus on helping fellow members of the church. Outreach may involve charitable acts, but always has spiritual salvation as its ultimate goal. Where this really hits home is faith-based charities. Recent talk of legislation making faith-based charities eligible for federal funding has me concerned. One problem is that this places the government in the role of giving financial support to efforts to convert people to a particular religion–if conversion is the ultimate goal of such charities, as it should be. (If not, then one might argue that we're really dealing with charity-based faiths!) Another problem is more serious. Government money brings dependence and government authority. No doubt many faith-based charities would learn to expect federal assistance and be unable to function without it. Eventually, an administration will come along that is less friendly to evangelical Christians than the current one. In recognition of the first problem I noted, that administration will want to limit what kinds of faith activities the faith-based charity does. Things like overt evangelism, direct references to Christ, or the supporting church's political activity might make the charity ineligible for the funding. It is almost certain that these charities would be required to hire people who show by their expressed beliefs and lifestyle that they are not Christians. The end result would be a large number of compromised "social gospel" charities with government support, over against struggling or failed evangelical institutions. (Note: An executive order has already opened the way for this support, but we await legislation to make this permanent.)
I realize that charitable activity was once the church's contribution to society, and that the government largely usurped that role in the previous century. I realize that the advocates of federal support for faith-based charity may simply be trying to undo that trend by strengthening those charities. In principle, I believe the government should not discriminate against religious charities by barring them from support. In principle, these charities probably should have the freedom to apply for those funds if they wish. But if the bill passes, I urge any evangelical charity to depend on believers alone for their support and to ensure that their biblical priorities are in order.
The mainstay of Baptist worship services is the altar call, or invitation. I believe there should be an opportunity for individuals to respond to the sermon and to make commitments before the congregation. I also believe the gospel should be presented for the benefit of lost people present. (And there are lost people present, by the way.) However, I have seen invitations done very badly. Preachers and evangelists should not think it is their methods that bring people forward, and the decision-maker should not think that walking down the aisle and praying a "repeat-after-me" prayer guarantees heaven for him no matter how he lives the rest of his life. In no case should the minister presume to assure the decision-maker that he is truly saved; only the Holy Spirit knows the person's heart and has the right to give assurance. For a good run-down of the pro's and con's of invitations, see this helpful off-site article by Mark Coppenger.
(One point of clarification: We shouldn't go to the other extreme and put professing converts under "probation" to prove their repentance. By the biblical example, we should accept their credible profession of faith, baptize them, and then treat them as believers unless and until they show evidence to the contrary.)
Today's evangelicalism, particularly among Baptists, owes a lot to old-time revivals and the revivalism that sprang from them. Somewhere along the line, somebody came to the conclusion that if you follow a certain formula, carefully applying certain means and principles, you get revival. If enough people repent, if enough people pray, and if we have a guest preacher, and if we provide pizza for kids' night, revival will happen. Putting up a tent helps, too. Even most revivalists, in their better moments, will tell you there's more to it than that. Classic evangelicalism held that a revival was a surprising work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the church. Churches should always be preaching the gospel, always be repentant, and always be praying for revival. But it's not the sort of thing you can schedule or bring about yourself.
Three things we should do: 1) Make sure our congregations understand and seek true revival. 2) Find something else to call the times we have guest preachers spend a few days in the pulpit. No, crusade isn't a great word for it, either. 3) Don't glamorize the Pilgrims, the Puritans, and the Great Awakenings (which had good and bad points), but learn from what they did right, and what they did wrong. Good resources for this are Peter Marshall's The Light and the Glory and Jonathan Edwards' Some Thoughts Concerning the Present Revival.
There's not much I need to say about this. We all know it's nearly non-existent in our churches today. We all know the Bible teaches it. We all know there are people with full membership in our churches who show flagrant evidence of not being saved. We just need to buckle down and do it. A good start would be having at least some expectations for our members besides walking the aisle and attending a Pastor's Welcome class. Thom Rainer has a few good books on this, and (while I'm tossing out names from Southern Seminary), Al Mohler and Greg Wills also have some helpful things to say on this topic.
This affects both our outreach and our worship. Put simply, the church should be shaping the surrounding culture more than the surrounding culture shapes the church. That's not what I see happening. Most of today's seeker-friendly churches are trying to remain biblically balanced, but it's hard to hold onto an offensive gospel and a foreign-sounding commitment to truth and look attractive to a postmodern, hyper-sensitive culture. We should try to make our message understandable and not bind ourselves to traditions and artificial systems that were designed to appeal to a previous generation. We should be loving, warm, friendly, accepting, and good neighbors to the community.
But there is such a thing as, in my pastor's words, a "Satan-friendly" church. This would be a church that shuns orderly worship in favor of chaos and loss of self-control. A church that avoids any appearance of reverence. A church that holds back difficult theological concepts. A church that refuses to confront the sins of those in attendance. A church that seems to value spectatorship over participation. A church that orders its services by the trends of the world. (I'm thinking coffee shops and secular rock songs here.) A church that casts off time-tested ways of glorifying God simply because they're not brand-spanking new. Some of these churches are winning lots of people, but winning them to what? You'll usually find that members of such churches have to go elsewhere in order to grow, and many who leave never get around to attending anywhere else. Don't become one of those churches.
The Bible contains a lot of theology. If you're preaching the Bible to your congregation, they should be picking up some doctrines. But you might be surprised to find out what they really believe. A good, short-answer survey (not multiple choice) of the congregation could be very instructive. One of the most positive signs in the seminaries is a recovery of the importance of doctrine for the church. It's not just something for the academics to write papers to each other about. Christians need to know what they believe and why. Most pastors have been to seminary and know enough to really dig in and find the juicy meat of theology in the Bible. If they've been trained well, they should be able to present theology in such a way that the congregation can understand it. And we're not just talking about preaching. There are all kinds of ways to educate the person in the pew. Hold a weekend seminar, give the people copies of their denomination's confession, recommend books ... a catechism for the kiddies wouldn't hurt, either. (Yes, there is such a thing as a Baptist catechism.) You might even put in a plug for a good Christian website. (Wink.)
I hope I haven't been too negative here. I actually think of this as a positive list of suggestions, because if our churches do these things, I believe the future will be very bright. Most importantly, with God's grace, non-Christians will be saved, Christians will grow, and God will be glorified.
For a concise statement of my beliefs, see my Declaration of Faith.
