Seeker-sensitive dumb-down

Church Sucks flyer

(Photo: Screen Grab via KVAL  Courtesy The Christian Post)

By Spencer D Gear

What will some pastors do to attract people to their churches? Why don’t you take a read of what this pastor is doing in Oregon? See: ‘‘Pastor’ Says ‘Church S*cks’ for Focusing on Sin“.  The article begins:

EUGENE – A minister in Oregon has a launched a sermon series entitled ‘Church S*cks,’ and is announcing seeker-friendly changes to his Sunday services, as a way to attract people who dislike church.

Tony Crank, who leads One Love Church in Eugene, claims that churches talk too much about sin, and are not welcoming enough to visitors.

Is your church up to these kinds of antics? What will you do to make sure that your church is protected from this seeker-sensitive nonsense and biblical downgrade? What will this kind of church do to biblical Christianity?

I was alerted to this situation by Bill Muehlenberg’s article, Relevant’ Churches and Apostate Pastors. Could you believe that there is a website titled, churchsucks.org. Some reading this may get angry with me for daring to mention it and they may consider that this short article gives this kind of profane activity some extra publicity. Please be assured that my purpose is primarily to alert God’s people to some of the theological nonsense that is going under the church banner these days. Please be warned. This approach to church has some of the signs, as I see it, of apostasy.

I sent a reply online to the newspaper cited above:

This is a sure way to dumb down the church and send biblical theology out of the window. When will this pastor read the New Testament and get his message from the Scriptures. Application of the message to the general populace, for sure! But this is a recipe for making this church another secularized club and place of entertainment. There is no good news without the bad news – of sin.

We have this warning in the Scriptures, ‘Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction’ (2 Thess 2:3 ESV). Matt Slick has written an article to address these kinds of issues: ‘Apostasy in the Christian church’.

To address some of the issues related to this seeker-sensitive church mentality, see my articles:

# Something’s gone wrong with the contemporary evangelical church? (A review of Os Guinness, Prophetic Untimeliness).

# Is theology important?

# Is liberal theology heresy?

# Worldliness in church music

# What does it mean to shipwreck your faith?

 

Copyright © 2013 Spencer D. Gear. This document last updated at Date: 3 November 2015.