Warren Cole Smith is an evangelical journalist who has just published a book entitled A Lover’s Quarrel with the Evangelical Church. He summarized his quarreling points in an interview with
The Charlotte Observer:
Among his more provocative charges: “For the sake of money and power and status and celebrity … we’ve made ‘church’ easy. We’ve made being a card-carrying member of the evangelical movement easy. But being a disciple of Jesus in the early 21st century is hard and, for the most part, the evangelical church doesn’t teach us how to do that.”
Smith, who attends Presbyterian Church in America-affiliated StoneBridge Church, told me he’s not in favor of destroying the evangelical movement, just reforming it. Call him an Orthodox evangelical.
For starters, he’s put off by what he calls the sterile look of modern evangelical churches.
“You see PowerPoint presentations, projection systems. You’ve got to spend an hour looking in the cubbies to find a cross or an altar,” he said. “We have, in the space of 20 years, almost completely discarded the historic symbols of Christianity.”
Smith is also no fan of the latest practice in some churches: Twittering. Typing a mini-message into your BlackBerry may give the pastor feedback on his sermon, Smith said, but it also turns the congregation into an audience. He’d prefer his fellow evangelicals join in the recitation of the Apostles Creed or extend a handshake of peace to a pew-mate.
“The liturgy understands that humans need to actively participate and not be spectators,” Smith said.
Contemporary Christian music?
He’ll take the time-tested hymns of yesteryear any day. When evangelical churches sing spiritually shallow “Jesus is my boyfriend” songs, Smith said, they are following the lead of today’s Christian radio listeners, rather than the theologically astute composers of old.
“Music in church is not meant to make us feel good. It’s to bring glory to God and be part of the teaching ministry of the church,” Smith said. “Those (hymns) have been vetted by the best theological minds of the last 200 years.” . . .
So how would Smith save evangelicalism?
Among his answers: Make pastors accountable to deacon or elder boards. Urge churchgoers to discover the vocation God is calling them to. Recover face-to-face community. Develop a stronger sense of history. Plant new churches. And avoid easy answers.
“I’m not saying that I’ve got all the answers,” Smith concluded. “But I am saying we have a rich biblical Christian tradition that has given us many, many good answers. We’ve forgotten them. Let’s try to recover them.”
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i couldn’t agree more. i too am a member of a large pca church in the southeast that sticks to a traditional worship. the pressure is there though, to become less dependent upon the ‘trappings’ of traditional presbyterian worship and to become more accommodating to ‘modern’ techniques. being a follower of Christ means picking up your cross and following Him. persecution, hatred, disgust, and other things will be heaped upon our heads (just see what the conservative kirk ministers that reject homosexual pastors are putting up with in the uk press), but that is our calling. we can try to dress up our churches to look like the world all we want, but we will only honor God when we are faithful to His word in worship, in our lives, and in obedience by faith in Him.
I agree with your assessment that the current state of evangelicalism is weak at best having sold its soul at the altar of marketing and market share. We have overlooked the very heart of the great commission (make disciples) and gone for the much easier and more glamorous world of ‘missions.’ Instead of investing our ‘blood’ into the lives of the next generation (and each other), even in the traditional churches, we sacrifice ourselves on the same altar as the contemporary churches- image and reputation. I do not agree with the suggestion that the answer lies in a Session or a Diaconal board, for oftentimes it has been there where all the ‘business folks’ have spun their wares which are as much of if not more a part of the significant part of this evangelical malaise. If a board is made up of primarily business up and ups who’s MO is the ‘bottom line,’ they inevitably apply that purpose to the church unfortunately. Hereinlies what appears the problem- We have allowed the business sector to define and direct the priorities of the church, and often, pastors who are too self-concerned about protecting their jobs have relinquished…because they too are viewed as and have been relegated to ‘employee status’ of the Session rather than seen as elders called by and trained by God in specific ways that very few ‘lay ordained’ men are. They are both to blame. In short, we have taken the real Christ out of Christianity and God out of the church and hewn for ourselves images of a false God that we have attached the name of Christ to. The answer is not a return to ‘traditionalism.’ but repentance on all fronts for the hedonistic priorities of the past generation that has presented such an errant and impotent portrait of Christ and his people. If the church is to truly be a transformational agent in our world, we must return to the very specific command of Christ- to ‘make disciple’ embrace its real cost (no, not air fare, room and board and VBS) of discipleship- our hearts and lives poured out into another in and through the Word of God written and applied. It’s what Jesus did. It should be enough for us. Paul said it best when he addressed the Galatian church- “You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you!”
That’s a good start.
Must be the year to beat up on the Evangelical Church. It does get you a lot of press and popularity to do so. Not that I disagree with the critiques. It just seems that every couple of weeks, perhaps since the Willow Creek Study, someone somewhere writes a critique of the evangelical movement, or church or whatever, often just quoting what the last guy said, and it is all over the press, and internet.
Meanwhile, they propose changes or someway to reform, or get back to the basics, but they build on the same foundations and are doomed to end up with the same disaster.
I also doubt that anyone is really listening. Seems the Calvary Chapels are still filling the parking lots with their wonder bread Christianity. I have yet to see one of these mega barn churches change their style or worship format in any appreciable way. Nor have I seen any mass exodus to churches that are and have been doing everything it seems these critics want.
Some of them just stay where they are and whine, they keep talking reform, yet no one there is listening. Others just leave church all together. Somehow they figure the evangelical movement is all there is to Christianity, and can’t seem to conceive that perhaps there is a church out there that approaches Christianity from a different angle. And then there are those few who jump into the Roman Catholic Church for the liturgy, even though they aren’t comfortable with their stance on Justification. but there really isn’t any change taking place anywhere.
At the risk of sounding cynical: Good luck with all that, Mr. Smith. As for me, I don’t think the Evangelical church as we know it has the fortitude to get back to basics in the ways the article suggests. It’s too far gone in the direction of following the culture rather than shaping it. Evangelicalism has, basically, become a subculture of the larger popular culture that exists without Christ. I just don’t think, based on decades of being in Evangelical churches, that you can return the church to a Christ-centered state without first destroying it or at least transforming it into something totally different. It’ll take something a lot more radical than what Smith is suggesting. I hope it happens.
A good example of an orthodox and evangelical PCA preacher is Timothy Keller, pastor of the Redeemer church in New York City that started with fifty members and grown to about five-thousand. He preaches orthodox, evangelical Christianity with no kumbaya stuff to a young urban professional congregation. The church has become a planting center and has started about one-hundred churches mostly urban areas.
Keller’s excellent book, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism, a best-seller for a while, was picked by World Magazineas Book of the Year in 2008.
In his Introdution Keller writes:
Which is it? Is skepticism or faith ascendant in the world today? The answer is yes…. Skepticism, fear, and anger are growing in power and influence. But at the same time, robust, orthodox belief in the traditional faiths is growing as well.
These trends are by no means limited to neo-evangelical churches. If nothing else, Smith’s book might serve orthodox congregations which are tempted to chase the “dream of packed churches” by showing what happens in these places over the longer term.
Stepping back a bit, one sees in modern evangelicalism unique but fatally flawed efforts to make Christianity appealing to a world that no longer values or acknowledges the God who is sovereign (not a word Lutherans normally use, but nevertheless true, and for unbelievers, truly terrifying). We all are trying, in our various ways, to grapple with the trend of the world. That evangelicalism loses its Christian distinctiveness as it seeks to reach out to people who may not be reachable shouldn’t surprise. Confessional Lutheranism has perhaps taken the opposite approach to the same problem, with I daresay the same motivations: to strengthen the things that remain.
“Urge churchgoers to discover the vocation God is calling them to.”
This is the key. The rest of it is gloss. The trappings of traditional, orthodox Christianity are fine, and I myself prefer hymns to modern worship songs. But the real key is for Christians to understand that they are here on earth for a purpose — to serve the risen Christ. It will be hard, it will require sacrifice, at times it will result in ridicule or even persecution. Church is not a social club or a means to “connect” with the community. This applies whether you are evangelical, Lutheran, etc. We all seem to fall short in this area.
I wonder if we would even recognize the church Mr. Smith is asking for to be “evangelical”…
I try to “judge” what goes on Sunday morning using the criteria “what can the church do that no other entity can do?”.
For me, as a Lutheran, it comes down to Word and Sacrament. Anything else can be done better by “the world”.
How do you define “success”? Full pews? Relevance? Making me “fell” better?
That’s not Christ, that’s therapeutic, moralistic deism.
Success is preaching the Word and administering the sacraments faithfully. Everything else is fluff.
that should be “feel”, not “fell”
I have not yet read Warren’s book Lover’s Quarrel, but I do get the regular e-mails and have read the promos and some of the blogs. I think he is on to something important, yet I would like to suggest taking it even to a higher level. Maybe we could call it the Final Reformation.
Consider this.
• The New Covenant is between God and Israel/Judah (Jeremiah 31:31-34, Hebrew 8:8-10).
• The Gospel is to the Jew first (Romans 1:16,17), not ‘was’ to the Jew first. In the book of Acts Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles (Romans 11:13) went to the Jewish synagogues first, every time.
• Gentiles have been grafted into a Jewish olive tree (Romans 11:17-24)
• Gentiles have been accepted into the commonwealth of Israel (Ephesians 2:11-13)
• Gentiles are called by God to make Israel jealous for their Messiah (Romans 11:11)
• God has not forsaken Israel and the Jewish people, but will be faithful to them until the end (Romans 11:1, 26-29).
The Church gave the Jews ‘the left foot of fellowship’ in AD 325 and unfortunately things haven’t changed much since then. Christianity runs a close second to Islam in anti-Israel/anti-semitic rhetoric and policy. That’s just for starters.
My question to my Christian brethren is how many of us followers of Jesus, the King of the Jews, are ‘on purpose’ reaching out to Jewish people with the gospel? And doing so in a way that doesn’t sound like ‘we want you to stop being Jewish and convert to christianity’?
It may be humbling to us as Gentiles, but the truth is that God chose Israel for His own specific purposes, and has privileged us to be a part of His program. So, when are we going to heed what God has so plainly stated in His word, instead of reinventing ‘The Faith once delivered to the saints’ to suit our own “Orthodox Christian” tastes?
Time is short. It is likely that in the next 20 years most of us reading this will have already have stood be for God and given account of our lives and doctrine. We would do well to hear what the Spirit is saying to the congregation.
I have not yet read Warren’s book Lover’s Quarrel, but I do get the regular e-mails and have read the promos and some of the blogs. I think he is on to something important, yet I would like to suggest taking it even to a higher level. Maybe we could call it the Final Reformation.
Consider this.
• The New Covenant is between God and Israel/Judah (Jeremiah 31:31-34, Hebrew 8:8-10).
• The Gospel is to the Jew first (Romans 1:16,17), not ‘was’ to the Jew first. In the book of Acts Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles (Romans 11:13) went to the Jewish synagogues first, every time.
• Gentiles have been grafted into a Jewish olive tree (Romans 11:17-24)
• Gentiles have been accepted into the commonwealth of Israel (Ephesians 2:11-13)
• Gentiles are called by God to make Israel jealous for their Messiah (Romans 11:11)
• God has not forsaken Israel and the Jewish people, but will be faithful to them until the end (Romans 11:1, 26-29).
The Church gave the Jews ‘the left foot of fellowship’ in AD 325 and unfortunately things haven’t changed much since then. Christianity runs a close second to Islam in anti-Israel/anti-semitic rhetoric and policy. That’s just for starters.
My question to my Christian brethren is how many of us followers of Jesus, the King of the Jews, are on purpose reaching out to Jewish people with the gospel? And doing so in a way that doesn’t sound like ‘we want you to stop being Jewish and convert to christianity’?
It may be humbling to us as Gentiles, but the truth is that God chose Israel for His own specific purposes, and has privileged us to be a part of His program. So, when are we going to heed what God has so plainly stated in His word, instead of reinventing ‘The Faith once delivered to the saints’ to suit our own “Orthodox Christian” tastes?
Time is short. It is likely that in the next 20 years most of us reading this will have already have stood be for God and given account of our lives and doctrine. We would do well to hear what the Spirit is saying to the congregation.
I have not yet read Warren’s book Lover’s Quarrel, but I do get the regular e-mails and have read the promos and some of the blogs. I think he is on to something important, yet I would like to suggest taking it even to a higher level. Maybe we could call it the Final Reformation.
Consider this.
• The New Covenant is between God and Israel/Judah (Jeremiah 31:31-34, Hebrew 8:8-10).
• The Gospel is to the Jew first (Romans 1:16,17), not ‘was’ to the Jew first. In the book of Acts, Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles (Romans 11:13) consistently went to the Jewish synagogues first.
• Gentiles have been grafted into a Jewish olive tree (Romans 11:17-24)
• Gentiles have been accepted into the commonwealth of Israel (Ephesians 2:11-13)
• Gentiles are called by God to make Israel jealous for their Messiah (Romans 11:11)
• God has not forsaken Israel and the Jewish people, but will be faithful to them until the end (Romans 11:1, 26-29).
The Church officially gave the Jews ‘the left foot of fellowship’ in AD 325 and unfortunately things haven’t changed much since then. Christianity runs a close second to Islam in anti-Israel/anti-semitic rhetoric and policy. That’s just for starters.
My question to my Christian brethren is how many of us followers of Jesus, the King of the Jews, are ‘on purpose’ reaching out to Jewish people with the gospel? And doing so in a way that doesn’t sound like ‘we want you to stop being Jewish and convert to christianity’?
It may be humbling to us as Gentiles, but the truth is that God chose Israel for His own specific purposes, and has privileged us to be a part of His program. So, when are we going to heed what God has so plainly stated in His word, instead of reinventing ‘The Faith once delivered to the saints’ to suit our own “Orthodox Christian” tastes?
Time is short. It is likely that in the next 20 years most of us reading this will have already have stood be for God and given account of our lives and doctrine. We would do well to hear what the Spirit is saying to the congregation.