[BBC List] grungeification

Tue Mar 13 08:50:58 EAST 2007

Grunge Christianity and Cussing Pastors? What Next? 

John MacArthur 

We keep hearing from evangelical strategists and savvy church leaders that
Christians need to be more tuned into contemporary culture. 

You have no doubt heard the arguments: We need to take the message out of
the bottle. We can't minister effectively if don't speak the language of
contemporary counterculture. If we don't vernacularize the gospel,
contextualize the church, and reimagine Christanity for each succeeding
generation, how can we possibly reach young people? Above all else, we have
got to stay in step with the times.

Those arguments have been stressed to the point that many evangelicals now
seem to think unstylishness is just about the worst imaginable threat to the
expansion of the gospel and the influence of the church. They don't really
care if they are worldly. They just don't want to be thought uncool.

That way of thinking has been around at least since modernism
<http://mb-soft.com/believe/txn/liberali.htm>  began its aggressive assault
on biblical Christianity in the Victorian era. For half a century or more,
most evangelicals resisted the pragmatic thrust of the modernist argument,
believing it was a fundamentally worldly philosophy. They had enough
biblical understanding to realize that "friendship with the world is enmity
with God. Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself
an enemy of God" (James 4:4).

But the mainstream evangelical movement gave up the battle against
worldliness half a century ago, and then completely capitulated to
pragmatism just a couple of decades ago. After all, most of the best-known
megachurches that rose to prominence after 1985 were built on a pragmatic
philosophy of giving "unchurched" people whatever it takes to make them feel
comfortable. Why would anyone criticize what "works"?

Whole churches have thus deliberately immersed themselves in "the
culture"???by which they actually mean "whatever the world loves at the
moment." We now have a new breed of trendy churches whose preachers can
rattle off references to every popular icon, every trifling meme, every
tasteless fashion, and every vapid trend that captures the fickle fancy of
the postmodern secular mind.

Worldly preachers seem to go out of their way to put their carnal expertise
on display???even in their sermons. In the name of connecting with "the
culture" they want their people to know they have seen all the latest
programs on MTV; familiarized themselves with all the key themes of "South
Park"; learned the lyrics to countless tracks of gangsta rap and heavy metal
music; and watched who-knows-how-many R-rated movies. They seem to know
every fad top to bottom, back to front, and inside out. They've adopted both
the style and the language of the world???including lavish use of language
that used to be deemed inappropriate in polite society, much less in the
pulpit. They want to fit right in with the world, and they seem to be making
themselves quite comfortable there.

Mark Driscoll <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Driscoll>  is one of the
best-known representatives of that kind of thinking. He is a very effective
communicator???a bright, witty, clever, funny, insightful, crude, profane,
deliberately shocking, in-your-face kind of guy. His soteriology is exactly
right, but that only makes his infatuation with the vulgar aspects of
contemporary society more disturbing.

Driscoll ministers in Seattle, birthplace of "grunge" music and heart of the
ever-changing subculture associated with that movement. Driscoll's unique
style and idiom might aptly be labeled "post-grunge." His language???even in
his sermons???is deliberately crude. He is so well known for using profane
language that in Blue Like Jazz (p. 133), Donald Miller (popular author and
icon of the "Emerging Church" movement, who speaks of Driscoll with the
utmost admiration) nicknamed him "Mark the Cussing Pastor."

I don't know what Driscoll's language is like in private conversation, but I
listened to several of his sermons. To be fair, he didn't use the sort of
four-letter expletives most people think of as cuss words???nothing that
might get bleeped on broadcast television these days. Still, it would
certainly be accurate to describe both his vocabulary and his subject matter
at times as tasteless, indecent, crude, and utterly inappropriate for a
minister of Christ. In every message I listened to, at least once he veered
into territory that ought to be clearly marked off limits for the pulpit.

Some of the things Driscoll talks freely and frequently about involve words
and subject matter I would prefer not even to mention in public, so I am not
going to quote or describe the objectionable parts. Besides, the issue has
already been discussed and dissected at several blogs. Earlier this year,
Tim Challies cited one typical <http://www.challies.com/archives/001863.php>
example of Driscoll's vulgar flippancy from Confessions of a Reformission
Rev. The sermons I listened to also included several from Driscoll
<http://www.challies.com/archives/001863.php> 's "Vintage Jesus" series,
including the one Phil Johnson
<http://teampyro.blogspot.com/2006/10/fed-up.html>  critiqued in October.

The point I want to make is not about Driscoll's language per se, but about
the underlying philosophy that assumes following society down the Romans 1
path is a valid way to "engage the culture." It's possible to be overexposed
to our culture's dark side. I don't think anyone can survive full immersion
in today's entertainments and remain spiritually healthy.

Let's face it: Many of the world's favorite fads are toxic, and they are
becoming increasingly so as our society descends further in its spiritual
death-spiral. It's like a radioactive toxicity, so while those who immerse
themselves in it might not notice its effects instantly, they nevertheless
cannot escape the inevitable, soul-destroying contamination. And woe to
those who become comfortable with the sinful fads of secular society. The
final verse of Romans 1 expressly condemns those "who, knowing the righteous
judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death,
not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them."

Even when you marry such worldliness with good systematic theology and a
vigorous defense of substitutionary atonement, the soundness of the
theoretical doctrine doesn't sanctify the wickedness of the practical
lifestyle. The opposite happens. Solid biblical doctrine is trivialized and
mocked if we're not doers of the Word as well as teachers of it.

We could learn from the example of Paul, who engaged the philosophers on
Mars Hill. But far from embracing their culture, he was repulsed by it. Acts
17:16 says, "while Paul waited for [Silas and Timothy] at Athens, his spirit
was provoked within him when he saw that the city was given over to idols."

When Paul spoke to that culture, he didn't adopt Greek scatology to show off
how hip he could be. He simply declared the truth of God's Word to them in
plain language. And not all of his pagan listeners were happy with that (v.
18). That's to be expected. Jesus said, "If the world hates you, you know
that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world
would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you
out of the world, therefore the world hates you" (John 15:18-19).

Even Jesus' high priestly prayer included a thorough description of the
Christian's proper relationship with and attitude toward the world: "I have
given them Your word; and the world has hated them because they are not of
the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not pray that You should take
them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one. They
are not of the world, just as I am not of the world" (John 17:14-16).

Whenever Jesus spoke of believers' being in the world, He stated that if we
are faithful, the world will be a place of hostility and persecution, not a
zone of comfort. He also invariably followed that theme with a plea for our
sanctification (cf. John 17:17-19).

The problem with the "grunge" approach to religion is that it works against
the sanctifying process. In fact, in one of the messages I listened to,
Driscoll actually boasted that his sanctification goes no higher than his
shoulders. His defense of substitutionary atonement might help his disciples
gain a good grasp of the doctrine of justification by faith; but the
lifestyle he models???especially his easygoing familiarity with all this
world's filthy fads???practically guarantees that they will make little
progress toward authentic sanctification.

I frankly wonder how any Christian who takes the Bible at face value could
ever think that in order to be "culturally relevant" Christians should
participate in society's growing infatuation with vulgarity. Didn't
vulgarity and culture used to be considered polar opposites?

Thanks.

Charis,

Mike Abendroth

 <http://www.bbcchurch.org> www.bbcchurch.org

2 Tim 1:2b  "Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our
Lord."

"Faith is not our physician; it only brings us to the Physician ... Faith is
not our saviour. It was not faith that was born at Bethlehem and died on
Golgotha for us. It was not faith that loved us, and gave itself for us;
that bore our sins in its own body on the tree; that died and rose again for
our sins.

It is a sin-bearer that we need, and our faith cannot be a sin-bearer. Faith
can expiate no guilt; can accomplish no propitiation; can pay no penalty;
can wash away no stain; can provide no righteousness. It brings us to the
cross, . but in itself it has no merit and no virtue. 

Faith is not Christ, nor the cross of Christ. Faith is not the blood, nor
the sacrifice; .

Our faith does not divide the work of salvation between itself and the
cross. It is the acknowledgment that the cross alone saves, and that it
saves alone. Faith adds nothing to the cross, nor to its healing virtue. It
owns the fulness, and sufficiency, and suitableness of the work done there,
and bids the toiling spirit cease from its labours and enter into rest.
Faith does not come to Calvary to do anything. It comes to see the glorious
spectacle of all things done, and to accept this completion without a
misgiving as to its efficacy. It listens to the "It is finished!" of the
Sin-bearer, and says, "Amen."   

NOT FAITH, BUT CHRIST 

by Horatius Bonar 
(1808-1889) 

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