Two questions vs. ten cannons vs. what... (part 1 of 2)
(This is part one of two; here's the second post.)
Anyone who is familiar with Evangelism Explosion's two diagnostic questions...
- Have you reached the point in your spiritual life where you know for certain that if you were to die tonight you would go to heaven?
- If you were to die tonight and God were to ask you, "Why should I let you into heaven," how would you answer?
...knows how very effective they can be at revealing a hope of salvation based in good works rather than faith in Jesus.
When D. James Kennedy began Evangelism Explosion in 1962, America's primary Christian influences were mainline Protestantism (whose denominations had reached their numerical peak in the 1950s) and Roman Catholicism. Despite deep sociological differences, these two branches of Christianity were united in teaching a salvation by works: the social gospel in mainline churches; the infused righteousness of Roman Catholicism.
Dr. Kennedy's "Two Questions" provided a powerful tool for addressing the error of both camps.
But Evangelism Explosion (EE) entered the scene at a tipping point in American religious history. For a hundred years America's primary Christian heresy had been the works-based salvation (semi-Pelagianism and Pelagianism) of mainline Protestantism and Roman Catholicism.
Yet even as EE was beginning, America's primary Christian heresy was changing. Mainline Protestantism's decline, beginning in the 1950s, coincided with Evangelicalism's decades-long rise to influence and fortune. The end result was a transformation of America's primary Christian heresy from the works-based salvation of Roman Catholicism and mainline Protestantism to the easy-believism, Jesus-plus-nothing approach that came to characterize Evangelicalism.
This change in religious atmosphere had the unfortunate result of rendering EE's two diagnostic questions increasingly unhelpful. I've used EE's material for nearly twenty years now, and over this period it has become increasingly clear to me that most Americans no longer view good works as the basis of salvation. Instead, they've learned from Evanglicalism that "believing in Jesus," is Heaven's open sesame.
If you've used EE, you've probably had an experience similar to the one I had several years ago while witnessing door-to-door in EE training. Walking through a neighborhood on a summer evening my partner and I ran across a woman with a butch haircut washing a car with LGBT, COEXIST and Darwin bumperstickers across its rear.
When we asked if she was confident of going to heaven, she replied enthusiastically, "Oh yes." When we followed up by asking the basis of her confidence she said, "I'm going to heaven because I believe in Jesus."
EE is incapable of dealing with Evangelicalism's soteriological heresy of easy-believism. If the targets of your witness know enough Evangelical teaching to claim they're going to heaven because they "believe in Jesus," EE is rendered powerless. In fact, worse than powerless, at this point EE leaves its practitioners no recourse but to commend the "proper" answer, virtually confirming non-Christians who have learned Evangelicalism's plan of salvation in their error.
Tim's and my father once wrote that Evangelicalism's sole sacrament is the "sinner's prayer," embodied in the walk to the altar of the Billy Graham crusade, the raised hand of the CCC rally (followed by a challenge never to doubt), or the Jesus prayer of the VBS program.
This is sadly true. Praying a "sinner's prayer" is little more reliable as evidence of eternal life in America today than going through confirmation in a Roman Catholic Church.
It's time to turn away from Evangelism's salvific nostrums. As difficult as it is to call our mother out for heresy, the Evangelical and Reformed Church we grew up and came to faith in is little more faithful to the transforming message of the Gospel than Roman Catholicism. We have become purveyors of heresy. Our church is leading little sheep away from Jesus.
Until we take seriously Christ's unceasing insistence that the one who loves Him is the one who keeps His commandments, we will continue to lead sheep away from Jesus, away from the sheepfold, away from salvation, and into the arms of hirelings, wolves and thieves.
There is no excuse for separating belief from obedience. None. Perhaps in the early days of Evangelicalism, such a response to Roman Catholicism and mainline Protestantism was understandable, if not excusable. But today, with the rotten fruits of this heresy lying all around us on the ground, it's no longer even understandable. It's simply false shepherding of the flock of Christ.
Nowhere but in America under Evangelicalsim has a brassy insistence on "believing in Jesus" been employed to cover sins as deep as homosexuality and the murder of infants. Evangelicalism has failed to remove America's guilt. It is increasingly capable only of removing Americans' shame.
(DB)
Clearnote Churches
Clearnote Fellowship
Christ the Word
Monthly archive
- May 2013 (21)
- April 2013 (33)
- March 2013 (43)
- February 2013 (28)
- January 2013 (41)
- December 2012 (31)
- November 2012 (37)
- October 2012 (38)
- September 2012 (21)
- August 2012 (28)
- July 2012 (46)
- June 2012 (50)
Popular Posts
Tags
Recent Comments
- Emily Burlingham on Why move to Bloomington?
- Robert Woodyard on Some pics for your enjoyment...
- Tim Bayly on Some pics for your enjoyment...
- Christopher Lee on Some pics for your enjoyment...
- Sandy Pryor on Why move to Bloomington?
Comments
Yep. The truth of this came home to me suddenly a few years into planting.
I was sitting with a couple who were a mess. There were three children involved (two of whom were conceived out-of-wedlock), two divorces, a history littered with sin after sin after sin, including rampant drug use on his part and overt pride on hers. They were recently married, but their marriage was quickly falling apart under the weight of all this. I figured that the place I needed to start was with grace, making sure that they understood clearly that God is rich in mercy and does not require us to be clean, holy people before He'll get involved with us.
To my surprise, they both immediately nodded as if to say, "Yeah, we've got that part down, no problem." I was so caught off guard. I remember thinking, "Wow, really? Just a knowing nod at that statement? With all the sin you just brought into this room with you, that's all that the gospel musters? Drugs, fornication, divorce, violence... and it's no big deal that God is willing to forgive all that?" It was like someone had taught them that God was obligated to be merciful and forgive everyone automatically. It may even have been me who sent that message.
Since then I've been learning to press harder on the seriousness of sin and on true gospel grace that is evidenced by repentance-faith-obedience and not just sloppy, sentimental, no-matter-what-I-do-God-is-ultimately-fine-with-me grace. As you would imagine, this is a little harder gospel to preach! But it's a gospel that really transforms and brings tons of glory to God. Still learning it.
>>"It was like someone had taught them that God was obligated to be merciful and forgive everyone automatically."<<
Wow - exactly. American entitlement. Thank you, brothers.
An indicator of how "old" this particarly evangelical heresy is comes from my inaugural pastorate, where I was shocked to discover an elder (also a founder of this congregation) who was not baptized. He was, at the time, in his late 50s and had been a professing Christian since his mid-20s. That would put his conversion back in the 1950s!
When I asked him "Why? Why no baptism in all these decades of professing the Christian faith?" he responded defensively that baptism does not save us, that no one needs to be baptized t be saved, that all sorts of baptized people have never been saved, and s on.
"But, Jesus commanded that you be baptized," I insisted. "Are you telling me that keeping commandments is how you aresaved?" he retorted.
After my own truly serious profession of faith in the early 70s, I encounterd the tender mercies of Campus Crusade who eagerly began training me to reproduce my so-recent conversion. The training emphasized a number of scripted assertions which were to appear in my testimony, among them that "You are not a Christian because you go to church or because you've bee baptized! That's Churchianity, not Christianity!" Note, of course, the obvious tilt against the Church and against obedience to our Lord's express commandment with respect to baptism.
Pr. David is correct that the rotten fruit of these errors is everywhere to be seen around us today. Changing his metaphor a tad, I'd say that the fruit is poisonous, and that the seeds which ultimately bore the poison fruit were sown a couple of generations ago, back at the time of that tipping point Pr. David mentions.
"particarly" is supposed to be "particularly," of course.
There's a parable in the way that proof-reading fails when we see what is supposed to be there rather than what is actually there. Even preview is a broken reed on which to lean!
"There's a parable in the way that proof-reading fails when we see what is supposed to be there rather than what is actually there. Even preview is a broken reed on which to lean!"
Which is why the best blogger hosts provide a repentance button, also known as "edit post".
The solution is not to stop talking about justification, merely because of the abuses of 'easy believism'. Explaining justification is still an essential part of declaring the gospel. What I do is include the need for a new heart (regeneration) and a new life. I've picked up that approach from Jack Miller's 'Have you ever wanted a new life' booklet and from Henry Krabbendam's 3 problems, 3 solutions approach to sharing the gospel. EE's diagnostic questions still very helpful in most situations. Also, there is a new introductory hook into the gospel from the Australian branch of EE, called xee. You may wish to look at it at xeelife.com. I would also caution that you take care not to add works to the gospel, however troubling easy believism is.
At xeelife.com, the first question is "On a Scale of 1 to 10, how fulfilling would you say your life is?" and tries to show how much better life will be with Jesus.
A diagnostic I use on these methods is, what does it offer if the guy says, "No thanks, I'm fine, I'm not looking for an enhancement to my life right now."
xeelife.com step 2 answers:
"Ignoring God in attitude leads to ignoring Him in action. Because we ignore God, we end up living life our own way. Some of us do this in small ways, and some of us in really big and devastating ways that have significant consequences. We mess up our lives and we never find real fulfillment in life. When we live in rebellion to God, it affects and breaks our relationship with Him."
And it does say that God "cannot ignore our sinfulness", but after going through all the questions it sounds like the main consequence of our sinfulness is that we aren't as fulfilled as we could be.
It reminds me of Tim Keller's hell that is the soul getting what it always wanted, an eternity without God, rather than a place where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth, where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched, and where the King assigns the rebels everlasting torment.
It's the difference between
"Cmon, don't you want him, don't you want him?" "Nah, I'm alright."
and
"REPENT! FLEE FROM THE WRATH TO COME!" "Get out of my face, you freak!"
>>"Get out of my face, you freak!"
...or occasionally: "What must I do?"
"We are saved by faith alone, but faith itself is never alone" (Luther). Somewhere along the way this got forgotten. Another thing that got forgotten was the need for prospective followers of Jesus to "count the cost".
Perhaps one trouble with EE, and much of the 4 spiritual laws-type gospel preaching, is that it seems to expect an answer on the spot. I would say the same of Ray Comfort, whose emphasis is on preaching the Law (www.wayofthemaster.com for more info). If so, maybe the better way to deliver the Gospel is in a course-type structure, rather than in the standard Sunday-night gospel message. An example is, www.christianityexplored.com . Views?
It's "ten canons," not "ten cannons," unless we really want to blow away easy-believism, no? Not that this is a bad idea, but I don't know that ball, wadding, and black powder is necessarily the way to do it. :^)
Or am I missing something?
Like Ross (are we identical twins separated at rebirth? We seem to be agreeing a lot!), I've had a lot of difficulty with the ill fruit of easy-believism. Somehow a lot of it persists with extrabiblical legalism as well....not quite sure how that one works!
Dear Bert,
Actually, the "ten cannons" of the title is a reference to an alternative witnessing plan to EE's two questions. I'll return to it in a further post.
Love in Christ,
David
Another problem with EE is that God will not ask you those two questions on Judgment Day. He will judge you according to works.
Of course, the good works are the evidence that we are trusting in Jesus Christ alone for our right standing with God.
The contemporary approach to evangelism is mechanical.
In addition to the Bible, read Ichabod Spencer's Pastoral Sketches and you will learn how to evangelize sinners.
One of the early comments about what "Christian" means nowadays made me think of this article. The drug dealer's father seems to combine the old style ("My son doesn't even drink") and the new style ("My son's a Christian", when he's divorced and living with a girlfriend-recent-student-at-his-college).
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0902-drug-professor-20110902,0,5024438.story
"To have an associate professor who is a member of the Devils Diciples and allegedly dealing methamphetamine is quite alarming. I mean, it's unusual to say the least," Sheriff Rod Hoops said at a news conference in San Bernardino.
Kinzey, who has taught at Cal State San Bernardino for 10 years, has a doctorate degree from the University of Toledo in Ohio, a master's degree from Indiana State University and a bachelor's degree from Wayne State University in Detroit.
His father, Hank Kinzey of Rochester Hills, Mich., said he was "sick to my stomach" after learning about the allegations against his son from a newspaper reporter Thursday afternoon.
"My son is a Christian. He's a good father of a good little girl," the elder Kinzey said. "My son doesn't drink. My son doesn't smoke. I don't get it. He's a PhD."
Hank Kinzey said he went on a motorcycle ride with his son just a month ago in Michigan and admitted having some concerns when his son told him years ago that he had joined a "motorcycle club."
"I was surprised that he joined that club lifestyle, but he always kept it away from work," Hank Kinzey said.
[from earlier in the article] During the Aug. 26 raid, detectives arrested Kinzey's live-in girlfriend, Holly V. Robinson, 33, a 2005 Cal State San Bernardino graduate, on suspicion of distributing methamphetamine. She is accused of being Kinzey's "business partner" in the drug operation and has been released on bail.
Stephen Kinzey has a 15-year-old daughter from a previous marriage and never got into trouble growing up, his father said.
Besides allegedly being president of the mountain chapter of the Devils Diciples motorcycle club, county records show that Kinzey organized the San Bernardino-based Saxon Motorcycle Club in 2006. An article posted on the national website of the Boozefighters Motorcycle Club — whose members were immortalized by the 1953 movie "The Wild One" starring Marlon Brando — described how Kinzey revived the Los Angeles area chapter of the Boozefighters club. Kinzey is referred to as "Skinz."
#10
I am most flattered!
The connection is that as a former Pentecostal (me) and a thinking Fundamentalist (yourself) we actually share a lot in common anyway. The two cultures (Pentecostal, Fundamentalist) actually share many of the same roots (not Calvinist, certainly not intellectually-focussed, naturally evangelistic, nineteenth century holiness), so have had many of the same headaches.
Further to this:
Some years ago, not long after I had arrived in the UK, I got to meet some Americans who had arrived as part of the advance team for a church plant. They were from NC, and as we talked, my advice to them was to take everything they knew about evangelism in an American context "... and throw it out the window, because it won't work here". It didn't.
What does work, in a British context? First, a commitment to authentic relationship as the context for real evangelism. That means getting to know, and *keeping* involved with, people who under normal circumstances you would never 'like' or really, even /want/ to have anything to do with. [Fill in the blanks as to what sort of persons this means - take your pick]. Second, it means not assuming any background knowledge of faith or Christian belief. You might as well be witnessing to Buddhists. Much of EE, and the 4SL, relies on more background Christian knowledge than you might realise. If anyone is interested I can supply more detail.
David: got it. Look forward to it.
Ross; agreed.
Eric; thanks for a brilliant, yet dismal, picture of the mental contortions that a combination of "easy-believism" and cultural signs of Christianity can engender. Yuck.
(on the light side, when my kids start getting married, I'm threatening them with joining a motorcycle club called the "In-Laws" and riding after their getaway cars.....word is that it's the most feared club in the nation, and shame that I don't know how to operate a motorcycle....)
Wow, some of you oppose EE's two diagnostic questions because you feel baptism is required for salvation, but if you read God's own Written Word you will find that God's Living Word answered the thief at the cross, "I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise." Luke 23:43 and no where does Scripture states the thief was lowered from the cross and baptized before his death.
Baptism is normatively part of salvation. But God is sovereign and will save all those who He has chosen to be His. You confuse a normative state with an absolute requirement.
Add new comment