ASHAMED OF THE GOSPEL —Book Review
Reprinted from The Spiritual Sword, 2000
David R. Pharr

Some might assume that concern and debate over changes in the church are problems peculiar to churches of Christ. Some might assume that such issues and controversies are new for the present generation. The fact is that every religious group is struggling over like issues and it is easy to see in the current controversies that history is repeating itself. As our own brotherhood deals with pressures to be like the denominations, various denominations are wrestling with pressures to be more like secular society. Actually the innovations favored by some among us embrace the very philosophies which more conservative denominational voices greatly fear. Regardless of excuses offered, the motive behind unscriptural change is the desire to more in harmony with the spirit of the age.

That the issues are not new, that the problems are not unique among churches of Christ, and that the real issue is worldliness are points forcefully demonstrated in a book by John F. MacArthur, Jr., Ashamed of the Gospel.ⁱ  MacArthur is with the Grace Community Churchⁱⁱ in Sun Valley, California, and is president of The Master’s College and Seminary. In this work he contends that much of current preaching and practice is no more than the church seeking to win the world by embracing the world. This is, of course, really surrender to the world. He deplores the gimmicks and gadgets which seek numbers instead of conviction. He strongly objects to the ideas of church growth specialists which are based on secular principles rather than spiritual convictions. He argues that so little of the Bible is being preached that it is evident that, unlike Paul in Romans 1:16, many are “ashamed of the gospel.” The sub-title of the book is: “When the Church Becomes Like the World.”

The book is useful in showing that much of the ideology he so effectively discredits among evangelicals is the very thinking which has led to digressive changes within our own brotherhood.

Spurgeon and the Down-Grade

MacArthur greatly admires the nineteenth century London Baptist preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon. Quotations from Spurgeon are found throughout the book as the author compares current trends and issues to like trends and issues which occupied Spurgeon’s attention a little over a century ago. Spurgeon was without doubt the most famous preacher of his age. He became concerned with what he saw as a “down-grade,” meaning that he saw faith going downhill (we would say on a “slippery slope”) toward unbelief. MacArthur credits Spurgeon as “the first evangelical with international influence to declare war on modernism.”

The Down-Grade controversy began with Spurgeon’s publicationⁱⁱⁱ of two anonymous articles by a fellow Baptist which lamented trends away from biblical fundamentals, compromises with the world, and the unwillingness of even otherwise orthodox preachers to oppose those whose soundness was questionable. There was particular concern that professors training ministers had departed from the faith of their school’s founders and were undermining the faith of the students.

After this, Spurgeon took up the issue in articles of his own. He compared biblical truth to the pinnacle of a steep, slippery mountain. One step away and you find yourself on the down-grade. And once started on the down-grade momentum takes over. He had been the most respected preacher of his time and had been the most influential leader in the Baptist Union. In time, however, he found it necessary to break fellowship with the association because of their unwillingness take a stand for what he saw as essential truth and because of their unwillingness to censure those who had abandoned the old faith. Eventually it was Spurgeon himself who was censured by the Baptist Union—censured for his boldness in speaking out against what he saw as fatal error. Some even who knew that he was right nevertheless opposed him, preferring peace and compromise with their associates who were teaching the error.^iv

Our interest in MacArthur and Spurgeon is not in their Calvinistic and Baptist theology, but in their observations regarding the danger of being conformed to the world. False doctrine and worldliness always go hand in hand, MacArthur observes, with worldliness leading the way. (It ought to be evident that worldliness is the cause of most departures among us—not the worldliness of dancing and drinking, but the worldly desire to be sophisticated, to fit in, to no longer be different. But we also realize that indifference toward doctrine is only one step away from permissiveness in morals. See Romans 12:2.) He reminds us that modernism was not at first a theological agenda, but a methodological one.^v  The current shift away from emphasis on doctrine to an inordinate emphasis on methods prepares the way for theological compromise.

Market-Driven Ministry

Current church growth theory calls for marketing religion in the same way that the world markets its products. MacArthur examined a dozen or so of the latest books^vi on ministry and growth and found that none of them recommended the ministry instructions Paul had given to Timothy. Instead they drew principles from modern business techniques, psychology, and similar sources. Good marketing requires that both the producer and consumer be satisfied. Anything that leaves the consumer unsatisfied must be rejected. The thinking is that “Preaching--particularly preaching about sin, righteousness, and judgment—is too confrontive to be truly satisfying. The church must learn to couch the truth in ways that amuse and entertain."^vii

The market-driven approach has its roots in erroneous measures of success. “The churches most often judged ‘successful’ are the large, rich megachurches with multimillion-dollar facilities, spas, handball courts, day-care centers, and so on."^viii The market-driven approach tolerates almost any innovation that appears to get results (numbers, that is). The one thing that is not tolerated is plain preaching which opposes sin and demands commitment to truth. Another writer is quoted: “The baby-boom generation won’t just sit in the pew while someone up front preaches. They are products of a media-driven generation, and they need a church experience that will satisfy them on their own terms."^ix

One telling flaw in the market-driven approach is the unabashed emphasis on targeting a selective audience. The author explains:

User-Friendly Church

Borrowing a term from the computer industry, church growth specialists urge churches to be “user-friendly.” This means being benign and utterly non-challenging. It means making people comfortable even when their philosophy and lifestyle are radically different from what they ought to find in church. “No longer are pastors trained to declare to people what God demands of them. Instead, they are counseled to find out what the people’s demands are, then do whatever is necessary to meet them."^xi  Some churches are having their largest services on Friday or Saturday nights, with emphasis on music and entertainment, “offering people an alternative to the theater or social circuit.” This also provides for members to “get church out of the way.” One Saturday night churchgoer explained: “If you go to Sunday school at 9:00 A.M., then to the 11 A.M. service and leave about 1 P.M., your day is pretty well shot."^xii

One of several quotations which explain user-friendly preaching says: “The sermons are relevant, upbeat, and best of all, short. You won’t hear a lot of preaching about sin and damnation and hell fire. Preaching here doesn’t sound like preaching. It is sophisticated, urbane, and friendly talk. It breaks all the stereotypes."^xiii  Hell and the wrath of God aren’t allowed. MacArthur writes: “Rather than arousing fear of God, [user-friendly preaching] attempts to portray Him as fun, jovial, easygoing, lenient, and even permissive."^xiv

Show-time Religion

“The fact is that many would like to unite church and stage, cards and prayer, dancing and sacraments."^xv  When Spurgeon wrote this he could hardly have imagined how far some would go to draw crowds. MacArthur also draws from A. W. Tozer, who, he says

Church growth is good if it is growth that God gives following proper planting and watering (I Cor. 3:6). What is not good is numerical growth that comes through techniques which have nothing better to commend them than that they seem to be working. “Feeding people’s appetite for entertainment only exacerbates the problems of mindless emotion, apathy, and materialism. . . . If the world looks at the church and sees an entertainment center, we’re sending the wrong message. If Christians view the church as an amusement parlor, the church will die."^xvii

Many innovations are defended on the basis of pragmatism--if it works, it must be right. C. Peter Wagner says: “If the method I am using accomplishes the goal I am aiming at, it is for that reason a good method."^xviii  Some even advocate adopting methods found to be effective by cults and liberal denominations. It is assumed that if a church is growing (regardless of its doctrine and practice), its methods must have divine sanction—if it works it must have God’s blessing. But MacArthur counters: “It is folly to think one can be both pragmatic and biblical. The pragmatist wants to know what works now. The biblical thinker cares only about what the Bible mandates. The two philosophies oppose each other at the most basic level.” Calling this pragmatism “a bankrupt philosophy,” he explains: “Rather than teaching error or denying truth, it does something far more subtle . . . Instead of attacking orthodoxy head on, it gives lip service to the truth while quietly undermining the foundations of doctrine.” This, he says, is a danger far more subtle than liberalism (modernism).^xix

Sovereignty of God

The author’s advocacy of Calvinism dwells heavily on the sovereignty of God in effecting conversion. He is careful, however, to remind that: “Scriptures affirms both divine sovereignty and human responsibility [emphasis added]."^xx  He tries to reconcile Calvinistic election with human participation. “All who are elect will certainly be saved, but God does not save them apart from the means He has chosen: the Word of God, conviction of sin, repentance, faith and sanctification."^xxi  Our purpose is not to review this aspect of the book except to appreciate his emphasis that God in his sovereignty can and will accomplish all his saving purpose through the preaching of the gospel. The gospel message is the method God uses for the conversion of men. MacArthur rightly sees that conversion is a work of God and that if God does not convert men when the gospel is preached, it is presumptuous to imagine that some other method or message might be better. It is not our responsibility to make the church grow. Our responsibility is simply to plant and water.

Men are ashamed of the gospel when they substitute gimmicks for gospel preaching. Men may argue that drama, dance, special music, and even outlandish carnival acts will attract the unchurched. But, “Merely ‘churching’ the unchurched accomplishes nothing of eternal value."^xxii

Men are ashamed of the gospel when they minimize or change it. Some growth specialists are quite frank to say that the message has to be changed to fit the needs of the modern world. Others may not be so bold, being unwilling to actually contradict the Bible, but their preaching skirts around those truths which condemn sin, which expose error, and which demand more than an affiliation.

Some may question why we feel such alarm over changes taking place among churches of Christ. Charles Spurgeon said it right when he warned, “It is hard to get leaven out of dough, and easy to put it in."^xxiv

Endnotes:
i. John F. MacArthur, Ashamed of the Gospel (Wheaton, IL, Crossway Books, 1993).

ii. Though with a church with “Community” in its name, it is evident the MacArthur does not endorse much that has come with the community church movement.

iii. Spurgeon published a journal, “The Sword and the Trowel.” Items from him come from this journal, as quoted by MacArthur.

iv. Appendix I traces the Down-Grade controversy. Spurgeon was accused of violating Jesus’ instructions in Matthew 18 because he had not first gone privately to those with whom he had grievances. This was an effort to make him the issue and to evade the real issue, which was the preachers and professors among them who no longer upheld what he perceived as the truth. He described this lack of alarm and willingness to ignore heresy with vivid imagery: “The house is being robbed, it very walls are being digged down, but the good people who are in bed are too fond of the warmth, and too much afraid of getting broken heads, to go downstairs and meet the burglars; they are even half vexed that a certain noisy fellow will spring his rattle, or cry, “Thieves!” (Quoted by MacArthur, p.209). MacArthur makes an important observation about Spurgeon’s decision to break with the Baptist Union. He acknowledges that many did not agree with his course of action, but: “we must acknowledge that history has vindicated Spurgeon’s warnings about the down-grade” (p.22).

v. “The earliest modernists seemed concerned primarily with interdenominational unity. They were willing to downplay doctrine for that goal, because they believed doctrine was inherently divisive and a fragmented church would become irrelevant in the modern age” (Preface, p. xv). How much this sounds like the defenses being made for fellowship with denominations. In the name of unity doctrine is ignored.

vi. Many are impressed with church growth ideas from such authors as Robert Schuller, George Barna, Elmer Towns, Donald A. McGavran, C. Peter Wagner, et al., as well as the methods of Willow Creek and like sects. Truth is truth wherever it is found and expedient methods may be learned from various sources, but it is strongly recommended that one carefully consider the points made by MacArthur before feasting too long on current church growth fads.

vii. MacArthur, p.23.

viii. Ibid., p.28.

ix. Ibid., p.33.

x. Ibid., p.126.

xi. Ibid., p.49.

xii. Ibid., p.46.

xiii. Ibid., p.47.

xiv. Ibid., p.63.

xv. Ibid., p.67.

xvi. Ibid., pp.68f.

xvii. Ibid., pp.71f.

xviii. Quoted on p.76, from A Theology of Church Growth (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1981), p.161.

xix. MacArthur, p.81.

xx. Ibid., p.156.

xxi. Ibid., p.167.

xxii. Ibid., p.103.

xxiii. Ibid., pp.188f.

xxiv. Ibid., p.189.
 

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