When the Church Changes the Message to Keep the Crowd

There is a serious problem in Christianity today that we need to be willing to confront honestly. The Church has become far too concerned with how people receive Christianity and not nearly concerned enough with whether we are faithfully proclaiming what Christianity actually is. Somewhere along the way, many Christians became convinced that our responsibility is to make the Gospel attractive enough that people will want it, understandable enough that no one will be offended by it, and flexible enough that it can fit comfortably within whatever the culture currently believes. But that was never the assignment Christ gave His Church.

Two movements illustrate this problem particularly well: the seeker-sensitive movement and what became known as the emerging or emergent movement. They are not identical, and it would be unfair to suggest that every church or every person associated with either movement believes exactly the same thing. But there is a common danger worth recognizing. Both can move the Church toward becoming more concerned with how Christianity is received by man than with whether Christianity is being faithfully proclaimed according to the Word of God.

The seeker-sensitive movement essentially asked, "How do we make church attractive enough that people will want to come?" Again, there is nothing wrong with welcoming people. There is nothing wrong with communicating clearly, removing unnecessary barriers, or creating an environment where someone unfamiliar with Christianity can understand what is being said. The problem begins when the person we are trying to reach becomes the person who determines what we are willing to say.

That is where things begin to change. Instead of asking, "What has God commanded His Church to proclaim?" we start asking, "What will people respond to?" We study what people want, what makes them uncomfortable, what keeps them engaged, what makes them feel accepted, and what might cause them to walk away. Before long, the Gospel can become less about confronting man with the truth of God and more about presenting Christianity in a way that man is willing to consume.

But the Gospel was never given to make sinners comfortable.

Jesus did not come to make people feel better about themselves. He came to reconcile sinners to God. He spoke about sin, repentance, judgment, obedience, sacrifice, eternal life, and the cost of following Him. There were times when people heard what He said and walked away. John 6 makes that very clear. Jesus did not soften the truth because some people found His teaching difficult. He did not chase after them and redesign His message so they would return. He allowed the truth to stand, even when people rejected it.

That should cause the modern Church to stop and think.

We have somehow developed the idea that if people leave because they do not like what we preach, then perhaps we have failed. But sometimes people leave precisely because we have told them the truth. Faithfulness cannot be measured by applause, attendance, popularity, or whether everyone feels comfortable when they leave the room. Jesus was not sent to win a popularity contest, and He never instructed His followers to build one.

The emerging movement approached the problem differently, but the danger can ultimately be similar. It placed considerable emphasis on culture, experience, conversation, uncertainty, personal interpretation, and finding new ways to understand and communicate Christianity in a changing world. There can be legitimate value in understanding the culture in which we live. Paul understood the people to whom he ministered, and Christians should certainly know the world around them. We should know how people think, what questions they are asking, and how to communicate the truth in language they can understand.

But there is a line we cannot cross.

We can change the way we communicate the truth without changing the truth itself.

The moment the culture becomes the lens through which Scripture must be interpreted, the Church has reversed its position. The Word of God is supposed to shape us. We are not supposed to reshape the Word of God until it fits comfortably within the beliefs of the culture. Once personal experience becomes more authoritative than Scripture, truth becomes subjective. Once avoiding offense becomes more important than defending biblical truth, doctrine gets softened. Once unity becomes more important than truth, Christians eventually become afraid to say anything that might divide the room.

That is not spiritual maturity. It is compromise dressed in Christian language.

The Church was never commissioned to make Christianity compatible with every generation's changing beliefs. Jesus commanded His followers to make disciples of all nations and to teach them to obey everything He had commanded. That is a very different assignment from making Christianity acceptable to everyone.

There is an important difference between being relevant and being conformed. The Church should understand the culture without becoming captive to it. We should know how people think without allowing their thinking to determine what Scripture means. We should welcome people without allowing the people we welcome to decide what we preach. We should communicate with wisdom without confusing wisdom with accommodation.

This is where both movements can ultimately make the same mistake. One can change the presentation to make the Gospel easier to consume. The other can change the interpretation to make the Gospel easier to accept. One asks how to make Christianity attractive to people. The other can ask how to make Christianity compatible with the way people think today. Both questions become dangerous when the answer begins changing what God has actually said.

The Gospel does not need to be made more attractive. It needs to be proclaimed faithfully.

There is a reason Scripture tells us that the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. There is a reason Jesus said that the world would hate His followers. There is a reason Paul warned Timothy that a time would come when people would not put up with sound doctrine but would gather teachers who would say what their itching ears wanted to hear. Scripture already told us this would happen. We should not be surprised when people prefer a Christianity that asks less of them.

The problem is not that the world does not understand Christianity. The problem is that much of Christianity has become afraid to tell the world what Christianity actually teaches.

We need to recover the courage to distinguish between what Scripture says and what we wish Scripture said. We need to stop confusing popularity with effectiveness and growth with faithfulness. A church can be large and still be wrong. A message can be enormously popular and still have nothing to do with the Gospel. A preacher can fill a room while saying very little that requires repentance, obedience, surrender, or genuine faith in Christ.

The question is not whether people like the message. It is not whether the culture accepts the message. It is not whether the church grows. The question is whether what we are preaching is true.

That is the standard.

If it is true, we have a responsibility to proclaim it whether it is popular or not. If it is biblical, we do not need to apologize for it because someone finds it offensive. If Christ commanded it, we do not have the authority to remove it because it makes people uncomfortable.

Christianity is not ours to redesign.

The Church belongs to Christ. The message belongs to Christ. The authority belongs to Christ. And our responsibility is not to make Christianity easier for the world to accept, but to faithfully proclaim the truth that God has entrusted to us.

We can welcome people without flattering them. We can love people without affirming everything they believe. We can understand the culture without becoming conformed to it. We can communicate with excellence without compromising the message. And we can preach the Gospel with compassion without removing everything from it that demands repentance and obedience.

The Church does not need to become more like the world to reach the world.

It needs to become more faithful to Christ.

The question is not whether people like Christianity as we present it. The question is whether what we are presenting is actually Christianity at all.