Christless Christianity- Do We Assume the Gospel?

All this year, the White Horse Inn (a round-table radio broadcast on which our pastor participates), has focused on the theme of “Christless Christianity.” June 8th’s broadcast really hit home for me as the guys talked about how so often evangelical churches assume the gospel- as though the gospel is something you need to “get saved” and then you move on to more mature Christianity.

Mike Horton gives a terrific commentary, quoted in part here:

“To arrive at a condition of Christless Christianity where Christ becomes more of a trademark for t-shirts and entertainment empires more than the object of faith. No explicit heresy is needed, because our default setting is Pelagianism, the heresy of self-salvation. Unless we are constantly taught out of it, not just once, but throughout our Christian pilgrimage we will always fall back on the most comfortable, familiar, and common-sense religion of our fallen heart. We don’t have to deny the Gospel, all we have to do in order to send our churches back to another Dark Ages is to assume the Gospel. Taking it for granted that people need the Gospel in order to “get saved” many seem to think that we can then move on in the Christian life and look to other resources for our spiritual development than the Gospel. It is crucial to realize that the Gospel arises first of all out of a story, from Genesis to Revelation there is one unfolding drama of redemption with Christ at its center. Jesus himself taught the disciples to read the Bible this way and after Pentecost they preached Christ this way.”

And another quote from Horton’s article, Christless Christianity, in “Modern Reformation” magazine:

“In The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis has the devil (Screwtape) catechizing his minion (Wormwood) to keep the Christians distracted from Christ as redeemer from God’s wrath. Rather than clumsily announce his presence by direct attacks, Wormwood should try to get the churches to become interested in “Christianity and…”: “Christianity and the War,” “Christianity and Poverty,” “Christianity and Morality,” and so on. Of course, Lewis was not suggesting that Christians should not have an interest in such pressing issues of the day, but he was making the point that when the church’s basic message is less about who Christ is and what he has accomplished once and for all for us, and more about who we are and what we have to do in order to justify all of that expense on his part, the religion that is made “relevant” is no longer Christianity. By not thinking that “Christ crucified” is as relevant as “Christ and Family Values” or “Christ and America” or “Christ and World Hunger,” we end up assimilating the gospel to law. Again, there is nothing wrong with the law-the moral commands that expose our moral failure and guide us as believers in the way of discipleship. However, assimilating the good news of what someone else has done to a road map for our own action is disastrous. In the words of Theodore Beza, “The confusion of law and gospel is the principal source of all the abuses that corrupt or have ever corrupted the church.” When God’s Law (and not our own inner sentiment) actually addresses us, our first response should be, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner,” not the reply of the rich young ruler, “All this I have done since my youth.” (Christless Christianity, Modern Reformation)

I find this to be tremendously challenging. I grew up in mainline evangelicalism. As a teenager, I attended my local Calvary Chapel and went to Monday nights with Greg Laurie at Big Calvary. I do not recall a single instance where the gospel was actually preached in the sermon. I brought friends to the Harvest Crusade. The gospel was presented at the end of the service, where everyone bowed their heads and closed their eyes. The pastor asked for repentant people to raise their hands, come forward, and pray a prayer.

Years later, I began attending a Reformed church- the same church in which my husband and I are members today. The gospel is preached, in the service, every Lord’s Day. Let me back up- first, the Law is preached and we confess our sins together as a body. We confess our private sins. And then, we confess together of our faith in the gospel- that the perfect life, sacrificial death, and glorious resurrection of Christ has atoned for our sins and satisfied God’s wrath toward us. The glorious pronouncement is made that our sins have been forgiven and that we are not under God’s condemnation.

How I need to hear that every Sunday… every day even! I fail on a daily basis in all my different roles- whife, mother, neighbor, Christian, church member, employee, citizen, friend. The only way I am able to keep going is to hear the gospel, to know that my sins have been forgiven. I am then spurned on to live a life of gratitude, where God’s Laws become the standard by which I strive to live BECAUSE I am forgiven.

When the gospel is assumed, it is so easy to turn to legalism. Why preach Christ when the pet issue is all the more interesting? Horton says it above- Christ and family values; Christ and America; Christ and morality. Pretty soon, Christ gets dropped all together and we are left with the “and” stuff. Its as though the gospel falls off to the sidelines, like its somehow unimportant.

The message of Christianity IS the Gospel! The Gospel is GOOD NEWS! Why would we not want to hear that proclaimed loud and often! When it isn’t, Law and Gospel become confused and we end up with this:

“Another way we distort the proclamation of Christ in the “Pharasaic” mode is by what has sometimes been called “the assumed gospel.” This is often the first stage of taking our eyes off of Christ. Even where Christ is regarded as the answer to God’s just wrath, this emphasis is regarded as a point that can be left behind in the Christian life. The idea is that people “get saved” and then “become disciples.” The gospel for sinners is Christ’s death and resurrection; the gospel for disciples, however, is, “Get busy!” But this assumes that disciples are not sinners, too. There is not a single biblical verse that calls us to “live the gospel.” By definition, the gospel is not something that we can live. It is only something that we can hear and receive. It is good news, not good advice. The good news is that, “But now, apart from law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the Law and the prophets, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe,” since sinners “are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, received through faith” (Rom. 3:21-25). ” (Christless Christianity, Modern Reformation)

This idea is what I find lacking in so many patriocentric circles- a real passion for the Gospel. There are so many rules that I have to wonder where they turn when they fail? Do they just become more firm in their resolve to “take back the culture” by wearing dresses and raising little warriors for Christ? I have seen very little grace extended from these folks. They are so busy preaching law that the gospel gets lost. Its exactly what Horton is talking about.

Legalism isn’t just “works of the Law to merit righteousness.” Legalism isn’t just extra-biblical laws to increase sanctification. Legalism is also Law preached but no gospel. I think that’s a big area where patriocentricity breaks down.

And if that isn’t what they intend- if the intent is to point others to Christ- then I think they are really missing the mark in the way their message comes across. I heard Jennie Chancey say once to draw our strength from Jesus. “Look to Jesus!” she exhorted us. Those kinds of exhortations are few and far between coming from that camp. My prayer is that the folks in this movement discover the Christ of the gospel and stop assuming it. WE ALL NEED IT. EVERY DAY!