Modern pragmatism
Today the church has moved away from being doctrine-focused and more towards a modern pragmatism according to John MacArthur, respected pastor, and Bible teacher. “Doctrine has stopped being our lifeblood and today practice has become its lifeblood,” he says. And I totally agree. MacArthur says of the church’s emphasis now, “What’s our strategy going to be, what’s our marketing, how are we going to reach the most people?”
"Doctrine has stopped being our lifeblood and today practice has become its lifeblood."
That means removing any offense out of the equation so that people will feel comfortable when they come to church. Part of that is the issue of homosexuality and gender theory that has become so prevalent in society at this time. It is not that we shouldn’t love and accept homosexuals as human beings but it is clear that homosexuality and gender theory is sin as far as the Bible is concerned and that is where we need to keep doctrine focused but to season our speech with both truth and grace. I guess we can tend to fall into two ditches. We can be so pragmatic and accepting, thinking that we will be non-offensive or we can be so truthful, Bible-bashing people over the head “using brute force truth to cause blunt force trauma”.1 The correct approach of course is to speak the truth seasoned with love and grace.2
Church growth at all costs
Another area where spiritual pragmatism has seemingly taken precedence is this idea of church growth at all costs and a desire to be bigger and better. People go church shopping and they like to be comfortable. As a pastor, I was on the end of church shopper’s desires to look for a church that had everything to offer the shopper just like when we go to a large shopping centre. We want to go to a mall that has all the bells and whistles and the experience. At the latest Black Friday sales in Brisbane, I learned of one shopping centre that was even offering $50 Uber vouchers that could be used by shoppers to get to the centre for the sales. Where does this all end? Do we have to start offering $50 Uber vouchers for people to get to church or maybe we should just keep it all online so that people can be safe from any possible sickness when gathering together?
I am all for people being comfortable when coming to church on a Sunday and it’s a great thing when there are various ministries catering for kids and different generations. But this is just so hard for smaller churches that don’t have the finances to offer everything to the highest standards. I see smaller churches being increasingly squeezed out because they just cannot keep up with the expenses of offering all the mod-con comforts. I often tell the hilarious story at the Minden Baptist on one particular Sunday having to do a baptism on one of the hottest days ever. There was no air-conditioning in the building and it was a stinking hot 42 degrees Celsius. I was thankful because I got to do a baptism standing in the cool water. (We usually heated the water overnight but this day we just had the water at room temperature because we knew that it was going to be a hot day.) It was a great baptism and everything went well but we didn’t empty the baptismal afterward. I instructed to leave it as is and then in the afternoon Cathi and myself hopped in and cooled off getting relief from the searing heat. No sense in wasting that cool water!
We all like to be comfortable and to be attractive to the enquirer but my fear is that as a church we are in danger of losing the balance. We need to not be scared of our doctrine and what makes us different as Christians including our stances on homosexuality, abortion, and marriage to name just a few social issues. At the end of days, there will be many things that will and could take us away from what our prime mission is. Let’s not be sacrificing our beliefs and core values so that we can be acceptable to the world around us. The trouble is that it is hard to see because it is always in small steps.
Let the dead bury their own dead
On a personal level as individual Christians, I believe that Jesus had the same message to us in the area of pragmatism. We can be so pragmatic sometimes that it may lead us to miss the boat altogether. One of Jesus’ disciples wanted to be excused so that he could go and bury his dead father first before following Jesus.3 Very pragmatic indeed one would think. But Jesus’ response was to let the dead bury their own dead. How insensitive of Jesus! (sarcasm). Another disciple wanted to first go and say good-bye to his family but Jesus’ response was to let pragmatism fly out the window and don’t look back.4 Pragmatism can surface in many ways in our life where we put it ahead of the cost of following Christ. For some of us, it may be that we are enmeshed in family and that will come first–“I have responsibilities and I couldn’t leave my family to serve God.”5 For others it might be that you are busy with work and business and making money.6 For others, pragmatism comes in the form of marriage and its responsibilities.7 The cost of being the church and being a Christian on this earth is great and we need to be careful of compromising what is the most important just because we are being pragmatic. Being pragmatic will lead many in the final 3 ½ years in taking the mark of the beast because they need to eat and live.
Pragmatism will stop us making the right choices
The time is actually going to come when pragmatism might also prevent us from first fleeing and running to Israel and then to the designated safe place in southern Jordan.8 Pastors and sincere well-meaning Christian friends may indeed warn us not to go to the very area on the doorstep where there seems to be the most danger. But maybe God is wanting to test us in the sense of trusting him in this just as Abraham had his faith tested to up and leave to go to a new place. I agree that this seems very counter-intuitive to go to the very place that seems loaded with danger.
What level of pragmatism will stop you from escaping the last 3 ½ years? Will it be family? Will it be work and income? Will it be that your local church and pastor disagree with this? Will it be because you have just got married and your spouse disagrees? Will it be that you need to bury your father first? Will it be that you have just made a purchase of real estate?9
We are in great danger in the west because there are many, many areas of pragmatism that could stop us including our finances, our hobbies, our areas of interest, and our social interactions that prevent us from following Jesus not only now but just before the final 3 ½ years where the woman of Revelation 12 will be resting in the wilderness.
