Missional: Culture Makers (2/4)

There are basically 4 types of Christian organizational groups that exist in a general sense. Only one of the four seeks to make/change culture for the benefit of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

1)Hyper-Fundamentalists
2)Liberals
3)Para-churchers
4)Missionals
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Today, I will discuss the 2nd group:

2)Liberals
(Church + Culture - Gospel = Liberalism)

Jesus encountered Liberals during His time on earth as well. The cultural Liberals in NT times were a group called the Sadducees that took religion and mixed it with much compromise. They were the ones who tried to look the most socially acceptable in the culture. They did not strive for the Gospel or even holiness, but they instead sought after the best social status possible. Popularity became their god essentially. They were known more as cultural accommodators that would quickly give up on hard teachings of the Scripture in order to seem more politically accurate. They gave up the Gospel in their churches. So Liberalism is really nothing new.

Today, a Liberal church is sometimes hard to pinpoint if one is not sound in the Scriptures. They put on a cloak of humility that some people are drawn to. They do really good things in and for the community and culture that seem to be real beneficial and biblical, but they neglect certains teachings that would harm their attendance or social status. That is why if you are not biblically sound yourself, it will be hard to realize what they are NOT teaching. They have pretty good cultural habits as far as being environmentally friendly and trying to help the poor and helping widows which is extrememly important, but what they teach people about the Bible is very dangerous.

Liberals tend to leave out repentance, the cross, blood and the exclusivity of Jesus as the only Savior in their doctrine and teaching. Some have even abandoned the pulpit to have open discussion or dialogue about what is right and wrong and what other religions have to offer us as well. Many essential teachings of the Bible are "take it or leave it" according to the Liberals. They believe that there is no real way to know what Jesus meant when He spoke in the Scriptures - so to be absolute about the Bible is to be arrogant. The liberal cloak of humility is one that makes the Scripture an obsolete book written by men just like any other book. In other words, to know something for sure is to be prideful. This is a horrendous teaching that saddens and angers the heart of God especially after He poured Himself into a book written through the power of the Holy Spirit with full salvific revelation once for all delivered to the saints=us.

The problem is that they sin by forsaking the truth of the Gospel and in so doing they have made culture their god rather than the true God. They still have church (though it is weird that they are selling to people what people already believe) and they will always be somewhat prevalent. The result of Liberalism is that they reflect the culture back at the culture rather than reflecting Jesus to the culture. Mark Driscoll calls them the "Mirror" churches because they are just the same as the culture. They eventually compromise on sins and make them normal functions in the church such as: homosexuality, abortion, women as pastors of churches, and allowing more than one way to heaven. Another result is that there is no real cultural transformation taking place because when there is no Gospel and no personal holiness amidst a dark culture then there is nothing new. They are disobedient and grotesque! In reality, they just have fancy ways of saying, "We Think God Is Wrong." Another tragic result of Liberalism is that it scares the Hyper-fundamentalists into their own corner of Christianity.

Hyper-fundamentalists see the Liberal church as the greatest threat. They see that the Liberals have made culture their God so, in turn, they will just be the polar opposite and flee from cultural association altogether.

Jesus, in the same Scripture as we discussed above, prayed that we would keep from Liberalism as well as Hyper-fundamentalism.
John 17:15
I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.

Jesus says that we are sent as missionaries by God and that we should not leave the world, but since we are in the world, we should be sanctified by the Scriptures (vs 17) and not give in to sin and Satan.

Be Light in darkness.
(to be continued...) Next Post: Para-churchers


For more info: refer to Mark Driscoll's Vintage Church and Radical Reformission.