Millennials and the “false gospel of nice”

To provide a little bit more balance to my blog, and to build upon the sixth point that I talked about yesterday:

http://stevenuessle.blogspot.com/2014/06/frank-viola-top-7-reasons-why-people.html

I wanted to link to an article by Daniel Darling from the Southern Baptist Convention.

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2014/04/03/millennials-and-the-false-gospel-of-nice/

In this article he takes a further look at the ideas that millennials are fleeing the church and that the orthodox teaching of Christianity (as he defines it) is not the true teaching of Christ. The problem is laid out in these two quotes:

If key evangelical influencers don’t listen, we are told, they are about to lose the entire millennial generation. Or, maybe that generation is already gone.

And:

If only orthodox evangelical leaders would give up their antiquated beliefs, get more in step with the real Jesus, the church and the world would be better off.

The short answer that Darling gives is that neither of these ideas are actually true. And I for the most part agree with him.

The first part is that milennials are leaving the church in droves. This is most likely not as true as the most dire projections make it out to be. Part of the reason is that many milennials are shifting from being nominal Christians to being non-affiliated Christians, which is something that I covered here:

http://stevenuessle.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-shift-from-nominal-to-none.html

Another point made by Darling, and something that I am quite sympathetic to, is that the projections of the death of the church have been made for decades, and while numbers may be down, Christianity is nowhere near death. There are a variety of reasons why milennials have been hesitant to commit to churches or denominations, but that doesn’t mean the church is dying.

Darling continues by acknowledging some of the concerns of the Southern Baptist convention, such as declines in baptisms and membership, but he wants to make clear it is not because of orthodoxy.

So what is the reason? Darling points to “a lack of faithful preaching and intentional gospel witness” as the main reasons. He further states that “a mushy, heterodox movement is [not] the cure for stagnation.” On these points I fully agree. The issue that of course comes up is what exactly constitutes faithful preaching and intentional witness.

I suspect that both of us would agree Christ should be at the center. My theme of the past couple of days has been Christ crucified and Christ resurrected. This can form the core of faithful preaching and intentional gospel witness. The question is what happens when people expand beyond that. Do they focus on more on morality or do the maintain focus on resurrection? Is it more about personal behavior, or more about new life?

Darling points to some good news as it relates to Southern Baptists:

Networks such as The Gospel Coalition, Together for the Gospel and others are growing. Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, an unflinching bastion of orthodoxy, enrolls more Masters of Divinity students than any other institution accredited by the Association of Theological Schools.

These are good trends, so long as this is concerned. But even he admits it is more anecdotal evidence than a true measure of growth. I suspect that we may be seeing the development of a hard core with a somewhat shrinking population, but one that is becoming both more vocal and more entrenched.

Darling then talks about how Jesus was not afraid to be hated by the world, quoting Jesus in several scriptural passages. This is all true, and surely I agree, but I suspect again that Darling is fundamentally misunderstanding the reason for the world’s hatred.

I see the hatred because of how offensive the gospel is to the world. The idea that rebirth and new life comes from the power of Christ, not the power of any worldly institution. The idea that the last will be first and the first will be last. The idea that Jesus came to serve, not to be served. These are especially offensive in a society that is seeing increasing economic disparity and the power lying primarily in those with great wealth or access. How offensive is it that Christ, at the pinnacle of His power, chose to ignore the temptation of temporal power and instead laid down His life for all of us.

I think this is much different than making sure you have right political views or right theological positions. How offensive are you actually if you look around and see that you are surrounded by people who look and think exactly like you do, and you aren’t the marginalized of society. The true orthodoxy is Christ crucified and Christ resurrected. There is space for everyone after that.

I agree with his critique of the progressive notion of faith, I wrote about it here:

http://stevenuessle.blogspot.com/2014/06/thoughts-on-progressive-religion-and.html

The answer is not a Jesus that appeals to everything and everyone so that it no longer means anything. The answer is to start with the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ, and everything will flow from that.

With that said, I want to end on some notes of positivity from the article in regards to the orthodox.

But if you move past the rhetoric, you’ll find that it is often not aggrieved ex-evangelicals who are founding and leading charitable organizations, but the stubbornly orthodox. Faithful Christians are not the only ones in the trenches, relieving human need - but they make up a large percentage.All over the world, you will find faithful followers of Christ adopting orphaned children, rescuing girls from trafficking, feeding the poor, digging wells and volunteering in disaster relief. … And some of the world’s most effective ministries to the poor and marginalized were started by and continue to operate according to evangelical Christian beliefs. They live in the tension of the New Testament, which calls believers to both faithfulness and charity.

Amen to this.