Church morphing: a worldly church?

Let's start with a quick quiz to determine to what extent the twentieth century Evangelical church espoused philosophical modernism.
How many of these modernist adages did the 20th century Evangelical church assimilate into its ethos or praxis? If and when they were applied, what forms did they take?
“I think therefore I am”
“Dare to know”
“Knowledge is power”
“Seeing is believing”
“We can do this if we will”

How many of these modernist maxims did the 20th century Evangelical church adopt into its ethos or praxis? If and when they were applied, what forms did they take?
The intellect can deduce truth with absolute certainty
Man will act logically
Progress is inherently good
The real world is material
By and large the Evangelical church of the twentieth century (with the exception of some postmillennialists) did not adopt the modernist belief that reason, by means of ideology-embodying institutions, would create utopia on earth on behalf of the autonomous individual. But I contend that she did absorb more philosophical modernism than is generally admitted.

The three “I ”s of modernism were:
Intellect (manifested through the reign of reason),
Ideology-embodied in Institutions, and
the deification of autonomous Individual.
All three of these tenets of modernism can be seen in the 20th century Evangelical church. The focus on the INTELLECT could be seen in the centrality, even dominance, of the teaching ministry in contradistinction to teaching being dynamically intertwined with apostolic, prophetic, evangelistic and shepherding ministries, for the equipping of the people of God, as Ephesians 4:11-12 teaches.

I do not believe anyone would contest the assertion that 20th century Evangelical churches made an enormous investment of time in Bible study. This was good in and of itself. Often, however, this cultivation of a biblically informed intellect was disproportionate with, and to the detriment of investment in other equally biblical essentials such as prayer, evangelism, disciple making….

The 20th century Evangelical church’s morphing into ideology-embodying INTITUTIONS was reflected in the stanch denominationalism of members (“I am a Baptist, a card carrying Conservative Baptist!”). Exclusivist denominationalism of clergy reflected in the thinking, not that every ten thousand people need a believing church witness as missiologists claim, but that people needed a particular brand of collective witness to the saving grace of Christ. Thus every town needed a Grace Brethren, Assembly of God, Southern Baptist... church. (Some towns could get really crowded if every one of the more than 22,000 Protestant denominations were represented!).

The 20th century Evangelical church’s focus on the autonomous INDIVIDUAL is seen in the Lone Ranger, “Just Me and God,” approach to discipleship and the Superman approach to the ministry.

The Lone Ranger disciple read every “you” reference in the New Testament as singular, whereas many (most?) of these passages are plural, addressing the church collectively. Of course, most churches now recognize the absolute necessity of heeding the "one another" exhortations in Scripture.

The individualistic Superman pastor was modernist as well, expected to be the evangelist - theologian - teacher - preacher - counselor - shepherd - administrator - strategist - bulletin-producing janitor! Yet today we recognize that Scripture teaches a multiplicity of gifted people serving together in a coordinated manner.


So there are indications that many 20th century Evangelical churches embodied central tenets of philosophical modernism. Some even became reason-led, ideology-embodying institutions and catering to the autonomous individual.

In my discussions with pastors, a modernist approach is sometimes defended because in philosophical modernism absolute “truth” exists. They fear that a rejection of modernism means a rejection of knowable Truth. But truth existed, and people believed in God and the Bible before modernism, as some will do after modernism has passed.


No, the 20th century Evangelical church did not preach philosophical modernism's conclusion of utopia on earth, but it did adopt some of its values.

So to what extent did churches become guilty of worldliness by the assimilation of modernism's focus on the Intellect over the spirit, Institution over organism, and the Individual over the collective?

Seeing the rotten fruit of modernism (previous entry) and knowing of modernism's inimical relationship to faith (see May 10, 2006 entry), was the assimilation of modernist values without deleterious effects to the local church?

Were the modernist tenets systematically helpful for living and spreading the Good News of Christ?

Is it not possible that biblical essentials were filtered out of local churches ethos and praxis due to modernism's subversive influence?

My firm conviction is that this was indeed the case.

Church morphing: backdrop of modernist church

(This entry picks up where the May 10, 2006 "Contextualization: tailoring good news" and philosophical blogs on modernism left off. It will provide the backdrop for why expressions of true Church according to Jesus, ekklesia, must morph in order to truly embody the essence of Jesus' desire for His Church in the 21st century.)

Friedrich Nietzsche’s superMan, Zarathoustra, led the way into the 20th century declaring, “God is dead!” Religion, though not expunged, had been pushed out of the public arena relegated to the private sphere. (Religion was culpable from the Crusades and the Inquisition, thus synonymous with hypocrisy, torture and bloodshed — see January 2006 blogs.)



Reason, rather than religion, would lead the way into the future. The modernist motto was, “There will be war no more!” Man would no longer be exploited by other men. The modernist promise was that ideology-embodying institutions would create a utopia-on-earth on behalf of the autonomous individual.

Does not the posture of the men in this poster reveal that man was serving Progress and not vice versa?

What happened? Under the reign of Human Reason, the world experienced the greatest collective bloodbath in the history of mankind, leaving 113 million dead (not counting Stalin's massacres because that toll is unknown).

A great disillusionment was ushered in because modern Man with his noble ideology, technology, transportation, medicine, and a progressive understanding of history… created highly efficient means of killing men before they could die from the diseases that modern medicine could not heal.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn summed up the 20th century by saying, “the most optimistic century ended as the most cannibalistic.” Instead of ushering in utopia-on-earth, Modernism's Intellect/reason developed ideology-embodying institutions that created hell-on-earth for the autonomous individual. Modernist fruit thus revealed itself to be rotten to the core:

• Man’s intelligence proved impotent in the face of famine and AIDS.
• Reason devised Auschwitz and other ideology-embodying death camps ("the death industry" as Zygmunt Bauman put it).
• Individualism led to isolation.

For a glimpse into the postmodern dark mood toward modernism's promises about the fruit of man's intellect / reason, ideology-embodying institutions and the true value of the autonomous individual in society, decode the symbols in Pink Floyd's video clip "Just Another Brick in the Wall" — train, teacher, school, facelessness, meat grinder:

Next up: SO WHAT?
Did the twentieth century evangelical church espouse modernism thus becoming a reason-led, individualistic, ideology-embodying institution?

controversial household rules

"It's a trap," they said, fearing I would get embroiled in a post-seminar blog war. So some close friends counseled me not to do the Equip '07 seminar, Guiding Principles for the People of God in a Postmodern World.

But I felt that God would have me equip the body from an apostolic perspective rather than the typical teacher's point of view; as another Paul put it, "apostles… teachers… Their responsibility is to equip God's people to do his work… until we come to… unity in our faith and knowledge of God's Son…"

Because of the great need that I sense for people to understand the destabilizing implications of postmodernism for the church, with prayer and trepidation, I went for it.

Because we would wrestle with the controversial, emotionally charged topics of inherited and emergent and emerging churches I decided to do something radical… create a safe place for discussion by applying God's household rules!

God gives rules of conduct to those who are part of His household. Paul wrote to Timothy, “you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth.” (1 Ti. 3:15)

So, for example, we agreed to obey the last verse of 1 Corinthians 14, “everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way.” “Orderly” is used one time in the passage. How much more then did we need to agree to intentionally edify one another (οικοδομεω is used 7x in the passage)!

Historically the Grace Brethren have been committed to biblical truth, biblical relationships and biblical mission. So in our discussions we sought to live by God's household rules for cultivating biblical relationships:


• Practice maintaining the unity of the Spirit (Eph. 4:2-3)
• Practice speaking the truth in love toward the goal of peace (Eph. 4:2-3, 25)
• Practice edification (1 Cor. 14:3,4,5,12,17,26)
• Practice discipleship (Mt. 28:19-20)
• Practice focusing on God’s work rather than controversies (1 Tim. 1:4)
• Practice praying for everyone (1 Ti. 2:1)
• Practice being examples in life, love, faith, purity (1 Ti. 4:12)
• Practice loving your neighbor as intensely as Jesus loves you (Jn. 13:34-35).

Since not everyone felt able to live perfectly by these household rules :-), we can stopped to pray, asking God to change us, sanctify us according to His truth, and by His Spirit, to enable us to live according to His truth.

In prayer, we committed to practice biblical truth and biblical relationships during our time together. God answered our prayers. And I have been happily enjoying a peaceful, blog-war free post-seminar existence! May He now cause us to be more fruitful as we embark on biblical mission in a postmodern world.
“As the differences among true Christians get greater, we must consciously love” more intensely. We “cannot expect the world to understand doctrinal differences, especially in our day when the existence of truth and absolutes are considered unthinkable even as concepts.… But when they see differences among true Christians who also show an observable unity, this will open the way for them to consider the truth of… Christ’s claim that the Father did send the Son.” (Francis Schaeffer, The Mark of the Christian)