“Wait a minute”, you exclaim. “It is historically impossible for C.S. Lewis and Martin Luther to comment on Rick Warren. They were both dead long before Rick Warren launched Saddleback Church or wrote the Purpose Driven Life.”
You may be technically correct but, remember that the book of Ecclesiastes tells us that there is “nothing new under the sun”. Fact is, Rick Warren did not invent the soft-pedaled 'seeker-friendly' gospel. Warren isn’t the first man in history to think that the way to convince someone to become a Christian is by telling him how helpful Christianity can be while avoiding negative and thorny topics like sin, the devil, hell and repentance. These types of preachers existed in Luther’s time and they existed in C.S. Lewis’ day. Warren is just the current and most popular incarnation of this type of preacher.
Fortunately for us, both Luther and C.S. Lewis commented on the 'seeker-sensitive' approach long before the term ‘seeker sensitive’ was invented. What they had to say about it is eye-opening and profound. We’d be wise to listen to them.
Here is what Luther said about preaching the gospel without first preaching God’s law:
Is it not blindness, yea, worse than blindness that [one] does not want to preach the Law without and before the Gospel? How can one preach forgiveness of sins before sins are known? How can one announce life before death is known? For grace must wage war, and be victorious in us, against the Law and sin, lest we despair.
Here is what C.S. Lewis had to say on this matter in his book Mere Christianity:
Christianity simply does not make sense until you face the sort of facts I have been describing. Christianity tells people to repent and promises them forgiveness. It therefore has nothing (as far as I know) to say to people who do not know that they have anything to repent of and who do not feel that they need any forgiveness. It is after you have realised that there is a real moral law and a power behind the law and that you have broken that law and put yourself wrong with that power - It is after all this, and not a moment sooner, that Christianity begins to talk. When you know you are sick, you will listen to the doctor. When you have realised that our position is nearly desperate you begin to understand what the Christians are talking about...They tell you how the demands of this law, which you and I cannot meet, have been met on our behalf. How God himself becomes a man to save man from the disapproval of God. It is an old story...All I am doing is to ask people to face the facts - to understand the questions which Christianity claims to answer. And they are very terrifying facts. I wish it was possible to say something more agreeable. But I must say what I think true. Of course, I quite agree that the Christian religion is, in the long run a thing of unspeakable comfort. But it does not begin in comfort; it begins in the dismay I am describing and it is no use at all to go on to that comfort without first going through that dismay. In religion, as in war and everything else comfort is the one thing you cannot get by looking for it. If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end: If you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth. - only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with and, in the end despair.
Luther and Lewis are giants in Christian thought. Both of them, writing hundreds of years apart, agree that the seeker-sensitive approach to evangelism misses the mark.
I think they were right. How about you?
For more information about how Rick Warren’s approach to the gospel sacrifices Biblical truth in order to be positive, I recommend reading the article written by Dr. Gary Gilley entitled, "The Gospel According to Warren". You can read it by clicking here.
You may be technically correct but, remember that the book of Ecclesiastes tells us that there is “nothing new under the sun”. Fact is, Rick Warren did not invent the soft-pedaled 'seeker-friendly' gospel. Warren isn’t the first man in history to think that the way to convince someone to become a Christian is by telling him how helpful Christianity can be while avoiding negative and thorny topics like sin, the devil, hell and repentance. These types of preachers existed in Luther’s time and they existed in C.S. Lewis’ day. Warren is just the current and most popular incarnation of this type of preacher.
Fortunately for us, both Luther and C.S. Lewis commented on the 'seeker-sensitive' approach long before the term ‘seeker sensitive’ was invented. What they had to say about it is eye-opening and profound. We’d be wise to listen to them.
Here is what Luther said about preaching the gospel without first preaching God’s law:
Is it not blindness, yea, worse than blindness that [one] does not want to preach the Law without and before the Gospel? How can one preach forgiveness of sins before sins are known? How can one announce life before death is known? For grace must wage war, and be victorious in us, against the Law and sin, lest we despair.
Here is what C.S. Lewis had to say on this matter in his book Mere Christianity:
Christianity simply does not make sense until you face the sort of facts I have been describing. Christianity tells people to repent and promises them forgiveness. It therefore has nothing (as far as I know) to say to people who do not know that they have anything to repent of and who do not feel that they need any forgiveness. It is after you have realised that there is a real moral law and a power behind the law and that you have broken that law and put yourself wrong with that power - It is after all this, and not a moment sooner, that Christianity begins to talk. When you know you are sick, you will listen to the doctor. When you have realised that our position is nearly desperate you begin to understand what the Christians are talking about...They tell you how the demands of this law, which you and I cannot meet, have been met on our behalf. How God himself becomes a man to save man from the disapproval of God. It is an old story...All I am doing is to ask people to face the facts - to understand the questions which Christianity claims to answer. And they are very terrifying facts. I wish it was possible to say something more agreeable. But I must say what I think true. Of course, I quite agree that the Christian religion is, in the long run a thing of unspeakable comfort. But it does not begin in comfort; it begins in the dismay I am describing and it is no use at all to go on to that comfort without first going through that dismay. In religion, as in war and everything else comfort is the one thing you cannot get by looking for it. If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end: If you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth. - only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with and, in the end despair.
Luther and Lewis are giants in Christian thought. Both of them, writing hundreds of years apart, agree that the seeker-sensitive approach to evangelism misses the mark.
I think they were right. How about you?
For more information about how Rick Warren’s approach to the gospel sacrifices Biblical truth in order to be positive, I recommend reading the article written by Dr. Gary Gilley entitled, "The Gospel According to Warren". You can read it by clicking here.
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