“You can’t turn back time.” “There’s no stopping progress.” It’s interesting the way we manipulate words. It’s certainly true, I suppose, that you can’t turn back time, and that there’s no stopping progress. But somehow these truisms have come to mean something other than what they say. We know the words add up, but the sentiments are patently false. To consider that perhaps the older ways are better than the newer is not to turn back time. Rather it is to honor it. And no one I know is interested in stopping progress. But if we’re wise we’ll labor to stop regress. That is that you cannot tell if you’re making progress unless you know where you came from, where you are, and where you want to go. Only a fool comforts himself while he’s lost by considering what great time he is making. These arguments are tricks the liberals play on us. They begin with the assumption that we’re moving toward their vision of the good life, and that we will inevitably get there. And so to suggest that we’re going down the wrong hill is to be accused of the folly of Sisyphus. They don’t own the future, we do. And progress is not measured by the number of Gs in your wireless network, the growth of government, or the eroding of what’s left of our moral foundation. Progress is moving toward a greater understanding of His grace, toward the consummation of His Kingdom, and toward greater obedience to His law.
But still there is the question of methods. The evangelical church is all abuzz with the great insight that we can reach the lost if only we can learn to take the morally neutral tools of the world and apply them to the spreading of the gospel. That’s how we got Christian television, Christian rock music, Christian movies, Christian enneagram books, Christian yoga, and a host of other knock-offs. I too once dreamed of having my cake and eating it to, writing the great American novel that would spawn the third great awakening. Fame and fortune would be mine, and all for the glory of God. Who says you can’t serve God and mammon?
The trouble is in the assumption that mediums are morally neutral. Our understanding of the law of God has become so blunted that we’ve lost the capacity to see sin unless it wears a neon sign announcing its nature. We’ve forgotten that there are more carnal weapons out there than cannons and fighter planes. We’ve accepted the propaganda that propaganda is an acceptable means of winning the lost. We’ve bought the lie that marketing truth is okay. There’s a madness to our modern methods.
The irony is that these pragmatic theories don’t work. When we use marketing techniques to win the lost we find, much to our surprise, that they have no more loyalty to Christ than they have for their cola of choice. We find that when we hide the cost of discipleship the “converts” aren’t willing to pay it when the bill comes due. We find that all our appeals to how new we are work only until something newer comes along.
History shows us what works. It provides the empirical data we need. When were the lost being found? When was the kingdom being built? We know of no other time like the age of the Puritans. We look and see how they proclaimed the fullness of the gospel and we find that they proclaimed it boldly, straightforwardly, and confidently. They told it boldly, refusing to hide from their audience the truths of God’s sovereignty, of the horror of Hell, of the wrath of the Father, of the cost of picking up the cross daily. They told it straightforwardly, leaving out all the bells and whistles, but instead gathering in simple buildings to hear the simple Word expounded simply. These preachers knew nothing of the importance of illustrations, or humor, or charisma. They knew the power of the Word preached. And because they knew of the power, they preached confidently, believing the Gospel to be the power of God unto salvation. They understood that when you adorn the gospel with dainties, you present a dainty God. But when you let the pure Gospel loose, it goes forth like a lion.