The joining of the church and the world in America has been years in the making. The American churchgoer was trained to view the church as having the sole purpose of making people happy, commonly labeled as moralistic therapeutic deism. Whatever struggle we face in life (and how wearisome this pastoral fixation on “struggle” has become), whatever hardship, abuse, pain, sorrow, suffering, we were told, should not be happening. God was offered as a cosmic grandpa in the sky with a big band aid so that we would never have any scrapes or bruises.
Christian ministry became a utopian endeavor. All classic soteriological and churchy language was replaced with the pastor’s own verbiage as an emotional therapist. Gone was the emphasis on sin and the need for salvation. In fact, we were told that such a message that confronts sin and calls for repentance and faith in Jesus was too oppressive to achieve real happiness.
The goal of the American pulpit was niceness, to be non-offensive, with the most winsome forms of conversational speech that would make people feel safe and non-threatened. The result was (and still is today), Sunday worship that became nothing other than a giant therapy session to feed what the Bible often calls evil desire. Read more»
Chris Gordon, “Reaping the Woke Church We Have Sown,” Abounding Grace Radio (January 28, 2021)
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R. Scott Clark
R.Scott Clark is the President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, the author and editor of, and contributor to several books and the author of many articles. He has taught church history and historical theology since 1997 at Westminster Seminary California. He has also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007.
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