Bill Muehlenberg is National Secretary of the Australian Family Association and teaches apologetics and ethics at several Melbourne Bible Colleges.
After two millennia of church history, the Christian church is at a crossroads. For the first time in human history, contemporary culture is seeking to build a kingdom with no thought or recognition of God. Secularism has triumphed in the late twentieth century, and as the twenty-first emerges, a great challenge faces the Body of Christ. Simply put, will the church allow itself to be seduced by the culture it finds itself in, or will it reemerge as a genuine counter-culture, fully upholding the values and worldview of a kingdom that has held sway for nearly 2000 years?
The challenges and threats facing the church are many, but I wish to focus on one. I refer to the predominant trend of the last half-century to place self at the center of the universe. Now since a core component of sin is selfishness, one can argue that deification of self has always been with us. And the self was given a new lease on life as a result of the Enlightenment. Yet I wish to argue that the enthroned self has always faced stiff competition—but as we embark upon the third millennium, the displacement of God from most aspects of Western culture is almost complete. God no longer features in the discourse, the thinking, or the values of modern man. In the vacuum has rushed the culture of self.
Self-worship has triumphed in the last several decades. All Christians would agree that the world can be characterized in such a fashion. But I wish to argue that this fixation on self has reached crisis proportions in the church itself. Indeed, the church is at great risk of simply appearing to be a caricature of the surrounding secular culture. The warning of Romans 12:2 has gone unheeded: “Do not be conformed to the image of the world”.
The Kingdom of Self
The cult of self is endemic in Western culture, and to a large degree, the kingdom of self has invaded the kingdom of God. Many perceptive Christians have noted this overemphasis on self in contemporary evangelicalism. They have rightly observed that the church has in many ways traded self-denial for self-fulfillment. Christians have exchanged the denial of the world for worldliness. They have sold their souls for a bowl of porridge.
Os Guinness is one observant Christian who has long charted these worrying trends. In one book he has a challenging chapter on this “triumph of the therapeutic” which plagues much of Western Christendom. Says Guinness, “The overall story of pastoral care in the United States has been summed up as the shift from salvation to self-realization, made up of smaller shifts from self-denial to self-love to self-mastery, and finally to self-realization. The victory of the therapeutic over theology is therefore nothing less than the secularization and replacement of salvation”.
Craig Gay has written an incisive book entitled The Way of the (Modern) World: Or, Why It’s Tempting to Live As if God Doesn’t Exist. In it he echoes the thoughts of Guinness: “In effect, the modern therapeutic disposition mortgages eternal destiny for the sake of comfort. It reverses Jesus’ question about the prudence of gaining the world at the cost of one’s soul (Matt. 16:26) and asks instead: What good will it be for someone to gain his ‘soul’ and lose this world?”
James Davison Hunter noted in 1983 that American evangelicalism had gone through a major shift in the latter half of the twentieth century. It has tended to downplay self-denial, sacrifice and suffering while fulfillment, happiness and emphasis on self were stressed. “Subjectivism has displaced the traditional asceticism as the dominant attitude in theologically conservative Protestant culture”.
David Wells has written a number of books on these and related themes. In a recent book he devotes most of his discourse to this theme of the triumph of the self in modern culture. Says Wells, “Much of the Church today, especially that part of it which is evangelical, is in captivity to this idolatry of the self. This is a form of corruption far more profound than the lists of infractions that typically pop into our minds when we hear the word sin. We are trying to hold at bay the gnats of small sins while swallowing the camel of self… The contemporary Church is whoring after this god as assiduously as the Israelites in their darker days. It is baptizing as faith the pride that leads us to think much about ourselves and much of ourselves”. Or as he says elsewhere, “This kind of self-fascination is by no means an excrescence of an otherwise robust sector of religious life. It is at the very center of evangelicalism”.
Charles Colson is another astute observer of culture. He put it this way: “Outwardly, we are a religious people, but inwardly our religious beliefs make no difference in how we live. We are obsessed with self”. And elsewhere he adds that “much of the church is caught up in the success mania of American society … Suffering, sacrifice, and service have been preempted by success and self-fulfillment”.
The remarks of Christian sociologist David Lyon could also be mentioned. In a penetrating analysis of the intersection of postmodernism and religion entitled Jesus in Disneyland, he speaks of the “sacralization of self”. He too is aware of the transformation of religion where the “idea of making up your personal bricolage of beliefs, choosing what fits and what does not, appears to be a popular mode of religiosity or spirituality today, especially in North America”. While some may think he is referring to the New Age movement here, he especially has in mind the evangelical church.
Interestingly, it was the earlier secular analyses by social observers like Reiff and Lasch that paved the way for later evangelical critiques. Back in 1966 Philip Reiff released his The Triumph of the Therapeutic. There he states that faith after Freud has made a remarkable journey: “Religious man was born to be saved, psychological man is born to be pleased”. A little over a decade later Christopher Lasch spoke of this “therapeutic sensibility” with prophetic insight: “The contemporary climate is therapeutic, not religious. People today hunger not for personal salvation, let alone for the restoration of an earlier golden era, but for the feeling, the momentary illusion, of personal well-being, health, and psychic security”.
Other secular assessments could be noted. In 1985, Robert Bellah and his colleagues observed in their influential Habits of the Heart the “tendency visible in many evangelical circles to thin the biblical language of sin and redemption to an idea of Jesus as the friend who helps us find happiness and self-fulfillment”. And in 1987 Allan Bloom could write, “The self is the modern substitute for the soul”.
In fact, this trend was noted as far back as 1958. Two sociologists did a study of popular inspirational literature from 1875 to 1955. They concluded their survey this way: “The [evangelical] literature presents a man-centered rather than a God-centered religion. It is preoccupied with power, success, life-mastery, and peace of mind and soul and not with salvation in the other sense of the term”.
Thus both secular and Christian critiques of modern culture have noted this drift to self. If the Christian subculture is guilty of unwarranted appeal to self, it is in many ways simply reflecting the wider secular culture, of which it is a part. As Wells reminds us, “This fascination with self is not a uniquely Christian or uniquely American phenomenon; it is the calling card modernity leaves behind wherever it goes”.
A good indication of this drift to self in the church can be seen in any contemporary Christian book store. The shelves are filled with books devoted to self. Titles abound on such themes as how to lose weight for Jesus, how to overcome self-doubt, how to improve self-image, how to find inner healing, how to achieve peace of mind, how to achieve self-realization, how to find fulfillment and success, prosperity and peace. Indeed, the “how to” type of book seems to be proliferating in Christian publishing circles. I would estimate that books which offer such an anthropocentric emphasis far outnumber books which rightly emphasise the theocentric. Bubble-gum religion has replaced serious theology.
There is a place for self-improvement and self-help books; but ultimate self-improvement comes from a right relationship with God, not a fixation on self. My critique of Christian bookstores could also be extended to many sermons heard in our churches, seminars and conferences being offered, and Christian magazines and videos. The point is, self dominates in contemporary Christianity. And when anything other than God predominates, it becomes idolatry.
Bucking the Trend
How are we to reverse this lethal trend of self in the churches? How can we again become a genuine counterculture in a world obsessed with self? One can the “saturated self,” as one writer puts it, become the God-centered self? In one sense, the answer is simple. We need to return to a vision of the one for whom the church exists. We need to regain a vision of our saviour who came to serve, not to be served. In other words, we need to regain a sense of what basic Christianity is all about.
Since the creation of man, God has been busy as the great iconoclast. That is, ever since Adam and Eve, God has had to constantly shatter our icons, our idols, our false pictures and concepts about himself. Joseph, Moses, Peter and Paul, to name but a few, have had to have their images of God broken and recast.
Given our finite and sin-effected minds, it should not be surprising that we continually misunderstand and misrepresent almighty God. Our concept of God is often too limited, too petty, too human. As J.B. Phillips once put it, “your God is too small”. Let me provide one important example of this.
We live in an age in which people will not commit themselves to something unless they believe they will get something out of it—some kind of benefit or privilege. “What’s in it for me?” is the question often heard. We don’t want to commit ourselves to anything unless there is some reward or prize given in return. I must confess this mentality extends even to my own family: ask the kids to wash the car or do some other chore, and the first response is, “How much do I get paid?”!
This mindset has unfortunately found its way into the Christian church. People want to know what they will get out of Christianity if they commit themselves to it. How will Christ enrich my life, make me feel better, or deal with my problems?, we are asked.
Such questions are legitimate questions. And there is a place for presenting the gospel in terms of what benefits people will gain as a result of their commitment. But in spite of the many benefits one receives upon commitment to Christ—eternal life, sins forgiven, peace of mind, friendship with God, etc.—these are not the main reasons we should come to God. We should come to God for one reason only: because he is God and we are not. He is the sovereign Lord of the universe who deserves our worship. And he claims double ownership over us—by creation and salvation. Sure, we will get benefits galore when we turn to him in repentance and faith, but that should not be our primary motivation.
Several passages of Scripture forcefully illustrate this idea. Remember the familiar story of Daniel’s three friends and the fiery furnace? It is worth having another look at.
In Daniel chapter 3, verses 16 and 17 we read these words: “Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to the king, ‘O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king’”.
But verse 18 is the clincher: “But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”
This is a crucial verse. The three men believe God will come to their rescue. But even if he does not, they will still remain true to Him. They will still refuse to bow down to false gods. I wonder how often we desert our Lord in the face of adversity. We go through some hard times and we are ready to hand in our faith. It is the faith of Job that is needed in times like this: “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15).
Habakkuk has a similar view of things: “Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Saviour” (Hab 3:17,18).
Real faith means I will trust God no matter what. Regardless of my circumstances, I will still trust and obey Him. Faith is based on knowledge of the character of God. If we know, really know, that God is too wise to make a mistake, and too loving to be unkind, we can trust him in the dark times to be faithful, even if we don’t see what we expect in the situation.
A similar thought is found in Hebrews 11. This is the ‘hall of fame’ chapter for the great heroes of the faith. Many of these great saints did not receive what they were promised, yet they still exercised great faith. Of particular interest is verse 34. There it speaks of those great men of faith who “escaped the edge of the sword”. Praise God! Yet read a few verses further on. There it speaks of men of faith who “died by the edge of the sword” (v. 37). So what was the difference? Both sets of saints were full of faith. Yet some got the axe while others escaped it. Did God love either group any less or any more? Was the faith of these heroes rewarded differently? Or was God the sovereign Lord over both sets of saints?
Such a message should affect both our Christian life and the way we present the gospel. It should give us hope that despite our circumstances, God is stillon the throne and he is still working his purposes in our lives. And it should cause us to rethink the way we present the gospel. Do we persuade men to come to Christ simply for all the benefits they will get out of it, or do we proclaim Christ as Lord who deserves to be worshipped and obeyed? He is God after all. And as Romans 14:11 states, whether we like it or not, one day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord.
Only as the church recovers the radical nature of Christian discipleship will the sugar-coated gospel give way to the self-denying call of Christ. With this in mind, we must conclude that in many respects the Christian church today is a good reflection of modern hedonistic ‘me-first’ culture, but is a poor reflection of the gospel message. We are here to serve and worship our Lord, not to see what material benefits we can weasel out of him. As Michael Horton has put it, “We exist for his pleasure, not he for ours; we are on this earth to entertain him, to please him, to adore him, to bring him satisfaction, excitement, and joy. Any gospel which seeks to answer the question, ’What’s in it for me?’ has it all backwards. The question is, ’What’s in it for God?’”. Oral Roberts University professor Charles Farah echoes this idea, noting that contemporary evangelical theology (especially in the form of the prosperity gospel and health and wealth gospel) “represents an unwitting return to the old liberal theology that exalts man at the expense of God. A man-centered theology must ultimately fail, because truth finally triumphs; and the truth is, God is not here for our convenience, we are here for his purposes”.
These truths must be constantly hammered into our souls and spirits. If they are not, we will continue to stumble, to fall, and to shame our master. The church has for too long allowed a humanised gospel to drown out the divine gospel. And such drastic faults require drastic surgery—not more tinkering at the edges. David Wells aptly describes the situation:
The fundamental problem in the evangelical world today is not inadequate technique, insufficient organization, or antiquated music, and those who want to squander the church’s resources bandaging these scratches will do nothing to stanch the flow of blood that is spilling from its true wounds. The fundamental problem in the evangelical world today is that God rests too inconsequentially upon the church, his truth is too distant, his grace is too ordinary, his judgment is too benign, his gospel is too easy, and his Christ is too common.
As the church moves into its third millennium, the choice will be clear. Do we continue to mimic the ways of the world, or do we begin to challenge them? How we answer that question will determine not only the fate of the church, but the fate of the world.
