WEAK CHRISTIANITY TENDS TOWARD HUMANISM

“…That your love may abound more and more in knowledge and in all judgment…that ye may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ” (PHILIPPIANS 1:9-10)

I am in disagreement with many when I insist that the flaw in current evangelism lies in its humanistic approach. It struggles to be supernaturalistic but never quite makes it. It is frankly fascinated by the great, noisy, aggressive world with its big names, its hero worship, its wealth and its garish pageantry.

 

In this quasi-Christian scheme of things God becomes the Aladdin lamp who does the bidding of everyone that will accept His Son and sign a card. The total obligation of the sinner is discharged when he accepts Christ. After that he has but to come with his basket and receive the religious equivalent of everything the world offers and enjoy it to the limit.

 

Those who have not accepted Christ thus must be content with this world, but with the view held by many today the Christian gets this world with the one to come thrown in as a bonus!

 

This gross misapprehension of the truth is back of much of our present evangelical activity. It determines directions, builds programs, decides the content of sermons, fixes the quality of local churches and even of whole denominations, sets the pattern for religious writers.

 

This concept of Christianity is little more than weak humanism allied with weak Christianity to give it ecclesiastical respectability. It may be identified by its religious approach. Invariably it begins with man and his needs and then looks around for God; true Christianity reveals God as searching for man to deliver him from his ambitions!

 

  1. W. Tozer