Standing Alone

For years, we were urged to be “seeker-sensitive,” and rightly so (who would want to be “seeker- insensitive?“) But we’ve taken that paradigm in an unintended direction, and it’s revealed a glaring weakness in our understanding of what it is to be a pastor.

It goes like this: Pastors, by nature, are people who love and care about other people.  That’s a good thing – unless we mistake that love for people as meaning that we are also to be love by all people.  That desire to be liked can reduce the boldness that’s demanded from the pulpit.

“It’s not that complex,” a man told me, as we discussed how so many Christian institutions have become compromised by the culture.  “It happens as soon as the desire for the respectability of humans outweighs the hunger to please God.”  That said, I have to ask: How has our preaching worked out for us over the last 40 years?  Are our communities more righteous?  Or less so?

Fifty years ago, people understood that killing a baby in the womb is wrong.  Preach that today, and you’re being “too political.”  Say that homosexual behavior is unacceptable, or that marriage means one man and one woman: again, you’re too political.  What has happened?

A friend of mine lost a lot of weight and became very athletic, a runner.  People started worrying, saying, “You’re way too thin.”  She finally told them, “You’ve never seen me healthy.”  Well, when people tell me, “You’re too political,” my response is, “You’ve never seen biblical.”

As pastors, are we such clear disseminators of truth that we pose a threat to those who would try to oppress freedom, truth, and righteousness in our culture?  For so many years, we’ve failed to provide biblical preaching in America.  Now, when our people hear biblical preaching, they don’t recognize it as being biblical.   They think it’s somehow “political.”

That’s largely our own fault, for caring more about the affection of the culture than the truth of the Gospel.