Doctrinal Accomodation

I was struck by this quote earlier today:

"I pray that the younger evangelicals who are pondering where to put their energies will learn from history that doctrinal accommodation brings larger audiences in the short run but death and irrelevance in the long run."

Piper's comment above came at the end of a brief summary of an article on the death of Mainline Protestantism in the last thirty years. Joseph Bottum calls this decline the "central historical fact of our time" so I perked up and read Bottum's explanation. The objective of this article is not to point to Christ as savior but it is an interesting article.

Piper's closing remarks in his summary are reaffirming for our ministry in Everman as we try to do things of substance to foster growth in the youth there. Many churches' desires to be relevant to those outside of the church cause them to tolerate compromises in theology. This ultimately leads to their inability to minister to the true needs of the very group they are seeking to reach. According to one of the sources cited by Bottum, "the single best predictor of church participation turned out to be belief—orthodox Christian belief, and especially the teaching that a person can be saved only through Jesus Christ."

Orthodox belief...not well planned, non-threatening, relational family programs or utilization of the latest technology for worship or a focus on the social plights of the day or environmentalism or the economy or politics or even a spurning of "archaic" doctrines to accomodate those less comfortable with church. Belief in Jesus as Lord. Funny, isn't it, that the One who began the church blesses the church when its focus is Him? What else is funny is that when Christ is the center, all those other things are affected: our treatment of the environment, how we spend money, how we "do" church, what we believe about doctrine. Hmmm...

For the summary of the article by John Piper (brief and to the point), click here: Dying Protestantism. For the full length (and I do mean FULL length) article by Joseph Bottum, click here: The Death of Protestant America.

Let me know what you think.