American Churchgoers were once Christian, back when the Gospel was something real and important

To those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ:
May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.
Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

(Jude 1:1-4 ESV)

So how do you know the real from the fake?  Easy, the real is, well, simple:

1. You are born in sin and an object of God’s wrath.

2. Jesus came in the flesh and lived a sinless life and atoning death to satisfy God’s wrath.

3. Those who repent of their sin and believe in Christ’s atoning work for the forgiveness of sin will be saved.

4. We are called to receive the sacrements of communion, baptism, and preaching of the word in the same passive manner we were made righteous.

The hammer of the law and the balm of the gospel.  If what you are hearing each Sunday isn’t THAT, then you’ve got an arena, a ball, and a court.. you’ve got a coach and a crowd, but the whistles are blowing “Foul!”.  Call it basketball, call it “church”, but it’s something entirely different. “It is what it is, but church it ain’t.”  Instead, the overwhelming majority of American evangelicalism has created it’s own gospel;

1. God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.

2. Become a Christ Follower and discover that purpose.

3. God’s plan is bigger than your plan! Dream audaciously!

4. Begin to; Believe, Speak, and Step out in faith to “birth” this dream that God has for your life.

No wrath, no repentance, no atonement. In short, you don’t need a bloody cross for that; that’s nothing more than subjective, pragmatic, narcissism.  And look around, it sells! (which, according to pragmatism, makes it both true and successful, right?)

Keep your eyes, ears, and minds alert. Listen for the subtle perversions.  Listen to your preacher, does he sound like a man proclaiming a historic fact (news anchor) or does he sound like someone trying to sell you his pragmatic vision (sham-wow-guy)?  What would our brothers and sisters in the early church have thought of “God has a wonderful purpose for your life” mantra as they were fed to lions?  Does your “best life now” sound anything like the earthly ministry of Jesus? Or, are they simply using “church language” to sell the American dream?