Church Universal, Church Triumphant...
Church Relevant? By Kelly Klages
T
H I G H E R T H I N G S __ 8
hese days, news items seem to come out weekly about apparently conservative Christian groups making concessions to leftist social values and paradigms. This fall, for example, Hillsong pastors Brian Houston and Carl Lentz famously evaded condemnation of gay marriage, speaking instead of “being in conversation with people” and “not wanting to tell them how to live on their own journey.” What’s going on here? I would propose that this is not just a case of people going from right to left. What the American church has called “conservative” for so many years, though it may have been socially or politically conservative, has actually been underpinned with theological liberalism from the very beginning. It’s good for Lutherans to be aware of these trends so we can watch out for those things which would pull us away from a real Savior who rescues us from our real sins. Here are some examples...
Law/Gospel confusion. A common denominator, universal to people of every stripe, is the disappearance of the centrality of the Gospel. We used to associate “love is all you need” with a more left-wing dismissal of doctrine and objective truth in favor of “love.” But it is just as common to hear Christians of a more conservative type say that the most important and defining teaching of Christianity is “love God and love your neighbor.” Such
