I am reading a book that contains the addresses presented at the 2006 “Together for the Gospel” conference.  Several of the most influential Reformed scholars of our time spoke to preachers there about the importance of “Preaching the Cross” (the book’s title) in an age when much preaching has been pitifully watered-down.  The speakers included Mark Dever, Ligon Duncan, Al Mohler, R. C. Sproul, John Piper, C. J. Mahaney, and John MacArthur.  The addresses were published in this volume by Crossway Books in 2007.

One of the messages given - and printed - was by Al Mohler, whose blog/commentary I read almost every day (at www.albertmohler.com).  He spoke to the issue of “Preaching with the Culture in View.”  In that address, he elaborated on the ways in which our culture has become so absorbed with “self” as to make this virtually an anti-gospel, one that we can fall for as Christians if we’re not careful.  Here are the first three categories of this alternate gospel.  Next time, I’ll add the other four.

SELF-FULFILLMENT.  Radical individualism reigns and convinces people that they have a right to an exciting, exhilarating, satisfying life.  Happiness is the idol that tantalizes the heart.  To achieve that, people need therapy.  Preaching becomes a form of “group session therapy.” Christian bookstores are filled with “inspirational” books that offer a secular therapeutic worldview with a sprinkling of Bible verses to make them sound Christian.  Media evangelists of the health-and-wealth and name-it/claim-it schools promote this idea that God wants you to have everything you’ve ever dreamed of.  Mohler writes …

... that the psychotherapeutic worldview suggests that all Americans, all human beings through all history, in fact, are either in therapy or in denial ….  They believe that they have an alien problem that is to be resolved with an inner solution.  What the gospel says, however, is that we have an inner problem that demands an alien solution.

That alien solution, of course, is repentance and faith at the foot of the cross.

SELF-SUFFICIENCY.  People have adopted an exaggerated view of their own competency, which has led them to believe that they possess within themselves everything they need for the self-fulfillment they are convinced is their birth-right.  That includes a self-sufficient authority that frees them from bowing to any authority outside of themselves.  No one else has the right to tell them what to believe, or what they can or cannot do.  But the true Gospel calls us not to self-sufficiency – depending totally on ourselves, but to Christ-sufficiency – depending totally on Him.

SELF-DEFINITION.  This takes self-suffiency one step further down the path of radical self-autonomy by claiming that we have the right to define things in whatever way we choose.  Look at how our culture is seeking to redefine what it means to be human (using embyos for stem cell-research), what it means to be male and female (sex-change operations), even redefining marriage (gay marriages today, multiple marital partners tomorrow).  This is a part of post-modernism’s claim that all truth is socially constructed and is free for deconstruction by each individual.

Have we fallen for any of these lies?  Is culture’s anti-gospel infecting our thinking?  (part two - the next four - next time)