Pragmatism's Poisoning of the Church

According to The American Heritage New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Pragmatism is "an approach to philosophy, primarily held by American philosophers, which holds that the truth or meaning of a statement is to be measured by its practical consequences." In other words, something is considered to be true and meaningful if it works, and if it works well then it is good. Many of you are probably wondering, "Why should I care?"

The reason why we need to be familiar with this philosophy is because it has infiltrated the church today, and the consequences are frightening. To show how this has changed the church we can take a look at the difference between the First and Second Great Awakenings. The First was focused on the preaching of justification by faith alone, the sovereignty of God, and other key doctrines. The Second Great Awakening however, lost the emphasis on doctrine (teaching about God) and instead focused its attention on using techniques that 'worked.'

Charles Finney - a key leader in the Second Great Awakening - said, "Conversion is not a supernatural work of God in any sense. ... The sinner has all the faculties and natural abilities necessary to render perfect obedience to God, all he needs is to be induced." Finney was saying that God is unnecessary for regeneration (being born again), that God does not need to bring us from death to life but men merely need the right environment and persuasion to help them choose to perfectly obey God and save themselves.

After Finney came D.L. Moody, the shoe salesman who said, "There is no difference between what I was doing before and what I am doing now, I am just selling a different product." You see the idea is that we just need to say it and sell it the right way so that people can be saved. Once again we are left with an approach to salvation that is completely void of God's supernatural work of bringing sinners from death to life.

When we open up the Bible looking for something practical or for something that we can do, this is partially the fruit of pragmatism. Our culture has been so formed by the 'what works' and 'how to' mentality that we take the same approach to God and salvation. For those of us that are Christians we tend to approach the Bible to find out 'how to' be a better Christian. While this is a good thing and Christians should long to grow, the underlying assumption is that the Bible is just a really big 'how to' book. The problem is that the Bible is about God - not us. The Bible is a historical book that teaches us about God's character and His dealings with mankind. Sure there is much that we can and must learn from the Bible, but first and foremost we need to learn about God because the book is about Him!

Christians have also allowed pragmatism to color the way that we approach evangelism. Most Christians tend to view evangelism as a way to get people to the place of saying the "sinners prayer" or "making a decision for Christ," but by doing so we make salvation completely man centered. The attention is placed on the unbeliever and on showing them 'how to' get saved. This method of "leading someone to the Lord" was inherited from Finney and the other pragmatic revivalists like D.L. Moody. It's aim was to give people an emotional appeal and to persuade them to "follow Jesus." It is as if the evangelist is trying to close the deal for God by giving the unbeliever a pragmatic approach to come to the Creator.

But where in this scheme is the understanding of being "dead in our sins and trespasses" and having to be made alive by God? Please understand that I am not saying that evangelism is wrong, but simply that the approach has been poisoned by pragmatism.

Sadly this theology has spread to much of the church today as Pastors teach 'what works' sermons. The emphasis is on practicality, and on getting people to understand things that they can use in day to day life. The problem is that if we spend our time in the Word and at church primarily learning things that are practical, then in one sense the gospel would be off limits. What is practical about a God who created mankind all the while knowing that they would revolt against Him, and that He would then need to send His own Son to live the perfect life that they should have lived only to die in their place? This message does not give us a 'how to' come to God lesson, but rather it declares that all of our doing is still infinitely incapable of making us better in God's eyes. This message declares our impotence, desperation, and brokenness, and God's immeasurable mercy and grace.

Don't get caught in the trap of treating the Bible and the church as 'how to' guides, instead let them introduce you to and remind you of the Creator that came to be our Savior, and who is coming again to make all things new.