Smith speaks on a ‘lover’s quarrel,’
holding the church accountable
By Paula R. Kincaid, The Layman, November 19, 2009
CHARLOTTE, N.C. – As he began his workshop, “A lover’s quarrel with the evangelical church,” Warren Smith said his emphasis was on the lover, not the quarrel.
Warren Smith’s workshop was based on his book, A Lover’s Quarrel with the Evangelical Church. For more information visit the Web site.
See video of Smith discussing A Lover’s Quarrel.
Part 2
“I believe the Scripture is plain that we hold each other accountable,” said Smith. “We have to examine ourselves and be willing to take a good hard look at ourselves.”
Smith was speaking at the 2009 National Conference on Christian Apologetics at Hickory Grove Baptist Church in Charlotte, N.C. The two-day conference, “Apologetics and the Local Church,” was held Nov. 13-14 and sponsored by Southern Evangelical Seminary.
He is an award-winning journalist and speaker, and is host of the syndicated program “Worldviews with Warren Smith.” A current board member of the Philmont Staff Association, he earned a bachelor of arts in journalism and masters in English, both from the University of Georgia.
The evangelical myth
The first myth is “that we live in an era of evangelical flowering,” he said.
Second, is the myth of “tremendous growth,” by some estimates as many as 1,500 megachurches and a million parachurch ministries.
Third, Smith called the “rise in political power of evangelicals,” a myth.
And finally, Smith pointed to the myth that there has been a “huge growth in Christian music, books and retailing ($5 billion a year).”
“If you look at some of these superficial indicators,” Smith said, then, yes, there has been a “tremendous flowering over the course of 30 to 40 years.”
The evangelical reality
Smith then turned to some national polls to show the “evangelical reality,” that debunks the “evangelical myth.”
In 2000, the Glenmary Research Center said that between 25 and 30 percent of Americans called themselves “evangelical.” James Davison Hunter, a LaBrosse-Levinson Distinguished Professor of Religion, Culture and Social Theory at the University of Virginia, said that 31.7 percent identified themselves evangelical in 1980 and it was 41 percent in 1900.
And in the 1990s, 4,000 churches shut their doors and fewer than half as many new churches were planted.
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Click here to read additional coverage of the Christian Apologetics Conference
He then cited the Barna Research Group, which stated that
- a majority of Americans claim to be Christian;
- a quarter claim to be evangelical, but
- only 9 percent believe in core doctrines of Christian faith such as deity of Christ, the Resurrection, and the authority of Scripture.
In truth, he said of American evangelicalism, “it is a movement slouching toward apostasy.”
Decisions vs. conversions vs. disciples
Smith then turned his attention to what he called “body count evangelism.”
“The evangelical movement is based on a beautiful idea – the great commission,” he said, but, he added, the great commission says “make disciples,” not “make decisions.”
“We ask people to make a decision, encourage conversion, but we don’t do the things to turn those conversions into disciples,” Smith said.
He called the parachurch the greatest purveyor of body count evangelism, and said it was a question of theology: “When we engage in body count evangelism, are we truly allowing God to be sovereign in our ministry?”
Christian-industrial complex
“Where ministry and industry collide, industry thrives, but ministry suffers,” Smith said.
Christian retail is a $1- to $5-billion market, he said, and there is much to like about it. The industry is producing great books, music and literature; “however, the unfortunate reality is that the love of money is the root of all evil. … The industry often thrives while the ministry suffers. What will sell becomes more important.”
He said that Christian radio and praise music has replaced the modern hymnal, and “marketing has replaced ecclesiology.”
He then asked: “Who cares? Why is this important?”
“We need to be ever mindful that we humans are not consumers who need to be satisfied. We are sinners who need to be justified,” he answered.
Triumph of sentimentality
He called the triumph of sentimentality “the world as we would like it to be,” and he called sentimentality “idolatry: You can be god.”
“We have to be careful how we let the order of the universe God has revealed to us in His sovereignty corrupted by our view of the world we would like it to be,” Smith said.
He listed universalism, annihilationism and prosperity theology as examples of sentimentality.
The new provincialism
Smith said that the “new provincialism” was not a place but of chronology or time. People can “tell you what a Hollywood star had for breakfast,” he said, but they can’t tell you about the historical Biblical beliefs.
As an example he used the belief some maintain that “we are more advanced than those who came before us … the idea of progressive revelation. … The result is that we become ahistorical and disconnected.”
“Christianity is a historical faith. Jesus Christ was not an idea He was a man who came to earth,” said Smith. “If we forget history, we undermine the doctrine of the Incarnation. … The resurrection was an event that happened. If we don’t let history inform us, we undermine the resurrection.”
“Historical events are at the core of the faith,” he said. “If we embrace that which is new or hip, we unintentionally engage in the ‘new provincialism.’”
The great stereopticon
The great stereopticon, Smith said, is modern media. He then asked “Are media morally neutral, or does God have a preferred medium to share the Gospel? …Why did God give us a book?”
God spoke the world into existence, Smith said, so why not give us a movie or a picture book?
His answer is “The power of the written word. … God gave us a book because He wants us to engage our minds in the process. He does not want us to be spectators.”
“Does God have a preferred medium to share the Gospel? I argue that he does,” said Smith, and he used Scripture to prove his point:
- God spoke the universe into existence (Gen. 1: And God said. …”)
- The naming of the animals (Gen. 2:15-20)
- The writing of Revelation (Rev. 1:11: Write on a scroll what you see …”)
- The word of our testimony (Rev. 12:11)
Modern media tends to be isolating, alienating and anti-community, he said.
“Does God have a preferred medium? I Corinthians 1:20 seems to say yes,” Smith said.
“Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?”
For more information about A Lover’s Quarrel or the author Warren Smith, visit the Web site.