A Spurious Relevance

By Matthew Barrett

One of the serious temptations evangelicalism faces in every generation is the impulse to be liked by the culture. Back in the 1960s and 1970s many drew the conclusion that Christianity was irrelevant to modernity. The solution? Modernize Christianity! Such a modernization of Christianity was not simply speaking to the issues of the culture from a Christian perspective. Rather, it was the abandonment of the key tenets of traditional Christian doctrine which were perceived as offensive to modern sensibilities. As you might have guessed, one of the first doctrines to go was divine transcendence. Adrian Hastings describes the climate of the day well when he writes, “A good deal of the more publicized theological writing in the sixties gives the impression of a sheer surge of feeling that in the modern world God, religion, the transcendent, any reliability in the gospels, anything which had formed part of the old “supernaturalist” system, had suddenly become absurd. . . . Everything was to be enthusiastically ‘demythologized’ in a euphoria of secularization which was often fairly soft on scholarly rigour.” (A History of English Christianity, 545).

In essence, as Alister McGrath observes, both academics and preachers sought to remove any hint of the supernatural and transcendent in Christianity. McGrath concludes, “This culture was increasingly dominated by secular outlook that theology was expected to share if it was to maintain any academic or cultural credibility. Sixties-style theology slipped fatally easily from being the addresser to being the addressee of a secular culture. If it aimed to transform culture, the reverse was achieved: Christianity became transformed by culture, becoming little more than a pale and vaguely religious reflection of secular cultural trends” (Evangelicalism & the Future of Christianity, 91).

McGrath has put his finger on the problem. Rather than Christianity being shaped by the Word of God, submitting to its authority, it instead sought to accommodate itself to the demands of the secular culture, which of course rejected the authority of the transcendent God of the Bible. The result: the secular culture shaped Christianity. And all of this was done in the name of making the Christianity relevant. McGrath again shows us how hopeless such an endeavor was, “The end result of this approach to Christianity is depressingly clear. Where it hoped to make mainline Christianity credible to secularists, it ended up making secularism credible to mainline Christians” (ibid., 93).

What happened to Christianity during this time period? The answer is simple: evangelicalism saw its main priority as being relevant to the culture. McGrath makes a great point. “Evangelicalism believes that to be right is to be relevant.” However, is this how evangelicalism finds its relevancy to the culture? And should “being relevant” be the main priority for evangelicals?

These questions are complex, but we can at least provide a simple answer. The priority of evangelicalism should not be making itself relevant to the secular culture, though there is a place for properly engaging the culture. Instead, its main priority is remaining faithful to the gospel. Again, it is hard to improve upon the words of McGrath when he writes,

It is too easy to produce a spurious relevance in response to secular pressures, often localized and transient in their nature; the task of Christian apologetics is to bring out the inherent attraction of the gospel by its faithful and responsible proclamation and presentation. In other words, the best way of ensuring that Christianity remains relevant to the modern world is to be faithful to Christian orthodoxy and articulate this in terms intelligible to the world. As noted earlier, evangelicalism regards itself under a total obligation to remain faithful to the evangel, something that cannot and must not be compromised, and that is known to have an attraction of its own, by its very nature. It thus represents a form of Christianity that is sufficiently resilient to resist pressures to conform to its secular context and yet sufficiently attractive to provide a pressure of its own by which individuals may be drawn out of secular culture to Christian communities (ibid., 93).

If evangelicals today seek to be “attractive” to the secular culture they will inevitably compromise the Christian gospel in a desperate effort to have the culture’s approval. But, as McGrath demonstrates, our relevance to the culture never comes in changing our doctrine in order to look more like the culture. To the contrary, our relevance comes by remaining faithful to Christian orthodoxy for only then do we have a message (a saving message!) that sinners so desperately need. If we compromise the evangelical gospel, we no longer have a message for the secular culture. Indeed, we have simply become a spiritual product of the secular mindset.

And this is what separates evangelicalism from liberalism. While liberalism believed one had to change Christian orthodoxy in order to make it acceptable to the secular culture, evangelicals believed we must remain faithful to Christian orthodoxy, and at the same time seek ways to communicate the Christian message effectively (ibid., 95). McGrath explains, “It must be stressed that there is no question of altering the gospel to make it more attractive. For evangelicalism, that is the supreme error of liberalism-doing violence to the gospel itself in an attempt to make it more easily acceptable to modern culture. The issue is ensuring that the gospel is preached faithfully for all it is worth, without the misrepresentations that cause offense to so many” (ibid., 101).

While liberalism for some may seem to be a movement of yesterday, nevertheless, evangelicals today should pay heed to its history. After all, the same impulse continues to tempt us today, namely, an impulse to accommodate the gospel for the sake of gaining the approval of the secular culture. However, Christ has called us not to seek the approval of men but the approval of God. Our task as evangelicals is to preach the gospel and to remain faithful to this gospel in the midst of a world that finds it offensive and repulsive. I am reminded of the apostle Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 2:15-16, that we are “the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing.” To the latter we are a “fragrance from death to death” and to the former “a fragrance from life to life.”

Matthew Barrett (Ph.D., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is the founder and executive editor of Credo Magazine. Barrett has contributed book reviews and articles to various academic journals and he also writes at Blogmatics. He is married to Elizabeth and they have two daughters, Cassandra and Georgia. He is a member of Clifton Baptist Church in Louisville, KY.