Whatever Happened to God?
Too much worship is convivial rather than adoring
Donald G. Bloesch | posted 2/05/2001 12:00AM
Not long ago a friend of mine, an affluent businessman and active churchman, shared with me his growing disillusionment with modern Protestantism, especially with its worship. After regularly attending various churches in his area—mainly evangelical and conservative—he confessed that this uneasiness had accelerated rather than abated.
He went on to say that he was now seriously considering turning to the Catholic Church—mainly to be spiritually fed, but also out of a desire to be intellectually challenged. I told him that he was likely to be leaving one set of problems for another. Yet I could empathize with him, for I too have been troubled by the increasing vacuity of much Protestant preaching and worship.
Evangelical Protestantism is in trouble today as an increasing number of business and professional people are searching for a new church. The complaint I hear most often is that people can no longer sense the sacred either in the preaching or in the liturgy. The atmosphere in most of our services is clubby and convivial rather than adoring and expectant. What is missing is the fear of God, the experience of God as the Wholly Other.
Sentimental appeal
Worship has become performance rather than praise. The praise choruses that have preempted the great hymns of the church do not hide the fact that our worship is essentially a spectacle that appeals to the senses rather than an act of obeisance to the mighty God who is both holiness and love. Contemporary worship is far more egocentric than theocentric. The aim is less to give glory to God than to satisfy the longings of the human heart. Even when we sing God's praises, the focus is on fulfilling and satisfying the human desire for wholeness and serenity.
This motivation is not wrong in itself but becomes questionable when it takes priority. Some of the new choruses speak of "falling in love" with Jesus. A sentimental love, not an adoring love, characterizes our relationship to God. We are urged to cultivate a feeling of love rather than to demonstrate the power of love through sacrificial service to our neighbor.
Sad state of the sermon
Equally deplorable is the state of the sermon, which in historic Protestantism was considered the primary means of grace. Our preaching may appeal to the Bible, but that appeal is often more cultural than biblical. We interpret the Bible through the lens of our own experience or our particular religious tradition. We do not allow for the fact that the Spirit speaking to us through the Bible may call our traditions and our theologies into question.
The surest evidence that Protestantism has abandoned its glorious heritage—of being not only a reformed church but a constantly reforming church—is the demise of kerygmatic preaching, preaching that consists in retelling the story of God's gift of salvation in Jesus Christ. Ministers may preach from the Bible, but this does not guarantee that they are preaching the Word of God. Their sermons are didactic more than kerygmatic, more centered on moral concerns than on the gospel.
Ministers may still sound a call to decision, but they generally address it to unbelievers, asking them to open themselves to Christ, rather than to believers, asking them to take up the cross of discipleship. The Reformers remind us that even the righteous need to be converted. The call to decision is a call to live out the implications of the law as well as to acknowledge the truth of the gospel.
Evangelicals no longer trust the power of Scripture to authenticate itself; instead we rely on techniques and strategies to assure the desired result: church growth and personal fulfillment. We resort to apologetic argument rather than biblical exposition, to psychological manipulation rather than to proclamation of the good news of salvation.
February 5 2001, Vol. 45, No. 2
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