Tom’s Big Picture

I’m amazed how incredibly uninformed I seem to be regarding the who’s who of the “church growth” movement. I grew up in churches in close proximity to the New Orleans Theological Seminary, and the pastors it produced tended to be of the old-time religion variety- you know, repent of your sin, turn to Jesus, “churchy” kind of stuff not very relevant to the Brave New World.

Anyway, apparently there’s this guy named Bill Hybels who was doing Rick Warren before Rick Warren was cool, head of a mega-church called Willow Creek in Illinois. Well, Warren went from retail to wholesale with the Purpose Driven Life, and so I guess Hybels is doing the same thing with a new series on evangelism.

He’s described as an “optimist” who wants to overcome the spiritual baggage of all those backwards Baptists who make hay over minor things like the lives of unborn children, instead of concentrating on what’s really important, like social gospel wealth redistribution schemes.

And whatdoya know- he’s Bill Clinton’s spiritual adviser:

Mr Hybels’s optimism is perhaps best illustrated by his role as Bill Clinton’s spiritual adviser throughout his Monica Lewinsky-tainted eight years in the White House. Mr Clinton returned the favour by turning up at the church in 2000 to tell the congregation that his spiritual health was a “work in progress”.

And it continues, according to Touchstone Magazine:

At the end, according to the Tribune, Hybels and Clinton stood before the crowd; Hybels then “put his arm on the president’s shoulder and prayed: ‘Thank you, God, that you wired him up the way you did’.”

Clinton left to a standing ovation of 4,500 Christian leaders. (Another 6,000 watched by satellite.)

Now maybe I’m old-fashioned, but anyone who cozies up to a baby-killing sexual predator like Clinton and provides him a quasi-Christian forum to make his weaseley “apology” might need to repeat Evangelism 101 in seminary. But, by today’s standards, like a CEO who bankrupts a corporation, it just means he has “experience”- he can write a book and call himself an expert!

And, of course, I would not leave you without the big picture. I cannot say it better than the Touchstone article, as they describe the Oprahfication of an American church who has rejected its heritage and chases after vanity:

Is a certain segment of Evangelicalism, lacking the weight of history and gravity of tradition and generally ineffective in shaping political and cultural forms, so self-consciously aware of its junior status in the culture, of its youth and lack of sophistication, that it is susceptible to seduction? Certain Evangelicals have been mesmerized by a Southern Baptist, Bible-toting American president who exhibits none of the moral earnestness of real Southern Baptists (or many other Evangelical Christians for that matter) but who is willing to direct his approving celebrity gaze in their direction, and speak the language—in some circles the new and improved Christian language—not of sin and repentance but of therapy and feelings.

Yep, that about sums it up.