The Sad Irony of Celebrity Pastors | Spectator USA

Like sexual ethics, the idea of sin is increasingly passé for most people.

“God said it, I believe it, that settles it” won’t convince anyone any more. Instead, they need to know the “why” behind biblically-prescribed behaviors and prohibitions.

Increasingly, real life is giving us situations that were too far-fetched to be used as hypotheticals in o

the seeker-sensitive approach takes the form of the radically individualistic iChurch, which is all about what church does for me and has little tolerance for covenantal commitment or accountability. Naturally, iChurch transitions eventually to noChurch, which is precisely the nominal-to-none trajectory we are now seeing.

If the preaching of our ministers and the practice of our parishioners do not have the same effect on people that Jesus had, then we must not be declaring the same message that Jesus did. If our churches aren’t appealing to younger brothers, they must be more full of elder brothers than we’d like to think.

Roughly one out of every five young adults is an exile who feels lost between church culture and the wider culture he or she feels called to inhabit and influence. Exiles are not anti-Christian or even necessarily anti-church; they are simply individuals who do not fit the typical molds that churches expect or support. They are characterized by wan