Piper’s Reflections After a Mainline Church Service

00:00:00.000 | Well, cue the Mission Impossible theme track because John Pfeiffer went undercover.

00:00:09.120 | Well, not really.

00:00:11.200 | No disguises were used, but Pastor John, you recently attended a mainline church service

00:00:15.300 | here in the Twin Cities, and I'm curious, and I'm sure there's many others who are curious

00:00:20.760 | out there to get a debrief of your experience and what you saw.

00:00:25.700 | So tell us about it and tell us the circumstances which led you there in the first place.

00:00:31.240 | Since our church has a Saturday night service and my wife was out of town, I was feeling

00:00:36.800 | perhaps especially venturesome a couple of weeks ago and decided to go to our church

00:00:45.200 | on Saturday night and then go to a mainline Protestant church, downtown Minneapolis.

00:00:53.960 | Partly, I think, with the goal of education, that is, I wanted to know firsthand how those

00:01:03.260 | in the progressive—that's the word they would use—progressive, inclusive, open,

00:01:09.700 | mainline churches actually do their services.

00:01:13.900 | And partly curiosity, because Noelle and I had visited this church years ago and heard

00:01:19.740 | the pastor say about Jesus walking on the water and feeding the 5,000, he just said

00:01:26.940 | flat out in the pulpit, "Of course we know that those are early, childlike, pre-scientific

00:01:36.260 | days, and we have grown beyond that and understand that what was understood to be miracles once

00:01:42.440 | upon a time from a more mature and progressive standpoint are seen as symbols and pointers

00:01:50.500 | to God's love and power, not something that actually happened in history."

00:01:57.020 | So that's what I wanted to see.

00:01:58.940 | Do they still talk that way, and how do they do service if they do?

00:02:04.140 | So let me give you six snapshots, and the reason I have this here in my mind is because

00:02:09.660 | I wrote it up in my journal when I got home.

00:02:13.620 | Six snapshots, which are not at all the whole experience, but the ones that stuck out to

00:02:20.220 | me.

00:02:21.220 | First, and least important, I think probably, 90% of the people in this comfortably full,

00:02:29.100 | magnificently beautiful sanctuary were more or less like me.

00:02:34.240 | That is, they were probably over 60, they were white, and they were well-dressed.

00:02:41.880 | Second observation.

00:02:43.520 | The first hymn we sang was titled "Source and Sovereign, Rock and Cloud," and the refrain,

00:02:51.440 | four times, went like this, "May the church at prayer recall that no single holy name,

00:02:59.280 | but the truth behind them all, is the God whom we proclaim."

00:03:04.560 | Third observation.

00:03:07.560 | In spite of the invisibility of young families, they did have a children's message with the

00:03:14.640 | children gathered at the front, and in the story to the children, the woman who was telling

00:03:21.380 | the story said that God has hopes like we have hopes, and sometimes our hopes are frustrated

00:03:33.300 | and they don't come true, and sometimes God's hopes are frustrated and they don't come true,

00:03:38.580 | but you children can, quote, I wrote this down, "put the pieces of God's heart back

00:03:44.980 | together," unquote, "if you will share with each other and be good."

00:03:51.020 | Fourth observation.

00:03:54.620 | Before the Old Testament reading and the New Testament reading, the pastor said, quote,

00:04:01.260 | "Listen for the word of God," unquote.

00:04:06.420 | Fifth observation.

00:04:08.820 | During the pastoral prayer, the first thing, or one of the first things, right at the front

00:04:13.100 | of his prayer was something like, I think I wrote this phrase down exactly, "We bless

00:04:18.980 | you, O God, for the beautiful diversity of the gender spectrum," close quote.

00:04:27.460 | Final observation.

00:04:29.540 | There was no sermon, but rather the senior pastor and a Muslim leader of a mosque in

00:04:35.380 | North Minneapolis, although they don't use the word mosque anymore, you can look up and

00:04:40.540 | see what it's called, stood and had a 25-minute conversation.

00:04:46.020 | Rather on one side of the pulpit, the imam on the other side of the pulpit, what they

00:04:50.180 | called a conversation on hope.

00:04:52.420 | No mention of any substantive differences between Christ and Muhammad or any differences

00:04:58.660 | between the way of salvation in Christianity and Islam or between Allah and the God and

00:05:04.140 | Father of Jesus or between the Quran and the Bible.

00:05:08.620 | How it stirred hope in the face of sin and suffering and death, I couldn't see.

00:05:14.260 | So those are my six observations.

00:05:16.100 | Now it seems to me that each one of those six features of this service points to a serious

00:05:24.740 | problem in what they themselves would call progressive or inclusive or open mainline

00:05:32.500 | churches.

00:05:33.740 | And I don't mean to say that these problems are unique to such churches, since some of

00:05:40.460 | them characterize other kinds of churches, even ones that fly under the banner of evangelical

00:05:45.580 | sometimes.

00:05:46.940 | So let me just tick off the six problems that correspond to those six observations as I

00:05:54.100 | saw it and thought about it.

00:05:56.100 | First, it seems to me that the refrain of the hymn that we sang in the context of this

00:06:03.900 | service is intended to communicate that there is no uniqueness to Jesus Christ and his way

00:06:10.780 | of salvation in the sense that if you don't know it and follow it, you will perish.

00:06:16.940 | In other words, that's not believed.

00:06:20.220 | I think this church would deny that all those who reject Jesus as God and as the only way

00:06:29.460 | to God are forever lost.

00:06:31.220 | I think they would deny that.

00:06:33.460 | Whatever Jesus is, knowing him and trusting him in his saving work is not essential, not

00:06:40.060 | necessary to eternal life.

00:06:42.980 | He's just one possible way for sincere seekers to get to God.

00:06:49.180 | That's the first observation which I think was expressed in that refrain.

00:06:53.740 | Second, the children's lesson points to a view of God that minimizes his transcendence

00:07:01.100 | and maximizes his likeness to us.

00:07:03.940 | The primary issue in this church does not seem to be the massive chasm between us and

00:07:11.340 | God that needs to be overcome by saving mediation and substitution through the work of Jesus,

00:07:19.220 | but rather the warmth and acceptance of a God who's not so different from us.

00:07:25.740 | Third observation or third problem, the view of the Bible from the words introduced at

00:07:32.220 | the beginning of the readings, "Listen for the Word of God," probably reflects the

00:07:38.380 | view—used to be called neo-Orthodox—the view that the Bible contains the Word of God

00:07:45.740 | rather than being the Word of God.

00:07:48.620 | So everyone in the congregation is allowed to decide for themselves what parts of the

00:07:54.020 | Bible reading are in fact God's Word.

00:07:56.300 | So listen for it.

00:07:57.300 | You might spot some Word of God in this religious reading that I'm about to give from the

00:08:03.460 | Bible.

00:08:04.460 | Fourth, praising God for the beautiful diversity of the gender spectrum in the context of the

00:08:13.580 | 21st century America suggests that in this church, sexual identity—who we are as male

00:08:21.580 | and female—sexual identity has been cut loose from God's revelation in nature and

00:08:29.300 | in Scripture.

00:08:30.820 | So like the Bible, sexuality is whatever you make it out to be, and wherever you choose

00:08:38.020 | to be on the whole spectrum is fine.

00:08:42.820 | It's beautiful.

00:08:44.460 | Fifth, the emptiness of the conversation with the Muslim leader points to the fact that

00:08:51.180 | in the view of this church, contemporary Christianity does not have to do mainly with ultimate reality.

00:08:57.020 | It just doesn't.

00:08:58.020 | It's not a metaphysical issue.

00:08:59.140 | It's not an ultimate reality issue.

00:09:01.260 | The nature of God, the nature of Christ, the nature of salvation, the path of holiness,

00:09:05.700 | the nature of eternal destinies, that is simply not the issue in contemporary mainline Protestantism.

00:09:13.900 | Rather, the dynamics that define relationships between social groups is front and center.

00:09:23.060 | That's really the issue, not ultimate reality.

00:09:27.100 | And finally, the fact that this church is made up mainly of old people suggests, at

00:09:34.780 | least at the present, that many younger people doubt the validity of traditional religious

00:09:45.100 | forms that no longer embody the claim to offer ultimate truth and ultimate reality and ultimate

00:09:54.620 | salvation.

00:09:55.780 | And I think that they are absolutely right to try to maintain the forms.

00:10:00.680 | And if you walked into that church and you didn't know any better, you'd say, "This

00:10:03.820 | looks like a church from forever.

00:10:06.060 | This is what church is.

00:10:08.420 | Big stained glass windows and pastors at the front, a big organ, lots of music, singing

00:10:13.780 | about Jesus.

00:10:15.680 | What could be more churchy than this?"

00:10:18.420 | Except there's nothing there of any ultimate reality.

00:10:22.820 | There's so much more that we could say, but perhaps that will suffice for a glimpse into

00:10:30.700 | what has become of the once dominant and now fading mainline Protestant tradition in America.

00:10:41.300 | Well, tragic observations, but a helpful report card to check our own susceptibilities when

00:10:47.580 | it comes to making assumptions about God is frightening.

00:10:50.580 | Thank you for sharing with us these thoughts, Pastor John, and thanks for joining us today.

00:10:54.900 | At our online home, you can explore all 1,250 of our episodes.

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00:11:14.940 | When we return, we have a question from a listener in Sri Lanka who asks about how he

00:11:19.320 | should honor a Buddhist priest in his country, which is typically done with a revered bow.

00:11:26.480 | When citizens come across these priests in public, should he honor them or should he

00:11:31.820 | stub them?

00:11:33.380 | It opens a globally relevant discussion about how we appropriately honor people around us

00:11:38.440 | who hold false views about God.

00:11:41.700 | That's when we return on Friday.

00:11:43.020 | I'm your host Tony Reinke.

00:11:44.020 | We'll see you then.

00:11:44.640 | [END]

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Piper’s Reflections After a Mainline Church Service

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