Well, cue the Mission Impossible theme track because John Pfeiffer went undercover. Well, not really. No disguises were used, but Pastor John, you recently attended a mainline church service here in the Twin Cities, and I'm curious, and I'm sure there's many others who are curious out there to get a debrief of your experience and what you saw.

So tell us about it and tell us the circumstances which led you there in the first place. Since our church has a Saturday night service and my wife was out of town, I was feeling perhaps especially venturesome a couple of weeks ago and decided to go to our church on Saturday night and then go to a mainline Protestant church, downtown Minneapolis.

Partly, I think, with the goal of education, that is, I wanted to know firsthand how those in the progressive—that's the word they would use—progressive, inclusive, open, mainline churches actually do their services. And partly curiosity, because Noelle and I had visited this church years ago and heard the pastor say about Jesus walking on the water and feeding the 5,000, he just said flat out in the pulpit, "Of course we know that those are early, childlike, pre-scientific days, and we have grown beyond that and understand that what was understood to be miracles once upon a time from a more mature and progressive standpoint are seen as symbols and pointers to God's love and power, not something that actually happened in history." So that's what I wanted to see.

Do they still talk that way, and how do they do service if they do? So let me give you six snapshots, and the reason I have this here in my mind is because I wrote it up in my journal when I got home. Six snapshots, which are not at all the whole experience, but the ones that stuck out to me.

First, and least important, I think probably, 90% of the people in this comfortably full, magnificently beautiful sanctuary were more or less like me. That is, they were probably over 60, they were white, and they were well-dressed. Second observation. The first hymn we sang was titled "Source and Sovereign, Rock and Cloud," and the refrain, four times, went like this, "May the church at prayer recall that no single holy name, but the truth behind them all, is the God whom we proclaim." Third observation.

In spite of the invisibility of young families, they did have a children's message with the children gathered at the front, and in the story to the children, the woman who was telling the story said that God has hopes like we have hopes, and sometimes our hopes are frustrated and they don't come true, and sometimes God's hopes are frustrated and they don't come true, but you children can, quote, I wrote this down, "put the pieces of God's heart back together," unquote, "if you will share with each other and be good." Fourth observation.

Before the Old Testament reading and the New Testament reading, the pastor said, quote, "Listen for the word of God," unquote. Fifth observation. During the pastoral prayer, the first thing, or one of the first things, right at the front of his prayer was something like, I think I wrote this phrase down exactly, "We bless you, O God, for the beautiful diversity of the gender spectrum," close quote.

Final observation. There was no sermon, but rather the senior pastor and a Muslim leader of a mosque in North Minneapolis, although they don't use the word mosque anymore, you can look up and see what it's called, stood and had a 25-minute conversation. Rather on one side of the pulpit, the imam on the other side of the pulpit, what they called a conversation on hope.

No mention of any substantive differences between Christ and Muhammad or any differences between the way of salvation in Christianity and Islam or between Allah and the God and Father of Jesus or between the Quran and the Bible. How it stirred hope in the face of sin and suffering and death, I couldn't see.

So those are my six observations. Now it seems to me that each one of those six features of this service points to a serious problem in what they themselves would call progressive or inclusive or open mainline churches. And I don't mean to say that these problems are unique to such churches, since some of them characterize other kinds of churches, even ones that fly under the banner of evangelical sometimes.

So let me just tick off the six problems that correspond to those six observations as I saw it and thought about it. First, it seems to me that the refrain of the hymn that we sang in the context of this service is intended to communicate that there is no uniqueness to Jesus Christ and his way of salvation in the sense that if you don't know it and follow it, you will perish.

In other words, that's not believed. I think this church would deny that all those who reject Jesus as God and as the only way to God are forever lost. I think they would deny that. Whatever Jesus is, knowing him and trusting him in his saving work is not essential, not necessary to eternal life.

He's just one possible way for sincere seekers to get to God. That's the first observation which I think was expressed in that refrain. Second, the children's lesson points to a view of God that minimizes his transcendence and maximizes his likeness to us. The primary issue in this church does not seem to be the massive chasm between us and God that needs to be overcome by saving mediation and substitution through the work of Jesus, but rather the warmth and acceptance of a God who's not so different from us.

Third observation or third problem, the view of the Bible from the words introduced at the beginning of the readings, "Listen for the Word of God," probably reflects the view—used to be called neo-Orthodox—the view that the Bible contains the Word of God rather than being the Word of God. So everyone in the congregation is allowed to decide for themselves what parts of the Bible reading are in fact God's Word.

So listen for it. You might spot some Word of God in this religious reading that I'm about to give from the Bible. Fourth, praising God for the beautiful diversity of the gender spectrum in the context of the 21st century America suggests that in this church, sexual identity—who we are as male and female—sexual identity has been cut loose from God's revelation in nature and in Scripture.

So like the Bible, sexuality is whatever you make it out to be, and wherever you choose to be on the whole spectrum is fine. It's beautiful. Fifth, the emptiness of the conversation with the Muslim leader points to the fact that in the view of this church, contemporary Christianity does not have to do mainly with ultimate reality.

It just doesn't. It's not a metaphysical issue. It's not an ultimate reality issue. The nature of God, the nature of Christ, the nature of salvation, the path of holiness, the nature of eternal destinies, that is simply not the issue in contemporary mainline Protestantism. Rather, the dynamics that define relationships between social groups is front and center.

That's really the issue, not ultimate reality. And finally, the fact that this church is made up mainly of old people suggests, at least at the present, that many younger people doubt the validity of traditional religious forms that no longer embody the claim to offer ultimate truth and ultimate reality and ultimate salvation.

And I think that they are absolutely right to try to maintain the forms. And if you walked into that church and you didn't know any better, you'd say, "This looks like a church from forever. This is what church is. Big stained glass windows and pastors at the front, a big organ, lots of music, singing about Jesus.

What could be more churchy than this?" Except there's nothing there of any ultimate reality. There's so much more that we could say, but perhaps that will suffice for a glimpse into what has become of the once dominant and now fading mainline Protestant tradition in America. Well, tragic observations, but a helpful report card to check our own susceptibilities when it comes to making assumptions about God is frightening.

Thank you for sharing with us these thoughts, Pastor John, and thanks for joining us today. At our online home, you can explore all 1,250 of our episodes. You can scan the list of our most popular ones, read full transcripts, and even send us a question of your own. To do that, go to DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn and get new episodes delivered to you three times per week.

Subscribe to the Ask Pastor John podcast in your favorite podcast app. When we return, we have a question from a listener in Sri Lanka who asks about how he should honor a Buddhist priest in his country, which is typically done with a revered bow. When citizens come across these priests in public, should he honor them or should he stub them?

It opens a globally relevant discussion about how we appropriately honor people around us who hold false views about God. That's when we return on Friday. I'm your host Tony Reinke. We'll see you then.