Gospel Lite

I've just watched an online video of a pastor preaching. I rather respect him and am embarrassed to see him saying such things. He stands at the front telling people how lonely they are, pointing out that many online friends are not real friendships. Indeed. He then says that ‘God adopts you into his family and loves you no matter what…This is the gospel’.

Err, no it’s not. Preach about love, adoption, friendship, fulfilment, happiness, joy or any other desirable state if you want to. But to preach the gospel without mentioning sin and the Cross means one has missed the point. Why is this warm-hearted dross passing as the gospel? It merely massages our sinful sense of pride, assuring us of how important we are. William Booth wrote:

“The chief danger of the 20th century will be religion without the Holy Spirit, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, and heaven without hell.”

What Booth warned as dangerous for the twentieth century is standard fare in the twenty-first.