The Humanist Gospel of CCM, the Definition of Grace, and the Inward Turn

After forcing myself to listen to the local Evangelical station, I was again struck by the constant refrain found in the latest CCM songs - themes that were not present in the music back in the 80's. Over and over again the singers talk about believing lies about themselves and how now they understand they are wanted, special, etc.

To understand the shift I thought of some questions or statements and how today's theology (expressed in music) understands and answers them.

I would ask - Is Grace about overcoming sin and alienation from God?

They seem to answer - No, grace is to affirm you.

I would say -

You're a sinner, unworthy, evil....

Grace says yes, and by grace I understand that in reality I'm much worse than that.

Today's Evangelicalism says grace reveals these accusations were lies and in reality you're special, you're a princess, etc.

As unbiblical as the Bill Bright's Four Spiritual Laws were (including God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life), this seems worse. Or perhaps we can see how the one set the stage for the other. As I write all this I keep thinking about Bill Bright and his legacy - bits of truth lost in a wilderness of errors. He's celebrated by many, but I think a close examination of what he did and taught reveals a man who was working in almost every way against the testimony of New Testament Christianity. He's one of the architects of this modern Evangelical catastrophe, though he certainly can't claim all the credit.

The gospel just helps you to understand how great you really are. Oh, and praise Jesus. This is humanism, not New Testament Christianity.

We have a false gospel mixed with other elements of bad soteriology such as decisionism or a decisionist understanding of regeneration/salvation. And when you throw the common presumptuous understanding of eternal security into the mix, it's a formula for self-deception.

Note how this gospel turns you inward - it's like a Christian version of a Song of Myself. Seemingly the answer (the great secret revealed) is found in meditating on who you are - all too often Christ is not the focus, but the means of empowerment. Like a magic charm or spell.

I've noticed this too with the surge of New Calvinism which is really just Evangelicalism that has adopted some predestinarian understanding. Rather than magnify grace, it's twisted (by some) into some kind of psychological empowerment, a source of self-pride and self-focus. It's completely at odds with New Testament teaching and while historic Calvinist applications of the doctrine have not always been faithful to apostolic teaching, this is so far removed as to be sub-Christian. Election is supposed to humble you. They've somehow managed to turn it into hubris-driven empowerment.

In the gnostic schools which were often influenced by Plato, as well as Eastern religions, the answer usually can be found in the self. For them it's connected to a more complicated metaphysical micro-macro analogy of the universe and the person, you are a pattern of the universe or a universe within your self. This is sometimes connected to other concepts of recollection and so forth - all tied to a monist understanding of the universe wherein distinctions are blurred and lost, and thus the study of one part is to know the whole. To study yourself via meditation, rites, or whatever brings you to ultimate knowledge.

I'm not going to accuse the Evangelicals of doing this. For starters their thinking is never this elaborate or sophisticated - it's usually driven by emotion and intuition and usually informed by pop culture packaging. But I will say they're on a bad road when they think the answer is to look inward - to discover the supposed wonder of the self and find hope and solace in its affirmation. That's a sure road to Hell.

The New Testament teaches us to put the old man to death, to die daily, to mortify the flesh, to conform our thinking to Christ - all of this has been effectively removed from the gospel message concerning the Christian life. The farce that is Worldview teaching is not it either - that's something quite different, another means of empowerment by seeking the tool or weapon of a Unified Theory and wielding it.

The New Testament pattern certainly does not match the ethos of affirmation and self-wonder we find in contemporary Evangelical patterns of thought and even worship - we must remember that for most Evangelicals today, music is synonymous with worship. Many don't even think in terms of the Scripture being read as worship, nor liturgical confession, nor the sermon, and certainly not the sacraments. Prayer might be reckoned as such and thus its interesting how increasingly prayer is accompanied by music to make it more emotional and exciting. It's actually sacrilege but that's word that covers a lot of Evangelicalism's worship and culture. I don't think it's an accident, but rather an outworking of these ideas.

This approach to Christianity is a novelty - unknown in the annals of Church history apart from the tangential connection to the gnostics. I have long believed American churches are mostly filled with unregenerate people. Right now there's a lot of discussion about revival. But is this the case given so many don't seem to understand what the gospel is or what it means to be a Christian?

On the other hand, someone else might say this is nothing new. I remember George Marsden writing about the influence of Holiness theology in the 19th century and the emphasis on the Second Work of Grace - itself a result of a malformed understanding of the gospel. The Carnal Christian doctrine is tied into this as well. He notes the shift in hymnody away from the Isaac Watts-style hymns that praise God's majesty and express awe in reflecting upon great revealed doctrines to the personal-testimonial style seen in the hymns of people Philip Bliss and Fanny Crosby.

The point is this - these shifts have some historical precedent. Theology shapes the music of the Church and the songs it sings. The shift that took place in the 19th century helped set the stage for 20th century Evangelicalism and the ruin it brought to American Christianity. What shift is even now taking place? The modern Evangelical Church is essentially humanist - obsessed with psychology and the inward turn along with the pursuit of wealth and power - more of the self, more of the individualism that characterizes American idealism and identity. That's why Church for so many is nice but hardly necessary. I think we find all of this warned against in the New Testament even when gnosticism was in its nascent form. Gnosticism tends to involve self-focus and retreatism but the New Testament presents a Hellenistic syncretism that often equates godliness with gain, meddles in the affairs of others, entangles itself in the affairs of this life, and seeks to cast down angelic powers or in other cases form alliances with and show devotion to them. Self-worship can be indulgent and consumerist but it can also become covetous, aspirational, and political - at which point another set of ethics and values begin to kick in.

What will emerge in what is left of the 21st century is anyone's guess but I think the end result is pretty plain - the fruits of both modern Evangelicalism's bad theology and the sometimes different but corollary Dominionist movement all lead to apostasy. And we're watching it all unfold right before our eyes.