Grace Anyone?

From a local conservative evangelical church, I recently received, via the flag on my mailbox, a bag of information. In this little baggie were three pamphlets of religious nature. One was a generic, mass produced bi-fold concerning the family-friendly, loving, caring atmosphere of the church. The second was an interesting booklet on the seven greatest questions in life; some great questions were ignored, and some that were included were unnecessary. The third was another bi-fold, this one an evangelistic tract with a call for conversion. The first was, as I said, generic and I won't deal with it in this post. It was the other two pamphlets that disturbed me.

I'll begin with the booklet. The answers to the questions were deflating to my hopes that the author and I would be engaged in a stimulating discussion on metaphysics.
Here are the questions and their corresponding answers listed in the booklet:
1. Why do I exist?
Answer -- You need to get saved.
2. Is there a God?
Answer -- You need to get saved.
3. Am I unique?
Answer -- You need to get saved.
4. Why is life unfair?
Answer -- You need to get saved.
5. Why do I feel so alone?
Answer -- You need to get saved.
6. Why don't I do what I know I should?
Answer -- You need to get saved.
7. Is there life after death?
Do I really need to tell you his answer?

Now listen; calm down. I know that the purpose of the book is evangelism, and I know that we can't answer these questions exhaustively in a pamphlet; but why do we detract from intelligently answering these questions? Honestly, I'm not sure our faithful parishioners, and even worse our church leaders, know the answers to these questions! I don't think the church as a body really understands the impact these questions have on unbelievers and the enormous stumbling block we can be if we turn their legitimate questions into a time to throw a sermon at them.

The booklet had as its last question, "Is there life after death"- a fair question, and one that needs serious addressing in our postmodern, existential culture. The author however, instead of dealing with the question from a logical, intelligent, or even wholly Biblical stance, took the opportunity to give an answer that is not the answer to the question asked. The question asked whether an existence after physical life ceased was a reality, not whether or not we should prepare for that event. Can't we at least agree that the church has been embarrassed enough by publicly demonstrating our ignorance?

The lack of legitimate, intelligent answers to questions the author himself asked is not my primary concern however. My primary concern lies in the answer the author gave to that last question, and the concluding atement of the third pamphlet. The author says, "If you are willing to put your faith in Jesus Christ and receive Him as your own personal Lord and Savior, you need to pray."

The third pamphlet, the evangelistic bi-fold, said at its end that if we want to receive Christ, we have to: a) Read the tract several times b) Bow our heads c) Pray the following prayer. It then concluded with a rendition of the famous "Sinner's Prayer."

Do! Do! Do! Work! Work! Work! Whatever happened to Amazing Grace? Is this what our "Bible-Thumpers" are preaching now? This is rubbish! Pure garbage! What heresy! No wonder our churches have no morally distinguishable differences from the rest of the world. No wonder our culture laughs at us when they hear our sermons then look at our lives. We've been preaching a watery gospel (intentional lower-case "g") for a century and now our churches are full of unsaved people thoroughly convinced of their own salvation.

We must return to the Gospel of Grace. No works, no water.

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