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by Charlie Wolcott

To go along with watering down the Gospel, to dilute it so much as to make it utterly powerless, there is another severe problem with modern evangelicalism, especially in the apologetics realm. I won’t forget watching a clip of William Lane Craig, the man who is often deemed the “face” of Christian apologetics, openly declaring to his audience that his purpose is to lower the bar so as many people can accept Christianity as possible. He seeks to lower the standards necessary to become a Christian. I knew this was going on, but for him to so openly declare that is what he was doing just floored me. My response was: “Heresy! You have no right to do that!” Many, both believers and unbelievers alike, were stunned at this statement, but surprisingly, I did not hear about it till just recently.

With the approach that so many take regarding the Gospel, to water it down and reduce it to sets of doctrines and lower the bar so as many “get in” as possible, we have seen the results: one Scottish minister said, “You Americans! Your doctrine is 3000 miles wide and six inches deep.” A Chinese man came to the US and said, “When I look at a Buddhist monk and I see his practice and his devotion and his study, I think, ‘holy man.’ When I look at a US preacher, I think, ‘businessman.’” These guys would only be wrong if they were under-representing the case, not exaggerating.

What has happened is not only pathetic, but it has literally redefined what it means to be a Christian. People are no longer capable of recognizing that what much of what they are hearing today is totally un-Christian. The sting of the Gospel has been taken away. The focus of the Gospel has been taken away. The standards for Christian living have been removed and therefore anyone and everyone can proclaim to be a Christian; yet only 6% of them, according to recent polls, can even get the basic doctrines right. The church is so full of goats and wolves that the tiny group of genuine sheep who are left are being starved to death. Only one thing can happen when God looks at this: judgment.

Rob Bell opens his book Velvet Elvis complaining about doctrines and how they are “brick walls” that “keep people out.” He instead suggests that these doctrines should be treated more like springs to a trampoline that will stretch and mold according to the weight of the person jumping. What is he saying? He is saying that doctrine has no place to divide people and if people want to come and play Christianity, let them come play. And he mocks those who stand for truth and calls it “Brickianity.” Like William Lane Craig, the goal here is to lower the bar so anyone who wants to get in can get in.

I see this mindset in origins debates, too. The way that those who believe in millions of years approach young earth Creationists is much akin to one on the outside asking the gatekeepers to get in. The whole thing is “open-door policy,” “let everyone in,” all the while seeking to get the benefits of heaven and of God for nothing without surrendering self in the process.

What did Jesus say and do about such things? He didn’t lower the bar, knowing not a single person could carry out the Ten Commandments. He raised the bar. It wasn’t enough to not physically murder someone; just hating them in your heart and wishing them dead was enough to count as the deed. It wasn’t enough to restrain self from engaging in sex outside of marriage to break the commandment on adultery; just looking at someone else with lust and longing for such a person counts as doing the full deed. When it comes to Christianity, the bar is set so high that literally no human being can meet it. That is the point of needing a Savior. You can’t do it, and you don’t cut it.

But that offends people. Tough. We accept it in sports to some extent. Every sport has cuts. There are cuts to make the team, and there are cuts for playoffs. But now we don’t offer championship trophies; we offer participation trophies. And when the boys simply can’t compete with other boys, they just need to declare themselves a girl and play at the girl level and suddenly they can win. There is so much worry about hurting someone’s “self-esteem” that they don’t know how to handle loss or a defeat, and that is why they throw fits as adults when they don’t get their way.

In Christianity, we have actually LED the culture in this insanity because we have stopped preaching the Gospel and catered to feelings long before the culture did. The culture saw the church catering to feelings, so they took that green light and what we have seen is the full fruit of that sin.

But let’s face reality here. The church in each culture and age does not determine what reality is; God determines what reality is. The church is sent to proclaim that reality, and we have chosen to conspire against God and proclaim a message God did not say. There is nothing wrong with wanting to see people saved, but when the message changes and the standards are lowered, no one is getting saved. The standard for getting into heaven is absolute perfection just as God is the standard of absolute perfection. And yes, NO ONE can do that. But that’s the standard.

So how can God hold us accountable to a standard that none of us can meet? How is that fair? Who said being able to meet the standard is necessary to be fair? In baseball, a pitcher has to be able to throw a ball over a 19 square inch home plate. Those who cannot do that will not last long as pitchers. So what do we do? Do we change the plate size so those who can’t throw the ball accurately can play? No. They simply don’t have the talent to be a pitcher. They don’t get to make the cut and they don’t get to play. It’s tough, but those are the rules. And they are fair rules because they apply to everyone the same way.

But in Christianity, God did something that makes the objection to fairness null and void. He sent Jesus to be perfection for us. Not only did He pay the penalty for our sin, but He imputes His own righteousness onto us. Going back to baseball, this is like having a ringer. Instead of us, who cannot throw a ball or hit a ball, we get the absolute best player ever to not merely play for us but to play with us, and His score counts as our score. It is like Jesus taking our hand and carrying us through the motion of pitch or gripping His hands around ours on the bat and swinging with us. He does all the work, but the stats go to our name. THAT is not fair, but it is allowed in the rules. God wrote the rules, and it was His plan for this to be the agenda all along.

We need to stop trying to change the rules on God. God set the rules, and we have no right whatsoever to change them or play with them. We are to proclaim them as they were given – nothing more, nothing less. And then we need to play by those rules. But one thing I have noticed in sports is that when one knows the rules and plays by them appropriately, it is a fun game, even if I lose. There is strength in order and structure that enables you to do above and beyond what you could do otherwise. Don’t try to lower the bar. You can’t do it and God will not honor any “contract” which was not authorized to do such things. No one will be able to stand on Judgment Day and say, “I wasn’t told.” And when God deals with those who do lower the bar, it is not going to be a time of rejoicing. Don’t do it. Just preach what God said as God said it or get out of the way.

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