Recently, I’ve found myself spending quite a bit of time ruminating on how evangelistic preaching has changed over that time period and how- much to my concern- it now tends to focus almost entirely on the benefits of the gospel at the expense of the substance of the gospel.

Algebra of the gospel

When I first came to Christ in the late 1980’s (and throughout my childhood spent in the orbit of evangelical churches) evangelistic talks generally concentrated on what might be described as the ‘algebra of the gospel’. The evangelist, after telling a couple of jokes or anecdotes to warm the audience up, would explain the universal problem of sin, describe the chasm that it created between us and a perfect God, introduce Jesus’ death on the cross as the solution to said problem, and issue an invitation to respond in repentance and faith. If the evangelist was particularly edgy and on point with the latest communicative tools, they might even illustrate it on a flannelgraph or OHP with a diagram of a valley and a cross and little stick men walking along the cross on a journey from ‘death’ to ‘life’, which really got everyone excited!

Change in emphasis

Nowadays when I hear an evangelistic presentation the emphasis seems to be much less on explaining Jesus’ death made as an atonement for our sin (in fact I’ve heard numerous evangelistic presentations where it doesn’t feature at all!) but rather on how following Jesus can give us meaning and purpose in life, a relationship with God, a sense of self-worth and the knowledge that we’re never alone.

Too much like Oprah?

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not disagreeing with any of those things. For sure, all these and many more besides are benefits that ensue from turning to Christ, but divorced from an understanding of the cross and an acknowledgement of our fundamental estrangement from God through sin and need of repentance, they add up to a very skewed presentation of the gospel. It seems to me that we’re in danger of adopting a ‘gospel’ that’s little more than a baptizing of the type of fare dished out by Oprah and any number of selfhelp paperbacks; an anthropocentric message which could almost be parodied as ‘Jesus died to solve your self-esteem problem.’

So, while I’ve got no problem with using the concerns that are on people’s minds around meaning, purpose and self-understanding as points of connection for the gospel, my contention is that we dare not lose sight of the central message of salvation, and whatever else it might be, any evangelistic talk that doesn’t have the cross at its core and doesn’t include an explanation of the need for repentance and salvation, is not an adequate presentation of the gospel. Jon Barrett is an Anglican minister who works as Mission & Communications Enabler for the Diocese of Leicester.