PRAGMATISM...one of the devil's most insidious and successful methods to deceive

Pragmatism - if it works it must be right - judging by appearance, has always been a deadly and deceptive method employed by the devil. By it, both ministers and ministries are judged either true or false based solely on quantifiable, observable results. After all, we are told that the numbers don't lie! Really? How about the twelve spies sent to spy out the Promised Land and they came back to Moses with their report - ten said that its conquest could not be done and two said that it could. Two were right and ten were wrong! How about Elijah God's prophet and the three hundred and fifty prophets of Baal - one true and three hundred and fifty false! Or how about Jeremiah the prophet who ministered for forty years with no quantifiable, observable results - and yet he was vindicated by God and history!


Jesus said, "Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment" (John 7:24). Many are falling prey to the grave error of judging by appearance and therefore many are being deceived by ministers and ministries that appear to be right but are actually wrong.

What would you say of this pastor?

He knows how to inspire hope.

He is committed to people in need.

He counsels prisoners and juvenile delinquents.

He starts job placement centers.

He opens rest homes and homes for the retarded.

He has a health clinic.

He organizes vocational training centers.

He provides free legal aid.

He opens community centers.

He preaches about God.

He creates warm Christian community.

His membership quickly exceeded 1000.

Do you like him? Do you think he is the man for the job? Would your church call him to be your next pastor? I hope not! He's the man in the picture and that was Jim Jones who was the pastor of the People’s Temple Christian Church. Jim Jones and almost a thousand of his most loyal followers committed suicide in the jungles of South America.

Nothing has changed! Men today are still being deceived by judging by appearance.

Why Some Preachers' Kids Are Emergent!

What does Rick Warren, Joel Osteen, and Andy Stanley have in common? Is it that they dress the same? No! Is it that they all use their hands while preaching? Well, maybe - but that still is not the commonality that I am looking for. Is it that they are all well known leaders in apostate seeker-sensitive, self-esteem, emergent church philosophy? Yes, but here's the real commonality between these three men - they are all preachers' kids!

Why or how is it that preachers' kids can turn out to be undiscerning, pragmatic, utilitarian, Pelagian or semi-Pelagian, ecumenical, postmodern apostates held captive by philosophy?

First and foremost there has been a wide-scale abandonment by preachers to be faithful to the God-called assignment of equipping the saints for the work of service through faithful, careful, diligent study, and systematic exposition of the Word of God which results in the saints "no longer [being] children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming" (Ephesians 4:14).

Second there has been a wide-scale adoption by preachers to judge by appearance, seek the glory and honor of man, attempt to be popular, remove the offense of the cross, grow large crowds rather than loyal Christians, and pursue quantity rather than quality by using pragmatic methods based on philosophical religious humanism.

Finally, although more could be said, there has been a wide-scale acceptance of secretly introduced destructive heresies to the neglect of sound doctrine for the purpose of an ecumenical, liberal, social agenda to bring about world peace and prosperity.

At the root of the problem is a man-centered philosophy of soteriology rather than a God-centered theology of soteriology which naturally leads to a man-centered philosophy of ecclesiology and a man-centered philosophy of eschatology.

Do not be taken captive by philosophy!

The New Pragmatism

In his last written book Whatever Happened to the Gospel of Grace?, Dr. James Montgomery Boice (1938-2000) gave us a perceptive and timely message that the evangelical church today so critically needs to hear and heed. Dr. Boice has given us a three-fold message, calling us as Christians: 1) to repent of our worldliness; 2) to recover the great salvation doctrines of the Bible; and 3) to live a life transformed by the essential truths of the gospel (Adapted from the Publisher's Foreward in the book).

The first chapter is entitled, The New Pragmatism in which Dr. Boice describes how evangelicalism is seriously off-base today because it has abandoned its evangelical truth-heritage and pursued the world's wisdom, embracing the world's theology, following the world's agenda, and employing the world's methods.

While I would like to address each of these areas, today I especially want to address the area of following the world's agenda and one of its major proponents in our day.

"The world's agenda. In the liberal churches the words, "the world must set the agenda" were quite popular. That had been the theme of the 1964 gathering of the World Council of Churches, and it meant that the church's concerns should be the concerns of the world, even to the exclusion of the gospel. If the world's main priority was world hunger, that should be the church's priority too. Racism? Ecology? Aging? Whatever it was, it was to be first in the concerns of Christian people" (pg.23).

"But here is the important thing. What has hit me like a thunderbolt in recent years is the discovery that what I had been saying about the liberal churches at the end of the 1960s and in the 70's now needs to be said about evangelical churches too." Can it be that evangelicals, who have always opposed liberalism and its methods, have now also fixed their eyes on a worldly kingdom and have made politics and money their weapons of choice for winning it? I think they have. About ten years ago Martin Marty, always a shrewd observer of the American church, said in a magazine interview that, in his judgment, by the end of the century evangelicals would be "the most worldly people in America." He was exactly on target when he said that, except that he was probably a bit too cautious. Evangelicals fulfilled his prophecy before the turn of the millenium" (pages 23-24).