Biblical truth – transcultural as it is – has an indispensable message for contemporary culture.  It addresses modern learning, modern ethics, modern politico-­‐economic concerns, and all the idolatries of our polytheistic society. It proclaims the gospel to a generation that is intellectually uncapped, morally unzippered, and volitionally uncurbed. Those who consider the latest fads permanently “in” will, of course, dismiss the Christian message as the last   hurrah of an antiquated outlook. They reveal their sickness of soul by derogating terms like morality, piety, family, work, patriotism, born again, evangelical, theology. Christianity they dismiss as a kind of middle-­‐class hedonism. Declaring it intellectually inadmissible, they meanwhile espouse a life that neither reason nor conscience nor spirit can support or condone. Repression of sensuality and of self-­‐gratification they call psychotically abnormal; subordination of the flesh they leave to medieval monks or consign to the future resurrection. Affirming sexual pleasure to be the supreme good of a life of unending revelry, they waste  away into ethical ghosts and skeletons.

- Carl F. H. Henry – The Christian Mindset in a Secular Society

“But if the traditional church is so inept, so out-of-it, so not-with-it, so passé, so completely washed up, so painful, and so boring, why not let it die peacefully? Why keep on kicking it?

Because the real target is not the traditional church but the traditional theology it lives by. This belief system is at the heart of the traditional church’s life that seeker-sensitives are after. It is not that they want to deny it or reject it, but it is something of an embarrassment to them. At least in their own churches, they want to conceal it. They want it hidden, kept in the background, made to disappear from what they are doing. It is rather like a family secret. Family secrets are true, but they should be kept private. They should not be divulged.”

-David F. Wells, The Courage to be Protestant

Whenever you believe that the evil outside you is greater than the evil inside you, a heartfelt pursuit of Christ will be replaced by a zealous fighting of the “evil” around you.  A celebration of the grace that rescues you from your own sin will be replaced by a crusade to rescue the church from the ills of the surrounding culture.  Christian maturity becomes defined as a willingness to defend right from wrong.  The gospel is reduced to participation in Christian causes.

- Paul David Tripp from “How People Change”.

Leaders: Communication without Clarity will usually produce Confusion and Criticism.