Selling Slick Sermon Series

This is the promotional graphic for the current message series of a local mega church…

Any thoughts? I have some of my own.

The Who-Said-It “but”-monkey Revealed

On Monday I posted a brief quote without revealing its source along with some commentary on what I called ‘but-monkeys’, statements in which the second clause negates the first clause due to the conjunction of contrast, ‘but’, located between the two clauses. Here again is the quote:

“Salvation is God’s free gift to us, BUT we must accept it.”

We had some very good guesses, a couple of which came very close to the truth. Melinda said ‘Rick Warren’, and while Steve’s formal guess was Ergun Caner, he also said the quote, “was likely uttered by thousands of SBC and non-denominational pastors just last weekend“. The truth is, I am not exactly sure who said it first, or how many have actually said it. The phrase comes from a generic statement of faith which can be found on untold thousands of “church” websites all across the internet. After doing multiple searches, I have concluded that the number of church sites which have this phrase in their statement of faith is anywhere between fifty thousand and one hundred thousand! And it may very well be much higher than that, as one of my searches returned with a total of over one hundred thirty thousands results!

Upon further research, I found the origins of the quote on the site of Rick Warren’s church, Saddleback, but interestingly, the second part of the clause is not included in their version. It also appears that the bulk of the statement of faith in which this quote can be found is also in Warren’s book, The Purpose Driven Life. While I am tempted to blame Warren for this quote, it appears that somewhere along the way, the second clause of the quote was added, and has been adopted by tens and tens of thousands of churches with the added clause stating that we must accept God’s gift of salvation to make it effectual.

So, while Melinda was close with her guess of Rick Warren, and while Steve was even closer by stating that perhaps thousand of churches uttered the quote this past weekend, the truth is that the quote, as originally posted by me in my previous post, can be attributed to the formal statements of faith by thousands and thousands and thousands of churches, including the mega SBC church that I had my family in for so many years.

“Salvation is God’s free gift to us, BUT we must accept it“…this ‘but’-monkey reduces God’s incredible effectual free gift of eternal life to nothing more than a powerless offer, leaving the final decision up to all-mighty man. It destroys the doctrines of total depravity, unconditional election, irresistible grace, and substitutionary atonement, among others.

I would be ashamed to have it in my church’s statement of faith, as it reveals a severely distorted and perhaps heretical view of God and man’s role in his own salvation.