Pragmatism & the Church

Q: What idea in the past decade has had the worst consequences for the church?

John MacArthur: “Pragmatism: Whatever works is what we need to do.

“If we think sinners will be saved by our methodology, we’ve got to give the sinners what they want. Pragmatism has re-created the church into a ‘sinner-friendly church’: That expression has been used.

“But you cannot—by any human method—overcome every sinner’s inborn, depraved resistance to righteousness that leaves us both unable and unwilling to come to Christ. ‘The natural man understands not the things of God.’

“To offer the natural unconverted sinner what the natural unconverted sinner wants in his depravity, as if it were what God wants to give him, is an affront to God. It’s a heresy, another gospel.

“This pragmatic philosophy is behind the shallow, superficial approach that over the last 20 years has taken root in the church.”

Mike Riccardi