The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. 1 Cor. 2:14.
And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. John 3:19.
It did not originate in a backroom meeting of "Big Eva" or through the popular email distribution lists of the mid-2000s megachurch gurus (though it may certainly have been disseminated there), but some time in the last 30 years or so, the evangelical church was sold on the missional strategy of niceness.
It went something like this:
"If only Christians would love people more, we would see more conversions."
"If only we could meet more people's needs, they would see that we care about them and they would come to church."
"If only we could moderate our tack, we would catch more flies with honey."
Now, it's obvious that there's a grain of truth in each of these sentiments. After all, it's difficult to converse with someone you do not love. It's often helpful to meet a need before broaching the Gospel. And it's important to speak the truth in a way that's not unduly offensive. In every cultural moment, I'd encourage all believers to examine whether they are putting undue stumbling blocks in the way of the Gospel.
But I suspect that a nefarious harmony was being sung beneath the melody of evangelistic strategizing at this point.
When many said "it's time to start loving better," they implicitly believed "if our message is rejected, it's because we did something wrong; we didn't love well enough."
When many said "we need to meet people where they are," they implicitly believed that it was unloving to call them out of where they are.
When many said "the church needs to be doing its job," they implicitly believed the job of the church was to engage in a facelift instead of a heart change.
The temptation to adjust the Gospel and to assent to a slow moderation of our subculture's approach to unrepentance in our midst is totally understandable. As our Gospel seemed to produce fewer results in 2018 than it did in 1998, church leadership was faced with a choice: preach the faith once for all delivered to the saints, or be nice. As churchgoers began posting on social media sins they would scarcely whisper just 10 years ago, the believer in the pew was faced with a choice: show biblical love or be nice.
In short, biblical love became evacuated of all its depth of meaning and substituted for the Dollar Store brand: niceness. The upshot of all this was that the modern church was by inches and ounces lulled into an evangelistic slumber. Gospel preaching gave way to enlightened TedTalks. Calls to repentance came to be seen as a "bridge too far" because it just wouldn't be received well. Evangelizing a co-worker was tantamount to arrogantly foisting your worldview on another. And church discipline? Who'd even venture that archaic display piece in this day-in-age?
Enamored with niceness, the modern church has in many quarters laid down the biblical Gospel, trusting instead in niceness to save. The only problem is that a nice Gospel will always exclude the call to repent. And friends, a Gospel devoid of repentance may be nice, but it is not loving.
In an ironic twist, the anemic evangelistic strategy the modern church quietly adopted had an inverse effect. By substituting the biblical Gospel for the catholicon of niceness, the modern church has produced a Gospel that cannot save. And as a result, it does not.
Some of movement evangelicalism's thought leaders, deceived by the hollow growth of those attracted to niceness, have not yet traveled far enough the road once trod by Robert Schuller to remember the New Testament's sober truth: the reason our Gospel is not received is - in a great number of cases - not because we aren't nice enough. It's because spiritual blindness is real. And the only remedy with the power to overcome that blindness is the simple, foolish, offensive message of the Cross (1 Cor 1-2).
Hear me: this is not a call to bullheadedness and abrasiveness for Jesus, as if the intention to offend is a virtue. But it is a reminder that we cannot judge our effectiveness by how the natural person receives the gentle call of repentance. It has always grated against the flesh.
The harsh reality is that our Gospel is not nice. It's beautiful. It's merciful. It's freeing and life-giving. It produces reconciliation with God. Sharing it in its fulness represents the paragon of neighbor love. But it is not nice. And when we made the Gospel about niceness, we forfeited the ancient calling to be loving because we surrendered an essential component of the true Gospel: the very un-nice call to repent of sin and find joy in Christ.
But, oh, reader, how much freedom there is to be found when we embrace - and share - this un-nice message of eternal love!