A New Christian Fad?

0:02 Looking at our world from a theological perspective. This is the Theology Central podcast making Theology Central. Good afternoon, everyone. It is Sunday, September fifteenth, twenty twenty four. It is currently four fifty four pm Central Time, and I am coming to you live from the Theology Central studio located right here in Abilene, Texas. Now, I was debating with myself what to do right now, right because on one hand, I could just go live and we could talk about a breaking news story which a lot of people are going to have opinions about. We could I could turn on the microphone and talk about an ongoing news story that is really just starting to get to me emotionally. And I'm getting really fed up and frustrated in that, and I don't really know how to address it. But I've already addressed did a little bit here on the podcast, so I could do that. There's other things I need to do, so I'm a little bit conflicted. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm gonna just go ahead and tell you about the breaking news story. You probably have already seen all of the alerts on your mobile device, but if you have not heard the former President Donald Trump was the subject of an apparent assassination attempt at his Florida golf club. The FBI says, let me read that one more time. Trump

1:34 was the subject of an apparent assassination attempt at his Florida golf club. The FBI says, right that, now, this is still still a lot of information coming out. I've already heard conflicting reports about what happened. I've heard some back and forth. So one of the best things to do is not to go into any detail about this. But we talked about this at the end of twenty twenty three, how twenty twenty four was going to be an absolutely crazy, crazy year, and it we are starting to see a lot of that. A second possible assassination attempt against against the former president Donald Trump. I mean, that is that is in. That's just it's crazy. And I don't know what we're going to find out about this.

2:23 I don't know if there's going to be any walking it back. I don't know. I don't know where it's going to go. But according to the headline, this is from the Associated Press, and I just received this just a few minutes ago. Trump was the subject of an apparent assassination attempt at his Florida golf club. The FBI says, so you may want to continue to monitor that and see what happens. As always, what do I say this constantly, especially when it comes to news coverage. Be patient. Don't just immediately start making comments under a news article, don't immediately start making comments on social media. Be patient, Let the facts come out. Don't just start, you know, listening to just your your little political echo chamber. Listen to all kinds of different sources. Be thoughtful, Do not bear false witness, Do not spread lies, do not spread misinformation.

3:20 Be very careful, gather information. And well, this is just the state things are currently in, and it's a tragic situation. It's a difficult situation. We have the things going on in Springfield, Ohio, where there have been bomb threads, schools have had to close down, there's been I think the hospital had to be evacuated. I think city hall had to be evacuated. I think some schools. I mean it's been it's just all it's just craziness, right, It's just craziness. So I it's like you want to I almost feel helpless, Definitely, I almost feel like it's hopeless. I feel like you can't.

4:02 There's no real communicating with anyone about any of these subjects, right Everyone is just they go to a specific political side. They won't listen to any other side. Everyone's yelling and screaming at one another, Accusations are being made. People are becoming more and more divided. People are it's becoming more and more divisive. It's becoming more and more dangerous. It's becoming more and more threatening. And I don't know what the endgame is here, right Like if I was to try to a lot of times, I like to try to look at everything and try to kind of figure out where things are going. I don't really know. I don't know how the election is going to go. I don't know what's going to be the I'm more concerned of the immediate what are the immediate consequences of the election.

4:48 And so there's a lot going on and all I can do is try I'm going to continue to try to figure out when to talk about it and when not to talk about it. But I just know that's not the world I want. Like if you start the minute you start talking about it, you kind of get you kind of get pulled in, and then that's all you can do. You just got to keep talking about it. You got to and then people from the other side are going to attack you, and then do you respond to that? And then and then, and it's just on and on, and it's just I think ultimately what you'll do, you'll get pulled further and further and further away from anything related to theology, the Bible, Christianity. It becomes just you know, politics, current events. It basically becomes like news commentary.

5:35 And there's already so many voices out there. We've got to find a way to get back to Okay, okay, the world is in a sense on fire. The church has to be a place where we can put the focus where we need to put it. That's where when I did the podcast about the crazy claims about you know, Springfield, Ohio, and they're eating the cats, they're eating the dogs, and all of that just insanity. What I tried to do is to turn our attention to that new Confession of faith put together by hundreds of pastors saying, hey, hey, the church has got to stop this. We've this is what we need to be focused on. So and I and I sent that out. Maybe maybe we'll talk about that again, because that was my timpt to say, this is happening, this is what we need to focus on.

6:22 And I'm a little like even right now, I'm like, what do I do? Like there's a part of me that just wants to jump into it all But once you do, it's almost like there's no getting yourself back out, There's no you can't get back to what we need to focus on. So I'm just going to try to turn our attention for just a little bit of time. Right, It's been it's been crazy around here. I mean you've probably noticed not a lot of broadcast. It's been crazy. Then when I did have an opportunity to broadcast, there was all kinds of technical problems, so then I had to make a decision. So then I scratched that and it's just been And then today at for Church was just a total disaster. Nothing really worked well there. So I have an opportunity, Now what do we do? So I'm just gonna ease back into this, all right. So the other day I was I don't even know, I may have been looking up videos about a lot of the controversy that you know, we've already talked about here in Ohio and all of that craziness. And or I just may have been checking my the YouTube page for this podcast. I don't. I was just somehow found myself on YouTube and which I don't typically spend a lot of time on or visiting, and I saw a video and it says, basically, a new fad in evangelicalism. Basically is there a new fad developing in the evangelical world?

7:53 And I was like, I start a new fad? So I kind of just sit there and looked at the title and was like, what would be the new fad? What would be the new fad in evangelicalism? I kept thinking, I'm like, I miss something. What is the new fad? And evangelicalism? I mean I've lived I feel like I've lived through them all, right, the Prairie Jabez, the Harbinger, purpose driven church, purpose driven life. I mean, I can go on purity rings, what would Jesus do? Bracelets? Oh man, I could go promise keepers. I don't know. You can just name all the fads, right, And it's just I feel like I've lived through all of the fads and I understand depending how long you've been a Christian, you may not even kind of realize that. When I first became a Christian, I didn't really see. I just saw, Okay, I've become a Christian. So in my mind, well, now I live in the Christian world, right, So I go to Christian bookstores and I listened to Christian radio, and I didn't realize that it was kind of its own subculture, right, that had its own celebrities, had its own merchandise, had its own products, had its own everything. And you kind of just you kind of were supposed to drop out of this culture and embrace this subculture. And then well then you went, you bought the Jesus merchandise, you bought the Christian merchandise you bought, and you went to the Christian events, and I didn't. And then I, over time, I become much more jaded over all of it, and then begin to challenge it and realize, wow, this this

9:26 there's a lot to this thing that's just really not good about the whole thing. And I could go into my entire critique of all of it. So, but I'm obviously now I try to keep up with what's going on in the Christian world. It's much harder in twenty twenty four to really identify the fad. There was a time within Christianity you could identify the fad because that's what everybody Christians everywhere were talking about it. But we have so much available to us in twenty twenty four that it's hard to go, oh, there's the fad, because you may go, well, that's gaining some popularity, but you've got a whole another entire part of Christianity who doesn't even pay any attention to that because there's just so much available. It's like there's individual fads within the little, individual, broken off segments of Christianity. I think Christianity is much more they have their own little world where I think there was a time there was much more like an evangelical subculture and you could see what was more people were on the same page, right. I think it was easier to have a fad spread because there was at least kind of an evangelical subculture that wasn't broken off into little neighborhoods. Is that a better way to describe it? So?

10:47 I don't know if it's as easy to see a fad anymore. I mean, Christian bookstores per se. I mean, they still exist, but they're not very relevant anymore. When I think they used to have a greater influence. You could go to a Christian bookstore kind of figure out what was going on in the evangelical world. I don't think that's so much. Christian radio no longer has the influence like I think it once did. You now have Christian podcast but there's so many of them it's hard to know, well, these are the ones influencing when we were following this. I still need to get back to. We were doing a little series on the podcast on the Spotify Christian charts, and I do need to get back to that. But even some of those I'd never even heard of them. I'm like, this is not number three on the Spotify Christian Religious chart, and it's like, I've never even heard of these people. I've never even heard of any of this. And it's like it's so it's much easier to be disconnected or unplugged from it all because there's so much so I don't so what we're gonna do is we're gonna listen to a little bit of this. I started listening and I'm like, is that really the fad? So you can make your own determination.

11:58 Do you think this is a fad and evangelic today? Is this a new fad? I don't think it's really that new. Maybe maybe there's a unique twist on it. I don't know. You draw your own conclusion. Now. What I want you to do, though, I want you to try to just write down on paper right now, right you have to take a screenshot with a timestamp on it so that you can't lie and say you guessed right. Okay, So what would you say is the new fad in evangelicalism? What would you say if you were to write down your prediction the new fad and evangelicalism? What would it be? What would it be? I couldn't really think of one.

12:41 I really couldn't think, oh, that's the new fad. I mean really, I mean what is even I mean we had the kind of the Jesus calling fad now that that was much more influential than I but that once we started looking at the Jesus calling devotion on that whole thing, it was like, this is so insane. I don't even know how it's a fad. It is a fad considering how many it's sold. So maybe I kind of even missed that one. He said, what's the what's the fad? Right now? I need to I don't know. I don't know what it is. So I know what they say. You can tell me if you guessed right? Are you ready? Here we go?

13:23 Hey, just what we need? A new evangelical trend. And you say, Wade, are you suggesting evangelicals are trendy? No, I'm saying that definitively. We have science to back it up. Let's take a little trip down evangelical memory lane, shall. We, gentlemen start? Yeah, the Prayer of Jabez, Bible Man, experiencing God, wild at Heart, w d JD bracelets, purity rings, I Kiss, dating, Goodbye, haste for Christ, the purpose driven life, the passion of the Christ, the shack at the five love Languages, Heavenly tourism, books, blue like Jazz, I'm second, the love there, God's not Dead, the circle maker, crazy love, soul surfer, the harbinger, Jesus calling.

14:22 I think we've we've established the fact. Okay. Then in the video they go to a little music segment and they just flash more more of the fads that have shown up in Christianity. Because you have these things that like boom Ember. But if you notice a lot of those are older right see. To me, I think Christianity it was easier to have a fad spread throughout much of Christianity because Christians were listening to Christian radio. Well, they were being influenced by similar voices. They were like, they were going to Christian bookstores being influenced by similar merchandise. So I just and I just think it's much more disunified now it's not. I think it's it's like that those Christians over there could be listening to this podcast. Those Christians over there could be listening to this podcast. Those Christians could be purchasing books on Amazon. How they found them, I don't know. And these never even heard These Christians have never heard of those books. I think it's much more again, like little neighborhoods, it's much more disunified. So he has a little music segment.

15:29 He shows a bunch of others and you could probably name a lot of them. So we'll let this music segment kind of go through really quick. Here we go, Okay, we're letting this play. We're letting this play. Here, We're letting this play. Church Love fads, and it seems like we're seeing another fad that I wish weren't a fad, not because I don't want this fad to be reality, but I fear this fad is mostly counterfit. You say, WA's the fad revivals?

16:24 It started over a year ago with the Asbury Revival on a university campus, remember, apparently spread to other campuses. Claims that hundreds of kids, thousands of kids getting saved. We want that, don't. We genuinely want to see revival sweep the land, like in the days of the First and second Great Awakenings. But I fear what we're seeing these days it's more like a Charles Finney revival. Back to the middle of the nineteenth century. He was well, he was a heretic, but he was also a manipulator. Some of the stuff he preached as a touring evangelist was like whoa fiery good stuff. But he wasn't after conversion and regeneration. He was after moral transformation. What did he use to get people stirred up? Manipulation? He used enthusiasm.

17:13 He created the anxious bench, which was the precursor to the modern day altar call. Come if you're anxious, come on down, make a decision for Jesus. Now, start behaving better. Now, his preaching, while fiery and some of it good, was not gospel centered. But I will say this, at least the revivals were based on preaching. The modern day revivals, you know what, they're based on music. But they both have the same modus operendi enthuspeople manipulate people. Music is massive when it comes to these revivals that were seeing kind of all over the place, the University of Oklahoma, Lee University, or in a state university EXAs A and L.

18:07 We really do want kids to be saved. But if the kids are merely being enthused into making a decision, then we aren't really seeing revival. We're seeing Fineaism two point zero. Now, when he said Phineaism two point zero, that caught my attention because we did a little bit of discussion about Finni, right, we did a little a lot of discussion about Finny. So I'm like, well, now, I know I've seen lots of articles on the Christian Post at times revivals breaking out here there was mass baptism of eight hundred people or they would give some crazy number, and you're you know, I kind of just shrugged my shoulders over all of it because in my this is my feeling about it. I don't think this is a new fad. See, this is the different This is maybe my my different opinion. I feel like this kind of stuff has been going on since I became a Christian as a teenager a long time ago. There's always oh, revival's broken out here, Revival's broken out here. Oh this this, many people were saying this, many baptisms of the car I've heard story after story. I mean, I used to make the joke if I take all the stories I have heard and combine them all together, everyone in America has been saved and baptized fifteen times. Because the numbers are always like three thousand, this and this and this and this, and it's like come on, and then you look around, you're like where, Okay, you tell me there's some big revival, but it never seems to Actually, it

19:38 doesn't never seem to be anything. So so is it Finianism two point zero? I don't know if it's finism two point zero. I know that this is kind of a something going on in Christianity, and it at different times it kind of there'll be some big claim. Everyone will flock there, go there. Everybody will want to be there. Everybody want to go witness it, see it, report on it. Now every podcaster with a microphone will drive there so that they can do a broadcast about it. Because if it's gaining attention, then everyone will run there for whatever their motivation is. And I I don't know if I would refer to it as a new fad. Now he's saying that maybe what makes this unique is it's music based, but I don't know. I saw that even back in the nineteen nineties in in Omaha, Nebraska. I don't know which group was responsible for it, but they would have like maybe on Saturday nights, Friday nights, these big like that would kind of say we're praying for revival, we're trying to experience revival. And what would it be. You would go and it would basically be an hour of praise and worship. It would just be music for the most part. Maybe a little bit of a devotional kind of thrown in, but it was basically music based. Even when I moved back to Texas in two thousand, there was a church who claimed to be somewhat more reformed.

21:00 They were trying to do the same thing, trying to have like a Saturday night of music in worship. Right, so, but it would be connected to revivalistic type language. And so I've seen it kind of come and go. I don't really, I don't know. I don't know if I see it as a fat Let's see what else you had to say about it. Now, they're big massive revival. It's called Gather twenty five supposedly reaching two point five billion people to spark revival. Now, how are they going to ignite that spark with twenty five hours of worship music, not preaching, music music music, and all of these events they resemble finny revivals, not because they're preaching, but they're getting people into an emotional state and through worship. And you maybe think, well, who cares as long as they get saved. Well, we should care, because we want to do things biblically and we do want kids to be saved. I truly do. But when music is center stage and preaching is just sort of an add on, Hey, hey, we're gonna get back to worship, but real quick, let me just tell you that, and we downplay preaching, we should be concerned that we're going to see the same results as Charles Finney. What were his results? Well, after he finished touring around the country, the ports returned to HQ. The people who made a profession of faith were actually acting worse since they've been saved, presumably,

22:36 so some individuals decided, well, we got to go figure out what happened here. So the circuit riders were dispatched to investigate, and they discovered that the supposed converts were as they call them, cold cool. They made a false profession of faith and now their ladder end is worse than the first, and their hearts are hard, and no matter what they tried to do to stir them and ignite them again, no success. Any circuit came to be known as the burned Over District. Now we're starting to see revivals on university campuses and beach baptisms. There's another trend here in Tampa, Texas, Alifornia. What's being called off Summer of Baptisms. And truly, I really do hope people are getting saved, but if music is being used to emote people into the water, then we should be concerned.

23:22 So there's a test and a challenge simultaneously to see if these are genuine revivals. Do revivals. If you're an organizer of a revival, I say go for it. But here's my challenge. Leave the instruments at home. In fact, try this no singing whatsoever, or if you're going to do some singing, treat it the way that typically these revivals treat preaching. Hey, we're going to get back to the preaching, but real quick, let's just sing this song. What would happen if music were removed from all of these revivals and preaching were the center piece, because that's what we see in the Bible. Jonah didn't go to ninevo with a band and a three hour set of music from Hill's song. The twelve Disciples were not the twelve musicians, the backing band, the emotive band to get ready so that Jesus could walk out and, you know, just do a little bit of preaching. In fact, Jesus commanded the disciples to preach. Jesus esteemed preaching as the pre eminent task of the evangelist. All preached and people got saved without a single synthesizer, creating the My contention, if today's revivals had zero music, I suspect they would have zero people attend and zero people getting baptized. In fact, I suspect that could be true a far too many contemporary churches. They're built on manipulative music. You pull the plug on the music and we'll see if today's revivals are genuine or if they're just creating more cold col discuss.

24:59 Now, I would I think I don't know about the fad part, but I would say this, it would be interesting. Now in my church, we've done it multiple times. I mean I don't even know the number of times we did it. Today. We do it frequently. There's no singing, none, zero, no singing, no singing. We used to do it. It was a common thing for Wednesday nights for twenty something years. It's Wednesday night. Good evening, everyone, all right, let's get started, open your bibles and an hour of teaching. It was common many cases on Sunday nights. Hey opening here, let's just get started. We're jumping right in. Some people came to our church loved it. Other people did not. Lie.

25:43 In fact, that was one of the very well, okay, there was the second complaint, the very first complaint I ever got as a pastor, which almost you know, basically got rid of a good portion of the of my my church when I you know, brand new pastor. My first complaint was I had the audacity to stand behind the pulpit and say that the big, overweight man with the white beard in the red suit and the flying reindeers was not real. I had the audacity to say that from the pulpit. Someone was furious at me that I ruined their children's childhood, even though I had let everyone know in the church that I was going to make that very clear that he does not exist, and I gave him a warning like months before. It did not matter. That caused massive problems. I had to have a meeting. It was insane, all because I had the audacity to say someone who doesn't exist doesn't actually exist like I thought. From the pulpit I could say this person is not real and not I guess that's insane.

26:44 I know it sounds like I'm making it up. That really happened. And the second complaint was we you spend so much time teaching. We need to worship. We need more music. So then I was like, Okay, I've got a solution. We'll do forty five minutes of singing and then I'll still preach an hour, so church will basically beat about two hours. They did not like that idea at all, because you know what they wanted to do. They wanted my sermons to be shorter and they wanted the singing to increase, and I said no, and they took a walk. So I've already been there and fought this battle. Now that's the only time I ever fought that battle because I had it very clear from that point on, that's not going to ever happen in this church.

27:25 And if you want that, you're gonna have to find another church or just tell me to hit the road, because I'm not gonna play that game. So in my church, it's been very common. Wednesday night no singing, Sunday night, no singing. There's even times this morning there was no singing. There was an hour and nine minutes of teaching and discussion about well the state of the church. So it kind of relates to this. So there's plenty of times we don't. Now there's times we do. Sometimes I will even ask for an extra songs sometimes, but I, yeah, I I think it would be interesting to see what would happen What would happen in your church? What would happen if the pastor said, for the next four weeks there will be no singing. Every Sunday school will be an hour of teaching. Sunday morning will be an hour of teaching. Wednesday night will be an hour of teaching.

28:18 So Sunday school, Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night no singing. I wonder what would happen. What do you think now, whatever the reaction would be, do you think that's a good reaction. Do you think that's a negative react? Do you think that now? Some people say, well, you need worship, you need where I understand that. But I'm just saying, if you go through the New Testament and you talk about all the discussions about church, right, you don't have a lot of discussion about music. Obviously, obviously you've got some a little bit here or there, but small, and there's no specific rule that you must do it this.

28:58 I know people love to create like this is the way it must be done in church. In many cases we don't have very specific examples. So the issue isn't whether to have singing or not have singing. The issue is has singing I don't even think this is about a I don't think this is even about a trend. I don't think this is even about a fad. I think the issue because this is we go all the way back to the nineteen nineties and all the arguments about what they called the worship wars. I mean, the nineteen nineties, the church was being torn apart with worship wars about what kind of music. It was about the kind of music you could have, right, And I don't very few people ever stopped to go, wait a minute, maybe we've elevated music to a level that it shouldn't have been elevated to where fighting these wars over music, well, theology, biblical preaching is actually getting pushed out. The issue wasn't this kind of music versus this kind of music? The issue should have been have we made music more important than it should have been? Has music become an idol?

30:01 That really should have been the discussion in the nineties, But it wasn't. It was over the type of music. Right. So now we're in twenty twenty four, and now it sounds like the concern is that many of these so called revivals are more music based than they are preaching based Now, the only way I would know, I'm because I cannot, you know, in any way make an argument, but I would be interested to go to these so called revivals. Like you know, the revival breaks out, you just kind of stand back, watch it unfold however it goes, and then afterwards, try to find all the people who are massively involved in the revival. Find them a month later, about a month later, Okay, you how many times did you go to the revival? How many times? Okay, okay, okay, You've gathered all these people and then just ask them basic theological questions about scripture, doctrine, theology and then just see so wait a minute, so you went to this revival, and what I'm hearing is answer that either indicate one I don't even know if you're a Christian from a theological perspective, because you sound like a complete heretic, or you're absolutely so confused theologically it's it's embarrassing. But they may be talking about worship, worship, worship, So when does the music become the problem is I don't know. If I don't know, if it's a fad, I think that I wonder it would be interesting to know because I

31:36 feel like when I okay, so I'm just thinking of some of the charismatic revivals I tried to keep up with over time, especially as you know, you had more access to media and you could watch things, whether online or whatever, you know, and some of the ones I've kept up with. I think it was a Lakeland revival. I definitely remember that one. Then what I felt was very music based. I think that was very music based. I don't think it's a new fad. I think within the charismatic world, most of their revivals are very music based, right, what they call praise and worship, I think I don't think it's a new fad. I think that that's been present for a long time. I think if you think if you go to any any any revival that's any even remotely attached to the charismatic movement in any way, shape or form, it's going to be music, music, music, praise and worship, praise and worship, praise and worship. They'll be preaching, but I think the music ultimately takes center stage.

32:41 So I don't think this is a new fad. I think this has been an ongoing fad for ever. Right, that's my feelings. You can draw your you can draw your own conclusions, but that's that's my feeling. So they see it as a new fad. I see it as really kind of the same old, same old, And I don't think it's really anything new. I think it's been going on forever and manipulating. Now he kind of refers to it, are we kind of basically seeing the Charles Finnie effect happen again. I think the Charles Finni effect has never went away. And that manipulation enthusiasm, I mean that's been, that's been. You worked in church camps every summer throughout my entire Christian life. Kids go off to church camp, and they get enthused, they get manipulated, and then they come back and oh they're gonna no. It lasts for about five minutes. Because it was based off emotions, it was based off isolation, it was based off manipulation.

33:50 So I don't know if there's a new fad. I know the beach baptisms is popular, but I think they used to be popular. What not A I could be wrong. I think that was a kind of something that happened going back to the Jesus People movement, right, I mean I would have to verify those facts. I would have to verify that. But I really haven't heard after I mean, I've heard a couple of revivals, but I haven't really heard as much. I don't know. I'm gonna be I'm gonna say I don't think this is a fad. I think we're going to have to look if we're looking for the next evangelical fat Maybe maybe they're right, Maybe they're right here and I'm just not seeing it. I just I'm not quite seeing it. But there you go.

34:40 I wanted at least bring it to your attention and you can draw your own conclusion. If you were to predict what the next big fad, next big trend is going to be in the evangelical world, what would you predict? What would you predict if you were if you were trying to predict? Yeah, typically I have some like great choices for you. I don't really have any. I don't really know if I can even look and go. I'm so concerned with the political hijacking of the American Church that I just see that that whole situation continuing to unravel and influence and corrupt, and we see the decline in church attendance and that's going down. I just have an article right here that we'll talk about at some point.

35:30 Massive decline in giving. I mean, churches are experiencing major decline and financial giving and support. That's going to have an impact in the church. I see we're in a transition. I don't see that this is a time of fads. I see this as in a time that the church is transitioning, and there's a transitional period. And I don't know what it's transitioning into, but it seems there's going to be fewer people and less money available. I don't know what that's going to look like. I think that's what we're gonna We're witnessing fewer people and fewer and fewer dollars with the whole political hijacking going on. Maybe that would be the things that was the continuing political hijacking of the church. A decrease in numbers and a decrease in money. So while other people are like revivals, well, if revivals then you would have more people and more money. Right, So I'm confused, which which which version or which which narrative is the correct one. Oh, there's revivals happening, and all these people are getting baptized and all these people are getting saved. Revival is here. Well, all the other numbers are like number. Churches are getting smaller, people are not returning. People are not coming back. You have to cancel services, and they're giving less and less money. Those are dradically different narratives. All right, you can let me

37:04 know what you think. Thanks for listening. Everyone, have a great day. God bless