RT Kendall: Why I’m worried about the feel-good gospel

As the famous economic adage goes: “When America sneezes, the world catches a cold.” I am not qualified to assess the state of Christianity around the world, including in Britain. But, having been back home for almost 25 years, I can speak with authority on American Christianity. 

Before that, I was honoured to have ministered in London for the previous quarter century. Truth be told, my heart is still in England; the best friends I ever had are there; my debt to England – and to the Church of England – is incalculable. 

So why this article? I am worried. I am not a prophet. But it does not take a prophetic gift to predict what Christianity will be like when the Church in Britain catches a cold from America. And the truth is Christianity in America sneezed a while ago.

Doctrine of demons

Paul said the time would come when “things taught by demons” (1 Timothy 4:1) would be right there, in the Church. He states that Satan himself would “masquerade as an angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:14). This time has arrived in the United States. The purpose of what follows is to offer – with fear and trembling – a loving warning about what could happen in the British Church down the road. 

In my opinion, three things will characterise British Christianity in a short period of time. Firstly, an utter absence of the fear of the God of the Bible; secondly, the absence of the need to be born again; and thirdly, an absence of holy living. In a word: the ‘feel-good’ gospel will become normal in the UK, just as it has been in America for many years. 

The ‘feel-good’ gospel is an apt description for the message you will most likely hear in almost any church in the US on a Sunday. It will be a motivational talk. It will inspire you. It will encourage you to believe that things will get better; you can overcome anxiety and depression; it is within your grasp to be successful; you don’t need to be held back by a negative outlook. 

Are you bedevilled by what some might tell you is a “thorn in the flesh”, as Paul described in 2 Corinthians 12:7? One of the most wealthy and famous preachers in Texas said: “If the apostle Paul had my faith, he would not have had his thorn in the flesh.” I struggle to imagine any Brit who would show such arrogance. But it is happening here. 

A different gospel 

Is it bad to feel good? I hope not. We all like to feel good. But is the purpose of Christianity to make people feel good? 

When we first left London and returned to America, we settled in Key Largo, Florida. Across the street from us were the best neighbours we ever had: Skip and Diane. They were helpful, friendly, unselfish and would even come to hear me when I was preaching in the area. I begged them to go to church when I was not the preacher, but they would not. “We found a speaker on television who makes us feel so good,” they said. 

I did not blame them, but I warned them that this speaker was not preaching the true gospel of Jesus. The problem was that our neighbours did not want the truth – that it is by trusting in Jesus’ blood alone that saves us from the wrath of God. And the problem remains that people generally don’t. We are born that way, up against an insurmountable obstacle, barring a miracle. If we are to believe the apostle Paul: “There is none righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God” (Romans 3:10-12).

I am worried. It does not take a prophetic gift to predict what the Church in Britain will be like when it catches a cold from America

If that is the natural, human inclination, can we blame them for choosing to listen to what makes them feel good, rather than what could be offensive?  

It makes one wonder how Christianity ever made inroads anywhere in the first place – whether in England or America. John Wesley and George Whitefield turned England upside down in the 18th century. George Whitefield then joined Jonathan Edwards in New England in what became known as the Great Awakening. America’s Second Great Awakening took place approximately 60 years later, in Cane Ridge, Kentucky. The common denominator in these three epochs was the manifest sense of the fear of God, the widespread need to be born again and the pursuit of holiness. The elephant in the room was the assumption that unbelievers would endure conscious punishment in eternal hell.

Why was the fear of God so powerfully present in these three separate areas of the world some 250 years ago? Why were people shaken rigid from preaching then but not now? Was it the oratory of either Whitefield or Wesley? Possibly. But I don’t think that is the complete explanation. 

In Enfield, Connecticut on 8 July 1741, Jonathan Edwards preached his sermon: Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, perhaps the most memorable sermon since Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Edwards was no orator. He read the sermon in a monotone. You can read it online today and wonder how such bold and rude words could have had any effect. But as he spoke, many of those present were literally seen holding on to church pews. Men were seen outside the meeting house clutching at tree trunks to keep from sliding into hell. Edwards repeated the same sermon a month later in Northampton, Massachusetts, with no effect whatever. It only happened once. 

The 1801 Cane Ridge revival lasted less than a week. But during that time, literally thousands of people fell spontaneously to the ground. All because a Methodist lay minister preached on the judgement seat of Christ, from 2 Corinthians 5:10.

No leader can make this sort of thing happen. Wesley preached all over England, but the phenomena of multitudinous conversions took place mainly in Bristol, Cornwall and Newcastle. If people could bring about this kind of awakening by their own strength, planning or effort, it would have happened countless times. 

Yet the points in Church history when people sensed the fear of God have been exceedingly rare. It is the sovereign power of the Holy Spirit. It is when people are somehow constrained to believe the Bible is true by the testimony of the Spirit. And it scares people because, if the Bible is true, it means hell is real, too.

A few weeks ago, a pastor in Florida preached a sermon called Rethinking Hell. Two alternative points of view to the teaching of conscious eternal punishment are universalism (all will be saved, none lost) or annihilation (a person ceases to exist after death). Most people want to believe alternative doctrines like these. But both lead to the same inevitable outcome: an absence of the fear of God.

Finding fear and wisdom

Is the fear of God a good thing? Yes, or it would not be commanded throughout the Bible. The one time the word ‘gospel’ appears in the book of Revelation it is followed by: “Fear God and give glory to Him” (14:6-7, NKJV). This surely means that the gospel and the fear of God are meant to be inseparable. We are commanded to believe that God exists (Hebrews 11:6), and the appropriate response to this is to show respect, awe and admiration.

By nature, we don’t want a God like this. And yet Proverbs 9:10 tells us that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”. It has nothing to do with your IQ. The pragmatic advantage of fearing God outweighs the offence we suffer by bending our knee to the God of holy scripture.

The gospel and the fear of God are meant to be inseparable

Jesus always assumed that the world would hate His followers. He prepared His disciples for this: “If the world hates you, understand that it hated me before it hated you” (John 15:18, CSB). One way that we know the ‘feel-good’ gospel is wrong is that it is an attempt to destigmatise the gospel and cause the world to love the followers of Jesus. The apostle Paul was especially annoyed with the Galatian Christians because they had turned to another gospel, namely, one that had no offence. The Galatians were attracted to a legalism that removed the offence of the cross. “But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, a curse be on him!” said Paul in Galatians 1:8 (CSB). 

Paul’s teaching clearly upheld justification by faith alone. Being saved by imputed righteousness was the opposite of a ‘feel-good’ gospel. It was the teaching of Martin Luther’s rediscovery of salvation by faith alone that gave John Wesley his “heart-warming” experience in 1738. “I felt my heart strangely warmed”, said Wesley, when he heard Luther’s preface to the epistle of Romans being read. Wesley’s and Whitefield’s teaching of justification by faith alone consequently turned England upside down. 

If there is a pragmatic advantage to an individual choosing the fear of God – and, consequently, the beginning of wisdom – there is also a national advantage. The historian Elie Halevy said that the Wesleyan revival saved England from the bloody revolution that France endured. Wesley’s evangelism led to an estimated 140,000 converts; his call to social holiness impacted the lower and upper classes. Wesleyans taught thousands of people to read and write. Wesley lived his whole life seeking after the honour that comes from God alone, and not the praise of people (John 5:44). 

If the ‘feel-good’ gospel is allowed to control the Church in Britain, it will ensure that a return to the fear of God will be indefinitely postponed. And what is saddest of all is that many people want it this way.