There's been a thought running through my head recently that I think speaks to the current mission of the church in 2019: we need to stop preaching a gospel of affirmation and start preaching again the gospel of salvation.
Somewhere along the way we started thinking that as people our need was to be affirmed in everything we do...and so whether it was about sex, drugs, careers, the pursuit of wealth, or 'following your heart' we decided that we are basically OK people, that we needed to be supported in doing what we wanted to do and that anybody who didn't affirm our desire was not really loving. Of course this speaks to the world we live in today. People can't bear to have somebody say that they are doing wrong, using against others the tired old expression 'don't judge me!'
The problem with affirmation is that it often affirms sin. I think that at one time this was mostly a 'liberal' issue, but I think conservatives have been affected as well. We have a president who continually thinks of himself as a persecuted victim, because the mainstream media won't simply accept him at his word. Taxes, collusion, obstruction...'nobody's ever had more problems than me!' he proclaims. More than anything else, this said little man wants to be affirmed, and to not receive it akes him feel like a victim.
The gospel of salvation, however, is far different. It does not begin from the perspective that 'everybody's OK, they just need to feel good about themselves and don't feel guilty'. Rather, it begins with the truth that everybody is NOT OK, that sin is the great problem, and that we can't fix this ourselves, no matter how much we think ourselves to be in the right. Only Jesus Christ can affirm us, and he chooses to save us from oursleves. Only in him can we really be righteous.
I am starting to wonder whether the absolute need that many have to be feel affirmed is not one of the great problems of the modern age. Scrdipture speaks of the need at times of rebuke and correction (cf. 2 Timothy 3:16-17), but how do you do this if you have to continually affirm them?
As a child of my age I certainly don't want to be rebuked, and I do think that going back to the old manner of condemnation for just about everything 'different' was harsh and not in keeping with the gospel. But the pendulum has swung too far, and I don't know that it's coming back anytime soon.
