The Vulgarization of Christ’s Church: Combating Progressivism’s Damning Influence upon Christian Thinking and Preaching

The Vulgarization of Christ’s Church

Combating Progressivism’s Damning Influence upon Christian Thinking and Preaching

RONNIE W. ROGERS

Foreword by R. Alan Streett

The Vulgarization of Christ’s Church

Combating Progressivism’s Damning Influence upon Christian Thinking and Preaching

Copyright ©

2017

Ronnie W. Rogers. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers,

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Table of Contents

Title Page

Foreword

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter 1: How the Modern Church Mind Was Contaminated

Chapter 2: The Fading Christian Influence in American Life and Christ’s Church

Chapter 3: What the Church Must Do to Stem the Tide of Progressivism

Chapter 4: Progressivism’s Attack upon Faith through Sociology, Psychology, and Law

Chapter 5: Scientism, the New De Facto Public Religion

Chapter 6: The Peril of Trusting Science Too Much

Chapter 7: A Call for an Equipping Model of the Local Church

Appendix A: Signing of Stem Cell Executive Order and Scientific Integrity

Appendix B: Southern Baptist Convention Resolution on Removing Children from the Public School System

Appendix C: Examination of the Challenge to the Claim That America Had a Significant Christian Population in 1776

Appendix D: The Letter of the Danbury Baptists to Thomas Jefferson

Appendix E: Jefferson’s Reply to the Danbury Baptist Association

Appendix F: Comparison of Four Texts—Jefferson and Danbury Baptists

Appendix G: Phrases That Relate to God or Religion in Our Five Most Significant Founding Documents

Authorial Definitions

Bibliography

I dedicate this book to my grandson, Winston Augustus Crosby. I know that your great grandfather is honored that you bear his name as I am honored as well. I know he would be equally desirous as I that your life would so reflect Christ that the name Winston would always remind people of Jesus. I love you Winston Augustus!

Foreword

In The Vulgarization of Christ’s Church Ronnie Rogers tackles the issue of progressive education and its negative impact on American culture in general and on the Church in particular. Tracing the development of education from the turn of the 20th century until the present, this book shows how the classroom has devolved from a hallowed sanctuary of sacred and classical learning to a study hall of profane and modern scholarship.

Emphasizing a utilitarian, child-centered and felt-needs approach to teaching, progressive educators have abandoned truth for a relativism that rejects both revelation and the verities of life, upon which classical education is based. Offering a system intended to match the needs with the modern man, progressive educators have actually thrust Western society into a new dark ages.

Should the reader be leery of the author’s conclusion, consider the following incident. As I pen this Foreword, the Denton Independent School District in Texas has embraced a radical child-centered methodology of testing its sixth to twelfth grade students. No longer will a student receive a zero for missing an exam or be given a failing score when flunking one. Rather, he will be allowed to retake the test numerous times until the teacher is satisfied the student has reached the highest score possible. If a student fails to submit a term paper or turns one in late, instead of receiving a zero or being docked points, he will be allowed to write it at his convenience and receive full credit.

When questioned by reporters, a Denton School official said, Zeroes indicate that no content mastery has been achieved. Using zeroes for missing or incomplete work gives an inaccurate reflection of a student’s knowledge or improvement toward mastery of content.

Another official remarked, A student’s grade should reflect his/her mastery of the content. Allowing students to retake an exam or test, lets students reflect on what they have learned and demonstrate their increase in knowledge of the content covered.

One wonders how these students will survive when they graduate and enter the world of reality.

Ronnie Rogers not only exposes the consequences of progressive education in society, but shows its negative effects on the contemporary church. Seeker-sensitive churches are a case in point. Many have embraced man-centered, felt-needs, market-driven, and I’m okay, you’re okay models of ministry, that reflect the basic principles of progressive educators, and in turn, leave doctrine, discipleship and church discipline in the dust. We might add that the principles of macro-evolution and natural science have also infiltrated the pews and influenced the pulpits of these churches.

Fortunately, the book does not end in despair. Rogers calls for the church to adopt an equipping model of ministry as a deterrent and counter measure to progressive education’s penetration into church and culture. The solution, he suggests, is to restore spiritual vitality to the local congregation. This involves a commitment to studying the Scriptures doctrinally, apologetically, evangelistically, and in their historical-grammatical context. No easy task, but necessary and worthwhile! Those equipped in this fashion will go forth as salt and light into a decaying and dark world, and serve as the antidote to the ever-spreading virus of progressive education.

Reading this book is like auditing a college course. When you complete it, you will understand that progressive education is not benign, but a pernicious attack on the revelation of God. We must oppose it until that day when the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea (Hab 2:14).

R. Alan Streett, PhD

Senior Research Professor of Biblical Theology

Criswell College

Dallas, Texas

Acknowledgements

My story began with contemplation of what others might owe me one day, but God’s love has ever shown me that there are none who owe me, but I am everyman’s debtor and my greatest debt is to him. Anything that others might graciously feel they owe me is truly owed to God and his grace in teaching one of the most obtuse, meanest, and sinful humans one could know; this so that others may be helped rather than hurt by the old me. He has both used the unmerited love of many, and the desire of my demise by others to mold me. Thus, I will be deeper in debt to more people on the morrow than I am today.

I thank Gina, my wife of forty years, who has through her unique giftedness and unwavering love for Christ and me, influenced me more than anyone else other than my Lord Jesus. She has modeled a divine faithful love toward me as we have followed Christ; we have celebrated the great moves of God as a pastor and his mate, joys unspeakable, and we have wept together in the bizarrely confusing and harrowing times as well. Through it all, she has never left my side; if she had, I would not be.

I also want to thank Larry Toothaker and Billy Wolfe who have with loving fastidiousness selflessly proofed my manuscript; Anita Charlson for her sedulous and unfathomable oversight and editing of the manuscript, without which the project would have been too dismaying to even consider; Sommer Buss for her splendid work on the cover creation; JR Crosby for his creative insights and caveats; the elders for their unwavering support of my commitment to study and their untiring encouragement to equip the saints and write; as well as my brothers and sisters at Trinity Baptist Church whom I have been blessed beyond measure to serve for over sixteen years. You have loved me without measure and provided me the greatest opportunity for spiritual growth. My longevity as your pastor is a testimony of your Christ-like gracious and generous forbearing love towards me. No man could deserve such a life of being loved, but none so little as me.

I will always be indebted to all of you for your love and support.

Introduction

In this book, I primarily seek to elucidate and demonstrate the incalculable and deleterious influence that progressive education has had upon preaching and the understanding of what a local church is to be and do, as well as the ability of Christians to think Christianly. I provide both current and historical evidence of progressive education’s undermining of the mission and message of the church. I refer to certain ideas as tsunamic, by which I mean ideas that spawn, empower, and perpetuate additional and consequential ideas. Often and unfortunately, many see the consequences of such substratal ideas as the real threat while they (although important) are actually emanations from the truly constitutive philosophical idea. It is this basal idea that must ultimately be understood and addressed.

Progressive education began at the turn of the twentieth century and is a tsunamic idea. Progressive education replaced classical and academic education with what is purportedly a science-based education. This seismic shift in public education has not only affected what we learn but how we think, both of which are, in many ways, contrary to classical and biblical thinking, e.g., existence of absolutes, importance of history. Tragically, this educational transformation has affected most Americans, and to the degree that its influence remains undetected or underappreciated by the church, the church is concomitantly infected. In order to enable the church to protect herself and be equipped by the progressive revelation of God, to help Christians think more Christianly and the church to be more faithful to Scripture, I seek to highlight some of the underlying intolerable essentials of progressive education and demonstrate how they are contaminating preaching and thereby the church.

I also provide some basic methods the church can employ to counter this substratal influence enabling us to be the church Christ desires us to be. While I believe there are many styles of local churches, I believe the biblical model is what I refer to as an Equipping Model. The equipping model is based upon Eph 4:11–16 and carries out the mission of the church as given by our Lord Jesus Christ in Matt 28:18–20.

The companion book to this one, The Equipping Church: Somewhere Between Fundamentalism and Fluff, primarily focuses upon contrasting the equipping model of the local church with other local church models, with clear reasons why the equipping model is the most biblical and how it encompasses the complete New Testament teaching for the local church. It gives clear biblical and practical steps for building an equipping New Testament church. I believe that the only way to disabuse the church of being guided by progressivism, gauzily clad with select verses, is to become aware of the pervasiveness and particulars of progressivism in order to detect and reject it outright; the next step is to replace progressivism with the progressive revelation of God. This can most thoroughly be done in a biblical model of the church that is molded by the full weight of the Word of God.

I use three terms throughout both books to distinguish the various genres of churches in America today. I use traditional to refer to an array of church models that, for various reasons and in varying degrees, commonly consider certain traditional practices as biblically superior to more contemporary approaches. I use contemporary to encompass various models that include a common commitment to contemporize church ministry without compromising the message of the gospel.¹ These genres have styles within each that are more or less consistent with the biblical model. Equipping is the term that I use to describe the biblical model that is based on Eph 4:11–16 and Matt 28:18–20. Even the equipping model consists of varying styles of churches.

Secular progressive education is undermining Christian education in the church and is actually undergirding much of the contemporary approach to church ministry, which ultimately leaves Christianity weak and anemic, merely driven by each new cultural wave and generation of culturati. The influence of progressive education upon the church has transformed much of the contemporary church into being driven more by science and scientism than Scripture, albeit at times unwittingly. The church must view its educational responsibility as paramount because if the church fails to grasp the educational nature of the church, she will fail at her mission.

1. I recognize that each approach, such as church growth, emergent, etc., may dislike being grouped together, but I do so for the sake of simplicity, allowing me to focus more on clearly contrasting some modern and traditional approaches with the biblical model as it is laid out in the New Testament; additionally, in contrast to liberal models, the ones I am considering are generally considered evangelical and claim to believe in the inerrancy of the Scripture or at least biblical authority.

1

How the Modern Church Mind Was Contaminated

The Subversive Influence of Progressive Education upon the Contemporary Church

Often people do not recognize how enormously they have been shaped by the less obvious influences in their lives. This is particularly true when it comes to education. This is not to say that people do not recognize that education has an impact upon their lives, but rather they do not appreciate the profound influence that the philosophy of their education has on their life and thinking about life.

When I left my first church to go to Criswell College for theological training, a dear friend and member Marzell Kingry said to me, I hate to see you go to school because I have watched many good preachers go to seminary and lose their passion and beliefs. Several years later, after my schooling, I went back and preached a funeral at that church, and she told me, Well, I’m glad to say that you did not lose your passion and beliefs when you gained an education. I told her what I came to realize is that it is not education that strips a man of his passion and biblical beliefs, but rather it is the kind of education that makes the difference.

My goal is not to challenge us to become more aware of how taking a particular class—math, history, or biology—influences a person’s life, for that seems quite obvious. Rather it is to challenge us to become more aware of the philosophy that determined the content of the subjects, how they are classified, their importance to overall education, when the subjects are offered, who takes them, why other subjects are not offered, how each subject relates to the other, how they are taught and in fact what defines education and learning. It is the guiding philosophy of the education, and its almost subliminal effect upon people that concerns me.

This veiled influence may not be as obvious to a person as the unmistakable content of a given subject—in literature they may have learned about Huckleberry Finn—but it becomes glaringly pronounced through what I call generational infection. Simply stated, this refers to people imbibing at the cistern of a quite different philosophy of life and thought than what they initially believe; then through continued exposure to the undergirding and driving philosophy they gradually begin to think, evaluate, and communicate more and more consistently with the new system of thought while remaining largely unaware of the subtle shift.¹ Public education demonstrates this well. People are exposed to certain ideas they do not like or are uncomfortable with, and so reject them. However, the underlying premise of the public education, which may or may not be mentioned or fully understood, results in one becoming intellectually befouled with some of the ideas that seem to coincide with one’s own worldview; on a deeper level, they unknowingly become tainted with an underlying premise, or worldview, which through generational infection will eventually either change their current worldview or strip it of its uniqueness or coherency.

Therefore, generational infection is where fundamental beliefs and the coherency of one’s worldview are eroded to the point where successive generations are willing to accept what previous generations rejected categorically because in accepting certain proposals, they also accepted certain modifications of their philosophy of life even though they were either marginally or totally unaware of them. It is only detected by evaluating where a person is and who one is in light of more than one’s own experience or culture because phenomenologically the two ideas may look very similar or compatible, but philosophically they are irreconcilable. Generational infection is only detected by stepping outside of our normal thought processes and evaluating them not merely phenomenologically but biblically, philosophically, and comparatively. Then and only then can we begin to see the influence our education has upon us and upon the church through us.

For example, I grew up in the sixties. I am, in large part, a product of the sixties and seventies. By anyone’s estimation, these were years of cultural revolution. Robert Bork, former professor of law at Yale Law School, said of the sixties, The revolt was against the entire American culture. The United States, it was said, was engaged in an immoral war only because the United States itself was deeply immoral, being racist, sexist, authoritarian, and imperialistic.² However, even though I grew up during that tumultuous time and was aware of the war protests, rock music, and hippies, I did not realize the seismic cultural shift that was transpiring; for how could I objectively evaluate that of what I was in fact a noncontemplative participant. Only years later, through becoming a Christian and studying for many years, have I come to understand that of which I was a part. This example helps to highlight the fact that generational infection is much more sinister than other more obvious cultural enticements, because it is far more difficult to detect and correct.

I believe the most influential agent in shifting American culture to a more culturally liberal society is progressive education. Progressive education began around the turn of the twentieth century³ and has dominated state education ever since. It stands as the most significant vehicle for changing the ideas of culture changers and disseminating those ideas on a massive scale. My setting forth of progressive education as the principal vehicle for transforming modern American culture, and to an alarming degree the church, is not to say it is the only or even the swiftest influence. Obviously any given culture is a supersystem and therefore not totally the reflection of any one particular cause.

Just consider the fact that almost all adults—including preachers, evangelists, missionaries and Christian leaders—have attended state schools.⁴ In addition, about ninety percent of all children attend state schools kindergarten through twelfth grade.⁵ They do this for approximately eight hours a day, nine months a year, for twelve or thirteen years. Also, college enrollment has grown significantly. In 1930, as Seymour Martin Lipset noted, there were about 1,000,000 students in [colleges or universities] . . . But in 1970, there were 7,000,000 students.⁶ Nearly eighty percent of all college students attend state schools⁷ and over twenty-one million are enrolled in state colleges today.⁸

Although the media, with its brazen images and mass dissemination of political demagoguery, clearly drives us faster and faster to error being accepted as a form of truth, I intend to demonstrate that the underlying problem is the philosophy of progressive education, which has forged our culture, and to a large degree our churches, into non-thinking institutions. Progressive education has created a culture whose learning process is conducive to images, sound bites, and demagoguery rather than well-informed, analytical, linear thinking. My major concern is what it has done to the church, or better said, what the church has allowed it to do. This is not to play the blame game, but rather to identify this subversive influence for what it is and how it has infected the church, and to challenge the church to rise up and be what God called her to be.

While people are keenly aware of the power of more visible influences like modern media or advertising, seldom do they probe beneath the obvious to investigate the reason or cause. Why are so many so susceptible to ideas that once were so repugnant? For example, while it is obvious that the entertainment and social media—television, movies, music, internet—vastly increase the dissemination of detrimental ideas upon the American public, that does not address the origin of the plethora of rancid ideas and the reason people have become so accepting of them. Where did the ones who determine the content of movies, music, and news get their ideas? In other words, who influenced the influencers and what happened, and continues to happen, to much of the church that makes her so vulnerable and even quick to embrace each new wave of ideas? Why has this happened to the church, and how do we build churches that remain faithful to the Scripture and are thereby able to thrive in hostile environments without retreating into traditionalism or supping at the table of modishness? That is what this book and this chapter in particular is about.

While I recognize that evil ideas ultimately originate in the heart of Satan and fallen man, my concern is why the promulgation of that evil has become so prevalent, and why much of the church is not only acquiescing but also embracing things that even thirty years ago were categorically rejected? The church has not only been swept up in the tide of the progressives, but she has actually, in disconcerting measure, become complicitous in the propagation of progressivism, albeit wearing different attire. Remember that I am not considering the liberal wing of Christianity, but rather those known as conservative, evangelical, or neo-evangelical. In addition, my emphasis is not to merely attack the progressive influence on the church growth movement and extol fundamentalism or legalism, for they are as much a part of the problem as the contemporary model, only in a different way. The contemporary model does not counter progressivism because it actually embraces many of its underlying concepts, albeit often unwittingly. Traditionalism fails to counter it because its intellectual spirituality is measurably disengaged from the century in which it operates. That is to say, traditionalism emphasizes an isolationist model rather than biblically equipping Christians to engage the modern world.

The contemporary approach was right to reject traditionalism as a model for the church because it was not biblical and therefore was increasingly irrelevant, but it seriously erred in replacing traditionalism with an equally inadequate contemporaneity, which is often predicated more upon the ideas of progressive education than progressive revelation. The church growth movement has not demonstrated sufficient prudence or shame for its dependence upon secular growth models, marketing, and non-Christian experts even though some of their own more recent research indicates the failure of such secular ideas to produce spiritually mature believers.⁹ However, I believe they would be ashamed if they understood that the premise of much of their innovation is based more upon ideas that are antithetical to Scripture than based upon Scripture itself. Church growth adherents are inherently and relentlessly, although at times imperceptibly, undermining and eroding true biblical Christianity, which they seek to live and spread. The force that I am talking about is, of course, progressive education.¹⁰

First, my comments are not intended to be a critique of all public school teachers. There are many dedicated Christian teachers in the public school system, for which I am very grateful. Some of them understand the fundamental problems in progressive education and are actually a force against its advancement. Sadly though, many other fine Christians are not fully aware of their complicity in advancing the core principles of progressive education. Secondly, the church growth movement has influenced most churches in America, and some of that influence has been for the good. The detrimental effect upon the church is from church growth movement principles that undermine or marginalize biblical mandates, thereby consigning churches to trendy shallowness.¹¹

The challenge is to examine everything through the lens of Scripture and to think substantively about ideas, philosophies, and long-term ramifications of core concepts—none of which are characteristics of the church growth movement or of the progressivism that significantly undergirds the movement. This seems to be a deficiency of the church growth movement and its uncritical enthusiasts, which in my opinion, potentiates dispossessing the church of its spiritual power derived from being a church operating under God’s instructions. For that reason, I want to explain the underlying premises of progressive education and then demonstrate how these are also, albeit unknowingly, some of the premises of the church growth movement. I am aware of the numerous name changes or emphases that take place in education like outcome based or constructivism,"¹² and the like, but the basic premises that I will lay out have undergirded state education for the last century and still do.

The Detrimental Effects of Progressive Education

In the early 1980s there was a palpable sense throughout the country that our educational standards needed immediate attention and improvement, and I would say they still do. To this end, the Reagan Administration commissioned a study, and a report was made by the National Commission on Excellence in Education. That report was a galvanizing event; the report was entitled A Nation at Risk. It was a call to action; it said in part, ‘Our nation is at risk . . . the educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people . . . If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.’¹³

Today the church is at risk of becoming what she preaches against. The mandate for the church is to transform the culture, but with each passing generation, the reality is that the culture is transforming much of the church. I am speaking of evangelical, conservative churches that hold to the Bible as the Word of God, who have a passion to reach the lost and transform our culture. There is a rising tide of mediocrity and superficiality within the church that threatens the very future of the local church. The modern threat is hosted and inculcated into society through progressive education.

Because progressive education began in the latter part of the nineteenth century, flourished in the twentieth century, and dominates twenty-first century state education, it is safe to say that virtually every American has been influenced to some degree by the tenets of progressive education. Only by coming to grips with that reality and how it is affecting our churches can it be truly countered. It has to be done in the local church where the people are equipped by shepherds feeding the flock with the meat of the Scripture. The following seeks to delineate some of the essential ideas of progressive education and demonstrate its profound and deleterious influence upon the church as well as the detrimental impact it is having upon our Republic. I will spend sufficient time explaining each of the concepts educationally. Then I will demonstrate how each concept is undermining the work of the church in the church.

Progressive education rejected mental discipline

Speaking of mental discipline, Educational Historian Diane Ravitch, in her book Left Back says, Most parents and educators believed in that doctrine . . . because they assumed that the purpose of education was to ‘train’ the mind and ‘discipline’ the will. Mental discipline . . . held that the mind was composed of specific ‘faculties’ or powers, such as reasoning, memory, will, observation, judgment, and imagination, and that these powers could be trained and strengthened by vigorous effort.¹⁴ Consequently, subjects like Latin not only taught you Latin but trained the mind to judge and reason, and it