The Terrible Failure of the Secular Gospel
By Michael Brown http://www.charismamag.com/life/culture/23142-the-terrible-failure-of-the-secular-gospel Almost 20 years ago, the journal First Things published an article by a famous German theologian named Wolfhart Pannenberg titled " How to Think About Secularism ." In the article, Pannenberg outlined the nature of secularism and how it threatened the church, also explaining how the church should not respond to the challenge. Looking back, it's clear that many of our pastors and leaders have done the opposite of what he counseled, and we are paying the price for it today. Pannenberg himself was orthodox in some of his beliefs and unorthodox in others, but I'm focusing here on his observations about secularism rather than his overall theology . Tracing today's Western secularism back to the 17th century, he wrote, "A public climate of secularism undermines the confidence of Christians in the truth of what they believe." So, it is not...