Relevance and Relativism

Churches today are obsessed with being "relevant." If looking through ad church advertisement in a phone book, it is almost guaranteed that one will see "relevant preaching." This begs the question of what makes preaching relevant, and what makes preaching irrelevant. The short answer is simple. Relevant preaching is that which speaks to us Law and Gospel, that which proclaims Jesus Christ as the one and only sacrifice for sins. Irrelevant preaching is anything else. After all, nothing can possibly be more relevant to a person than his eternal fate.

Of course, when a church advertises itself as having relevant preaching, they typically go the opposite route. They seem to think that the work of Jesus Christ and the eternal fate of man are irrelevant, and that nearly anything else is relevant, whether it be health, wealth, self esteem, or even sex. These things are all irrelevant in the scheme of eternity. Why then do churches that consider themselves to be relevant preach nothing but irrelevance? Are they lying? Do they truly believe their message to be relevant? Is there some other form of miscommunication going on here.

I don't think that those who call their irrelevant message "relevant" are lying. They in fact do truly believe their message to be relevant, but their idea of relevance is not a true universal relevance, but a cultural relevance. In most cases, the message of relevance is only relevant to a subset of humanity. In most cases a preacher may preach what is relevant to his or (unfortunately) her target audience. They want to draw a certain group of people to their church and they preach a message those people would like to hear. They are in fact tickling the itching ears of they target audience.

Yet, by definition of making their preaching relevant to some people, they are by definition making their preaching irrelevant to others. The preaching of Joel Osteen may be relevant to the middle class, but the upper class don't need it, and most people in the lower class have seen people with great faith, but still have miserable lives. The message of a black liberation theologian is completely irrelevant to those who happen to not feel like they are oppressed because of their race.

Not only does the entire idea of culturally relevant preaching cause irrelevance to be preached. But culturally relevant preaching allows the minds of sinful men to be in full control of what is preached in church. Sermons/messages are no longer based on the Bible, God's Holy and Perfect Word, but they are based on what people want to hear. Sure, the preacher may throw in a few passages to proof text their message, but the message itself did not come from scripture. The message of the Bible, Christ crucified for sinners will never seem relevant, and it does not appeal to a target audience. It is the Gospel and through it the Holy Spirit will bring people to faith.

It gets even worse. The concept of relevant preaching implies that what is relevant for me might not be relevant for you. As long as this message is being sent to church goers, it will not take too much of a jump for them to get to full blown relativism. As long as what is being preached is determined by what the church goer wants and not by the true Biblical message, the church goers ideas become more important in what they perceive to be truth. Instead of "What is relevant for you may not be relevant for me" they begin to say "what is true for you may not be true for me." All of the sudden, instead of learning who God is, church goers are "exploring who God is to me."

Clearly, it is a short, steep and slippery slope from relevance to relativism.
My hope and prayer is that when you go to church, you do not get a culturally relevant message. I hope you get a truly relevant message that Jesus Christ, true God and true man, bore your sins and suffered and died in your place.

SOLI DEO GLORIA