Men want better methods; God wants better men. This apho­rism (which should be seen as gender-inclusive) highlights what is for me one of the less understood problems of the Australian church, but one that runs deep. That is the way we have often unwittingly adopted secular standards and principles, thus remaking God in our image. We cannot stand entirely apart from the wider culture, and nor should we, but if we don’t engage with it intelligently we end up adopting it. Or, rather, it adopts us.

In what follows I am greatly indebted to American theologian David Wells who is concerned that the church has lost its moral compass. He fears that a tide of nominalism to match anything the Catholic church ever suffered is sweeping the evangelical church. Just as evangelicals seem to be emerging victorious from their century-long struggle against liberalism, they are abandoning the commitment to truth that enabled their success. The threat now, which is sapping the church from within, is the modern marketing approach. By this I don’t mean the domi­nance of style over substance so much as an actual distortion of the Christian mes­sage that robs it of power in people’s lives.

It’s not that evangelicals have denied the great doctrines: the doctrines of God, of Christ, of salvation, of man. But they are less likely to live by these doctrines. These truths don’t guide people — in the pulpit or in the pews — as once they did.

Now most Christians understand that while the gospel core stands unchanged, the way it is presented can and must adapt to local contexts. Marketing has played a particularly powerful role in economic discourse for two decades. So what’s wrong with applying marketing principles to the church?

What’s wrong is that it costs half the gospel message. The biblical com­mand is to repent and believe. The mar­keting gospel leaves out repentance, ren­dering the belief part unrecognisable. Accompanied by repentance, belief becomes a commitment; without repen­tance, it is a lifestyle choice that can be changed at your convenience. Indeed, it is more basic than that. If we don’t under­stand sin we don’t even understand our need for salvation, let alone the depth of God’s love. The gospel becomes some­thing quite different — as it is in many parts of the church. So if evangelicals don’t preserve this biblical truth, who will?

The problem with what I call the mar­keting gospel is evident in the vocabulary. The marketing paradigm is the buyer or customer — and the customer is always right.

First, a market­ing approach tries to present the product so that the consumers will desire it. This is an entirely dif­ferent relationship, and utterly the opposite of classical Christianity. The new picture puts people at the centre, rather than God. It’s what God can do for us. This gospel begins with us: with our anxiety and pain and dis­illusionment. God is valued not for who He is, but what He does for us. He calms our fear and provides a sense of wholeness. The marketing gospel presents a God who is there for our benefit, to make our lives go smoothly. But the Bible teaches a sov­ereign God whom we are to love for Himself. More, we are to serve and obey Him, though He promises us trials and tribulation before ultimate triumph.

This marketing trend is obvious in many moderns songs of praise — and I don’t mean musical style or the instru­ments used, I mean the theological con­tent. They don’t focus on God’s character and attributes and works, as did the ancient creeds and hymns. Instead, they focus on our psychological state — how we feel, our delight, our feelings of closeness, our gratitude. Sin is merely a psychologi­cal problem, rather than a moral one. Here we see the influence of secular psychology: guilt is to be soothed away, we are to accept ourselves, rather than seeing our guilt as a spur to action. Look at Isaiah in Isaiah 6: “Woe to me. I am a man of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King.”

Contrast that attitude with this mod­ern song of praise:

I need you to hold me
Like my daddy never could,
And I need you to show me
How resting in your arms can be so good
I need you to walk with me
Hand in hand, we’ll run and play
And I need you to talk to me
Tell me again you’ll stay.

Such sticky sentimentality is not going to deepen anyone’s faith or understanding, or motivate them to a deeper walk. To the contrary, God is an indulgent daddy or lover who requires nothing, and what He offers is merely psychological support. That’s important, but if it’s all we’re offered it’s a woefully inadequate gospel.

The second problem with the market­ing gospel is that it tries to meet what the customers feel their needs are. But felt-needs may disguise the real needs, as the Bible puts them. It assumes people know they need salvation. But the spiritually dead cannot diagnose their condition. The comfort the church offers must not be a false consolation. Salvation means more than therapy, more than a way of negoti­ating our path in the world. It is that, of course, but it’s much more.

And of course we are to offer unconditional love to all, but that doesn’t mean unconditional acceptance of every­thing they do. Too many Christians have accepted the world’s definition of love as unconditional tolerance, so that we affirm not only people but what they do. I want to tell you, tolerance is a limited virtue. It usually means merely that we don’t much care. Compare that with the gospel, which both provides power to overcome sin and charges us to imitate Christ. God accepts us just as we are — but He doesn’t leave us there.

The third problem with the marketing gospel is that it can’t ask consumers to make an absolute commitment to a prod­uct. But Christianity demands such commitment. To “buy” Christianity means you have to surrender to Christ. It’s a contradiction in terms. Such a gospel does not mention cost — forsaking all to follow him, as Jesus requires. This is what Bonhoeffer called cheap grace.

The fourth problem flows directly from that: the marketing gospel cannot build the church. Customers don’t have duties or obligations, they can stay disen­gaged. They don’t have to commit to and contribute to God’s steady construction work, being sandpaper to others’ rough edges and being rubbed smoother in turn. They can flit here and there, accept­ing the comfort while rejecting the chal­lenge. But the church is those who are called — ekklesia, called out — it is the peo­ple of God as a body, working together.

Fifth, the marketing gospel focuses on processes and results. It becomes obsessed with numbers, growth, efficiency. To criticise this is not to endorse the opposite extreme of complacency and lack of evangelistic effort. But many faith­ful Christians create a rod for their own backs with unrealistic expectations. After all, the Bible tells us that Paul planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow (1 Cor 3:5).

So, churches influenced by modern marketing principles are inclined to present God’s love but not His holiness. And of course God’s love is at the centre of the Gospel. But without His holiness, His love is sentimentalised and dimin­ished, grace is trivialised. Those who understand what sin is struggle to avoid it, be it pride and selfishness, or adultery, or exploitation. Unfortunately many in evangelical churches don’t understand sin: that is one reason why they have so many nominal Christians.

One of the questions I was asked to address was sexual abuse: how badly has this damaged the church, and are we at last getting it right?

The sexual abuse crisis has been catastrophic, especially in the Catholic church. Though many Catholic apolo­gists believe their church has been unfairly singled out, that the media has sensationalised their cases, that they are no worse than the general population, the evidence is that the type of abuse and the extent of abuse has been much worse in the Catholic church than other churches. And, of course, even more damaging than the abuse was the cover-up, the lying, protecting abusers from the law, simply moving them from parish to parish, the secrecy, the refusal to acknowledge the victims or, when they did, the pressure on victims to be silent. About 4 per cent of American priests over the past 50 years — that’s 4400 — were accused of abusing 11,000 minors, accord­ing to a survey released this month. And that’s just the cases that came out. A survey of American Catholics found that 87 per cent wanted bishops who protected child molesters removed. We can guess what those outside the church think.

Worryingly, there is evidence that many in the hierarchy, especially in Rome, simply don’t understand how damaging the sexual abuse has been and continues to be. The Pope, a colossus in standing against communism and for human rights, has been a moral pygmy in pro­tecting human rights within the church, that is the rights of abuse victims. These are strong words, but I have just finished reading a book by two American journal­ists that is quite appalling. It suggests the Vatican is as much as ever into denial, secrecy and cover-ups, and that this attitude starts at the very top with John Paul II and Cardinal Ratzinger. The Vatican’s over-arching concern has been to protect clerical power and authority. Ironically, nothing could so have undermined it. In Australia, I think, they get it; the way then-Archbishop Pell stood down until an investigation into allegations against him was completed was admirable. But his comment that abortion was far worse than sexual abuse was at best unwise.

Meanwhile Rome would prefer to blame the media and secular culture. The media certainly often has a lot to answer for, but in this case I say thank God for the media — such justice and reform as has been achieved has come mainly through the courts and the press.

This is an age, as many have noted, when people are suspicious of authority, and suspicious of institutions. The churches had a marvellous chance to impress by cleaning their house and showing the gospel in action. Instead, most people believe they have had to be dragged kicking and screaming every step that they have had to take. Protestant churches are less damaged, but many still have a lot of ground to make up. Protocols and processes are now in place but the community’s trust must be re-won.

The message I want to leave is this: The gospel is no less powerful today than it has been for 2000 years. But it has to be the God — centred gospel of the Bible. The pendulum is swinging, and people are ready to hear the gospel again. But the church must recover its sense of sin, both to present the gospel properly and in its own life. If we don’t live an authentic Christian life, why should the world listen to us? As 19th century Anglican priest Sydney Smith aptly said, “he who marries the spirit of the age will soon find himself a widower”.