Theocentric Preaching

David Powlison writes about the therapeutic gospel, which is probably one of the most common forms of anthropocentric (human-centered) preaching:

When this way of looking at things is ported into Christianity, then the gospel of Jesus becomes the better way to meet your needs. Perhaps your sin is that you look to your girlfriend/boyfriend or spouse to meet your need for love, when Jesus is the one who lives to meet that need. In this way of looking at things, God’s chief purpose is often portrayed as merely giving us what we deeply desire, gratifying our deepest instinctive longings.

This way of describing how God interacts with our desires is a “therapeutic gospel.” It offers to heal the woundedness we feel because our needs weren’t met. It offers to fill those empty places inside with Jesus.

I think that the therapeutic gospel gets it wrong. It gets God wrong. It gets people wrong. It gets suffering wrong. It gets the gospel wrong.

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continued from yesterday

I have observed three approaches to preaching that lead to human-centered sermons.

The first approach is therapeutic preaching. This preaching focuses on people’s felt needs such as how to build relationships, handle stress, manage money, raise children, and resolve conflicts. In a therapeutic culture, the pressure to preach this way is intense.

Therapeutic preaching, however, comes at a cost. It is often not based on a vision of God and the gospel. It can lead to a self-help approach and narcissism. At its worst, it can resemble a Christian version of pop-psychology, or what one person calls “chicken soup for the Christian life.” This type of preaching brings to mind “the image of Jesus calling Lazarus from the grave”, write Alan Roxburgh and Fred Romanuk. “Most preaching is about how to cope with a life wrapped in grave clothing that is never removed.”

Haddon Robinson, author of Biblical Preaching, recounts hearing a sermon on how to overcome procrastination. He knew they were in trouble, he says, when the first point was to buy a DayTimer. “The Bible is a book about God,” Robinson writes. “It is not a religious book of advice about the ‘answers’ we need about a happy marriage, sex, work, or losing weight. Although the Scriptures reflect on many of those issues, they are above all about who God is and what God thinks and wills. I understand reality only if I have an appreciation for who he is and what he desires for his creation and from his creation.”

tomorrow: a second human-centered approach