The Gospel and Separation: The Appearance on the Ground

Some reading "the debate" about the gospel and the place and meaning of repentance relegate it to just semantics and "can't we all just get along."  This to them is nothing more than an intramural skirmish between fellowshiping brethren.  That's how some choose to characterize these differences over the gospel, but it isn't how I look at them.

In order for you perhaps to grasp the difference between what John Mincy wrote in the Proclaim and Defend article on repentance and what I'm espousing (here and here), you might consider how his position often looks on the ground.  It may not have looked like this at the church he pastored, or at least exactly like what I'm going to describe, but it very often does look how I'm going to describe it.  There's enough wrong with the doctrine itself, arising from a contorted hermeneutic, so that it contradicts the Word of God.  That's bad enough, but I want to draw the picture of how it applies, which is also frequently why it is a popular doctrine to hold.

First, let me digress -- there is a historic departure from orthodox soteriology that far predates what I'm writing about here, called Sandemanianism, and I believe its trajectory moves toward corruption existent at the time of the writing of the New Testament epistles.  In its worst form, grace is turned into lasciviousness (2 Peter, Jude) and used as an occasion of the flesh (Galatians 5).

Now back to the subject:  on the ground, the world still rejects even the Mincy position on repentance, even as in this world many won't give a preacher the time of day with anything he says.   It's not really so much because people so dislike this belief about repentance, as they don't want to hear any preaching, good or bad.

Nevertheless, with evangelism according to the Mincy position on repentance, the evangelist focuses on Jesus as Savior.  Faced with the alternative, people very often want to go to heaven -- they want to be saved from hell.  Jesus will save them and it's free, so they don't have to work for it and really can't work for it.   They just take the gift by accepting Jesus as Savior.  Will they do that?  Their lives are messed with sin, but Jesus will save them.  They don't have to be messed up and don't have to go to hell -- they can go to heaven.  If they want to ask Jesus to save them, they can just place their faith in Him, trust in Him, and stop trusting in themselves, because they could only mess it up. If the evangelist takes it one step further, and I'm not sure Mincy would, but if someone is already to this point, then he can ask the person to pray with him to trust in Jesus as Savior.

So, if the person has trusted Jesus as His Savior, according to the above doctrine, he's saved. According to Mincy, he's also repented, because he isn't trusting in himself any more and that's about which he needed to change his mind in order to be saved.   In the Mincy presentation, the sinner changes his mind about the direction of his faith -- not himself anymore but now Jesus.  This is how it reads on many different tracts and website offerings from the many churches advocating this position.

Is the above person saved now?  Some reading here would say, "Yes."  They agree with Mincy. Others would say, "Maybe."  Do we have a basis for saying anyone who agreed to the above content was saved?  I don't think so, but I would also say, "Maybe."  I might add, "Probably not though."  Most people that go through the above presentation and even pray along afterwards aren't actually saved.  The fact that someone says, "maybe," means to many fundamentalists and evangelicals that the Mincy position clears the bar of acceptability.  They can still fellowship, because even though they might disagree, his position doesn't wreck the gospel enough to separate over it.  They wish, you know, it were a little more clear, but it isn't a false gospel.  In addition, many people make false professions, and you can't control that.  False professions will happen to everyone in Christian work.

People do make false professions, but let's not fool ourselves, the tack taken by those who believe what Mincy does, even if he's not right there himself with the method, is not what Jesus or the Apostles did, not how they operated.  It's taking a very selective reading of passages mostly out of context and then extrapolating a tactic from it.  Even if the "evangelist" is convinced now that what he's saying is true, it is deception of the worst possible kind.  Anyone who believes this, and then later goes to hell, I'm pretty sure will be thinking it was a false gospel while he's serving his eternal sentence there.

The Mincy position church rejoices in the profession of faith.  A sinner has "repented," so, I guess, heaven is rejoicing too.  However, this is no prodigal returning, not even like the prodigal's return.  "A soul won" excites others to go do the same with the same message and method, so more of it occurs. Yes, some of the professions don't "stick."  They don't, "but that doesn't mean those people weren't saved," since salvation doesn't come by works.  Then hopefully in the future, some fruit will show after the professor is dedicated and Jesus becomes his Lord, that is, he participates in "sanctification repentance."

Almost any problem in a church that takes the Mincy position on repentance can be chalked up to a lack of dedication.  There doesn't have to be an expectation of biblical living, because here's a person who has made it only through the first tier, where Jesus is his Savior.  He can't get saved by works and works are not expected, because works can't be "frontloaded."  His continued carnality occurs because he hasn't yet grown enough.  At some point in the future, hopefully he will, after he gets dedicated.

To get to dedication, revivalist preachers are regularly called upon to preach, so the church can have "revival."  These revivalist preachers are an itinerant band, who have crafted usually a few messages, very fine tuned and emotional things, that can get the people of the church fired up again.

I'm not saying that a church doesn't need constant vigilance regarding obedience to scripture. Sanctification involves struggle.  This sanctification for believers is the body life of a church, exhorting one another at every meeting and provoking one another to love and good works, strengthening the feebleminded, supporting the weak, and warning the unruly.

The Mincy type repentance churches have revival meetings with an "evangelist," who is skilled in a gathering at procuring decisions from unsaved people to receive Jesus as Savior and then to stir up the ones who have accepted Jesus as Savior in the past.  This role isn't anywhere in scripture, but it follows the doctrine and practice.

Compatible with the above view of repentance often comes a difference on the ministry of the Holy Spirit.  The leaders and their people often covet another outpouring of the Spirit, a kind of visitation from Him with power. Frequently this experience is called the baptism and this is how someone can get to the next level of dedication, where Jesus takes the throne of the person who had accepted Jesus as Savior in the past.  If this event will occur, a church or some of it must get serious about having this experience and will often pray with the hope of an explosive outcome.

I said the Mincy position is more popular.  It's easier to present because it's more like what people want to hear.  The emphasis is on what people naturally like about salvation.  It's easier to get a profession.  It sounds more compassionate.  A person doesn't have to change.  He probably won't, but the pressure to change is greatly relieved.  Since it's easier to preach this message, it's also easier to find workers.  Because there will be more results, the people seeing them will be more greatly encouraged in their involvement.  People are more likely to stay with the acceptance of more carnality.  Since the others will expect it, they won't be inclined to confront.  It's easier not to confront.

I'm not writing, here and now, what the alternative looks like.  I am telling you that the above though is not what my church looks or acts like.  We don't evangelize that way.  We don't present repentance that way.  We don't talk about sanctification that way.  It's very, very different.  The church that takes the Mincy position is like a whole different religion.  People need to know this difference.

When church leaders and their churches don't act like anything is wrong with the Mincy position or that it isn't an issue of fellowship, people are confused and deceived.  Churches will not be discouraged at all from being like what I have described above.  The false gospel will spread.  You or your non-separating church have given these churches no reason to be any different.