It’s unfortunate that there are examples of cultural accommodation to be found from both these men, which is why, I think, they’ve been lumped together. Departure from the gospel is departure from the gospel.

You made a terrible comparison… Osteen and Hybels.. Is Hybels a church growth guy, yes. Is Osteen a church growth guy…NO.. He is a false gospel guy. Osteen preaches a false gospel and Hybels does ministry in a way you and I don’t agree with. The two should not at all be put in the same boat. I just wanted that to be stated. There is a big differece in someone having a different method of ministry and someone preaching a false gospel.

Osteen isn’t church growth… He itches the ears of his people. he is self-help and prosperity. Does his church grow because of this yes, but not because of methodology… It is because of his theology(or lack of) I suggest putting Warren in the place of Osteen.

In light of that, my guess is that Dever is speaking to the postmodern and pragmatic assumptions of culture and how contemporary versions of Christianity are trying to accommodate to the ideological milieu in order to rescue Christianity and make it “work” for our generation. For postmodernism, it is the emerging church movement; for pragmatism, it is the church growth movement.

Now, you all have made some important observations which I cannot all speak to; however, Reid is right that we should not swing the pendulum across to another extreme in a Hegelian dialectic manner. Rick is right that the word “relevant” is a loaded term that needs qualification, as do most words in our day! The Puritans of whom Dever is a modern-day example knew their “culture” well and were excellent at taking biblical truth and applying it to their lives (e.g. making it relevant). So in that sense, I would have to say that I do not think Dever is saying we should not be relevant. I would think, rather, he is referring to the reformulating and rewriting of Christianity in order to conform to the times in which we live (of which examples include McLaren, Pagitt, Jones on the pomo side, and Osteen, Schuller, and Hybels on the church growth side).

But that’s just my guess.

We always live in culture and some of the culture is not wicked – it is simply what people have created, under Providence, in a certain time and place. Some of it is wicked, some of it just wears blue jeans.

Style is not sin, adopting the sinful views, attitudes and practices of a culture would be sin. Liberalism adapted Christian theology to modern “scientific” assumptions of the 19th century and did violence to the essence of the gospel…much as some Emergents are doing today. But to say that relevance does not matter is just so silly. Think about us saying: I am pray every day for the irrelevance of the church and the gospel to all of those around me!

What we want is relevance with faithfulness…we must be in culture, but prophets within culture.

Now, what Dever is likely reacting against is this monkeying of the world we see in churches. Where people adopt culture in an inauthentic way. Where churches start wearing a cultural costume trying to appear “native” while not authentically “being” so. I have an example I will blog on this today…there is a sickness that Dever is reacting against, my fear is the healthy church guys naively swing the pendulum too far.

What I pray to see is Christians living counter cultural kingdom lives as “natives” in culture. Missionaries always want to see “indigenous” leaders – this is my prayer as well. Whether in the back country or the big city. We need faithful, theologically driven, passionate, Kingdom culture building servants working relevantly in all cultures of the world. Neither a sell out becoming captive to culture, but following a different King while swimming in the same streams.

Now relevance when it becomes an idol is a sickness that knows no bounds, but when I use the term I simply mean that the gospel should be “understood” to people in culture. From a reformed perspective, Tim Keller has been a better guide for me on this than others.

If by relevant you mean that you want to express the gospel in terms that the culture you’re surrounded by can understand, that’s not liberal, that’s biblical.

If you mean the modern version where you look so much like the culture that you can’t tell the difference between the culture and the church, that’s not liberal, that’s sin.

“Relevance” is one of many buzz words in the Church today that obviously doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone.

In the way Dever seems to be using it in the quotes above, yes, it (relevance) seems to be a theologically liberal idea.

But then, I think that Capitol Hill Baptist is quite relevant insofar as I define relevance. They have taken great advantage of the web (9 Marks interviews, T4G blog, podcast, etc.)…that seems relevant to me. As well, Pastor Mark seems to be well aware of the goings on in both the Convention and the evangelical church at large.