The Seeker Movement by David F. Wells Part 3

Excerpts from Above All Earthly Pow’rs: Christ in a Postmodern World

Given the kind of airy indifference to the place of biblical doctrine in the seeker methodologies, it is probably futile to suggest that there is, in fact, a doctrinal reason for this convergence between the seeker churches and the older liberalism. That explanation lie in the fact that there is a disconnect between the biblical orthodoxy which is progressed and the assumptions off which seeker churches are building themselves. Seeker methodology rests upon the Pelagian view that human beings are not inherently sinful, despite creedal affirmations to the contrary, that in their disposition to God and his Word postmoderns are neutral, that they can be seduced into making the purchase of faith even as they can into making any other kind of purchase. A majority of 52% of evangelicals, it was noted earlier, 52%, reject the idea of original sin. It would nevertheless be quite foolish to think that using what was once a dreaded word – Pelagian – to describe all of this would create dismay. It will not. The majority of evangelicals are deliberately undoctrinal. Their criterion of truth” by which seeker habits of church building should be tested is simply the pragmatic one. Is this working? (Page 299)

When the consumer is allowed to be sovereign in Church, the Church is abdicating from its responsibility because it is allowing truth to become displaced by spiritual and psychological desire. However, once the concession has been made, we then discover that satisfying needs becomes a frustrating undertaking. Needs, in the therapeutic society, multiply faster than fruit flies. No sooner is one nee met than two take its place. Coopting the needs to church is not the same things a seeing a sinner converted and brought into the Church. (Page 302-303)