When the Protestant Reformer, Martin Luther, was spreading his ideas for reforming the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Leo X issued his famous papal bull Exsurge Domine. In this proclamation, the Pope likened Luther to a "wild boar" loose in the Lord's vineyard. Of course, the Pope intended the name "wild boar" in a derogatory manner. He believed that Luther was a heretic and that the Catholic Church needed no correction. Luther was seen as a dangerous man who must be stopped. Luther was indeed making havoc of the Roman Church, but he was not heretic. He was calling into question many of the false teachings and human traditions that the Church had accrued over the years. Most importantly, he was challenging the system of works-righteous that had usurped the true gospel of salvation by grace alone. Though seen by his enemies as a wild boar, Luther was in fact a man raised up by God to lead the church back to its biblical roots.
The title of this newsletter draws its inspiration from that "wild boar" of the sixteenth century. The editors and writers seek to do for the contempory evangelical church what Luther attempted to do in the Roman Catholic Church. It is our conviction that the church has once again drifted from its biblical moorings, and has adopted beliefs and practices that compromise the gospel. For example, the current move toward "user-friendly" churches which use modern marketing techniques to sell the gospel to religious "consumers" has created a man-centered distortion of Christianity. Here God, Christ, the Gospel, and the Church are consumer products that exist merely to stisfy the "felt needs" (read "idolatries") of the unchurched. There is little focus on sovereignty and holiness of God, no mention of sin and Hell, and no call to discipleship. As John MacArthur writes, "Instead of confronting the world with the truth of Christ, the market-driven megachurches are enthusiastically promoting the worst trends of secular culture."(note 1)
Another problem area is the wholesale adoption by evangelicals of secular self-esteem psychology. Christian counselors and pastors are subtly (sometimes blatantly!) buying into the unbiblical idea that people are basically good and that all of our emotional and behavioral problems are caused by low self-esteem. Robert Schuller even goes so far as to say that the worst "sin" a person can commit is to say, "I'm not worthy."(note 2) What ever happened to Paul's "There is none good, no not one." (Rom 3:12)? What about David's declaration that he (along with the rest of us) was a sinner from the time his mother conceived him (Ps 51:5)?
These issues are only the tip of the iceberg. They and other problems reveal a desperate need for many evangelicals to become wild boars in this vineyard of error. In this newsletter, we will expose such distortions of truth to the light of Scripture. We will follow the example of Luther, the first "wild boar," and attempt to "demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God" (II Cor 10:5).
- John F. MacArthur, Jr., Ashamed of the Gospel (Wheaton: Crossway, 1993) 71.
- Roberts Schuller, Self-Esteem: The New Reformation (Waco: Word, 1982) 98.
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