I love reading about what previous generations encountered with respect to culture and church ministry. Sometimes it is just so refreshing and encouraging to be reminded that the powerful gospel of God transcends time and culture. There has been no small amount of ink dribbled in recent years about the emergent church movement. One of the chief criticisms of the movement has been an over adaptation to culture, and some would even suggest that folks are compromising. My goal in posting this quote is to show that our great grandparents in the faith were dealing with the very same issues as we are today, and frankly, the answers are, by in large, the same.
(disclaimer:: I am not looking to start a scrap with hyper-emergent-like-to-fight-guy but instead just trying to draw a historical correlation in conversation today…there is nothing new under the sun, even with the trendy stuff…)
Here is Lloyd-Jones in Preachers and Preaching ::
“What always amazes me about these people who are so concerned with modern methods is their pathetic psychological ignorance; they do not seem to know human nature. The fact is that the world expects us to be different; and this idea that you can win the world by showing that after all you are very similar to it, with scarcely any difference at all, or but a very slight one, is basically wrong not only theologically but even psychologically.
Let me illustrate what I mean by a well-known example. At the end of the First World War there was in England a famous clergyman who was known as ‘Woodbine Willie’. Why was he called ‘Woodbine Willie’? The explanation is that he had been a chaplain in the army and had been a very great success in that capacity. His success he attributed to the fact-and many agreed with him in this-that he mixed with the men in the trenches in a familiar manner. He smoked with them, and in particular he smoked their cheap brand of cigarette known as ‘Wild Woodbine’ commonly called ‘Woodbines’. In pre-1914 days you could buy five such cigarettes for a penny. Now this cheap type of cigarette was not the brand of cigarette that an officer generally smoked, but the ordinary soldier did. So this man, who’s name was Studdert-Kennedy, in order to put the men at ease, and in order to facilitate his work as chaplain smoked ‘Woodbines’, hence the name ‘Woodbine Willie’. Not only that, he noticed also that most of the men could not speak without swearing, so he did the same. It was not that he wanted to swear, but he held the view that if you want o win men you have to use their language and you have to be like them in every respect. All this certainly made him a popular figure-there is no doubt about that. After the end of the Second World War he used to go round the country teaching this an urging that preachers must do this; and many tried to do so and began to do so. But the verdict history has on this was that it was a complete failure, a temporary ‘stunt’ or ‘gimmick’ that achieved notoriety for a while but soon entirely disappeared from the thinking o the Church. But it had a great temporary vogue.
From the standpoint of the New Testament it was based on a complete fallacy. Our Lord attracted sinners because He was different. They drew near to Him because they felt that there was something different about Him. That poor sinful woman of whom we read in Luke 7 did not draw near to the Pharisees and wash their feet with her tears, and wipe them with the hair of her head. No, but she sensed something in our Lord – His purity, His holiness, His love – and so she drew near to Him. It was His essential difference that attracted her. And the world always expects us to be different. This idea that you are going to win people to the Christian faith by showing them that after all you are remarkably like them, is theologically and psychologically a profound blunder.” (pp. 139-140)
