THE GOSPEL OF SIN MANAGEMENT

I am more and more convinced that the shrinkage of the American church is due to the narrowing of how we understand - and proclaim - what we call "the good news":

You are a sinner, but if you put your faith in God's Son, you will be forgiven all your sins and you will go to heaven when you die.

How utterly anemic this is compared to the true gospel!

Dallas Willard calls it "the gospel of sin management" and suggests the ineffectiveness of  the modern church "is not in spite of what we teach and how we teach it, but precisely because of it". (Divine Conspiracy, 40)

"People think they have heard the invitation. They think they have accepted it - or rejected it. But they have not. The difficulty today is to hear it at all." (11)

Willard says the true gospel invitation is "to make a pilgrimage - into the heart and life of God".

Amen. 

There's so much more to it than wiping clean your record of sin.