But don’t mention sin or judgment, because it will only put people off.
This was the proviso included in the invitation which a friend of mine recently received, to speak at a university students’ meeting. Of course we know what the student writer meant. In our contemporary culture the concept that God would ever judge or punish is an anathema. Only the other day, after I had been preaching the good news of Christ crucified, against the bleak backdrop of God’s righteous judgment, someone came to take me to task for being so ‘negative’.
Instead of telling people that they are sinners needing to be rescued, it was argued that we should recognise that our society is much kinder, generous and more tolerant than it has ever been and build on that. The preacher’s task would be to encourage this development more and more, by looking to Jesus for the help to achieve our personal potential, as he did.
