Over the past ten years or so, pastors have navigated some of the most morally complicated and emotionally turbulent ministry environments they’ve ever experienced. The world has changed around us in unprecedented ways that we’ve only just begun to comprehend.
One of the most helpful explanations of these cultural changes is the “Three Worlds of Evangelicalism” rubric proposed by Aaron Renn. His core observation, which began as an essay and later developed into a book, is that American society has grown increasingly hostile towards Christianity. Christianity was once regarded as a positive good for society by Christians and non-Christians alike. Renn calls this “positive world.” As the new millennia approached, that perception softened as Christianity was demoted in favor of a pluralistic “marketplace of ideas.” Renn calls this “neutral world.” But from around 2015 onward, our society’s view of Christianity has turned decidedly dark. Renn calls this “negative world.”
This simple formulation has great explanatory power to comprehend the immense ministry pressure modern pastors face, many of whom were trained in “neutral world” ministry tools that have become obsolete in the “negative world” we now occupy. This is not some abstract sociological phenomenon for professors to discuss in the faculty lounge. Nor is this merely an online phenomenon where keyboard warriors spar on social media about controversies that will blow over when a new controversy erupts. It’s much more practical and personal than that.
Whether we want to accept it or not, the “negative world” of 2024 is not the same as the “neutral world” of 2004. Every pastor must unflinchingly reckon with this new reality, though many will not be inclined to do so. Why?
The Challenge
Busy pastors have little time or interest in keeping up with the latest cultural trends or evangelical gossip. That’s what “discernment bloggers” spend all their time worrying about. But ordinary pastors I know don’t care about that stuff. It seems petty and immature. They want to preach the Bible, share the gospel, and disciple their people.
Besides, cultural discernment seems best left to the niche specialists who pay more attention to social trends than everyone else. Most pastors don’t have the time or energy to figure out how to “understand the times” like the men of Issachar (1 Chron. 12:32). It can be tedious trying to pay attention to who’s saying what, what they are saying, what they are refusing to say, and who they are associated with.
Many pastors are beginning to awaken to the cold, hard realities of the negative world. Bad ideas travel at lightning speed through the Christian subculture faster than pastors can keep up. Influential Christian thinkers are no longer seminary professors or experienced ministry practitioners. Now, the most influential Christian thought leaders often have zero theological or biblical training. Instead, they have an iPhone and charisma. Their ideas trickle down from social media channels to your small groups and Sunday school classes. The most pressing doctrinal issues of our day are framed more by influencers than those who have dedicated their lives to rigorous theological study. Ordinary people in our churches read their social media posts, listen to their podcasts, and watch their TikToks. Allie Beth Stuckey, a 32-year-old Christian influencer and social media star, probably has as much influence over the minds of Christian women as their pastors.
Observant pastors try to maintain a bird’s eye view of their congregations. They notice certain trends that play out in the lives of their people, such as those who demanded masks and jabs during COVID, who supported #blacklivesmatter by turning their profile pictures into black squares on Facebook, and an alarming number of kids in the youth group claiming to be gay or trans.
As a pastor begins to realize that something has radically shifted in our culture, it hits him hard. This is his “men of Issachar” moment, where the sober fact dawns that his ministry world has been turned upside down. The state of the world is much darker than he’d realized before, and he can no longer afford to pretend otherwise.
I’ve been through this and heard similar testimonies from more pastors than I can count. One pastor said, “As the world got crazier, my thinking got clearer.” He realized that naiveté was a luxury he could not afford. God called him to “shepherd the flock of God,” and their souls were at stake. He could not allow himself to be naïve, turning a blind eye towards the evil as it encroached upon his people. He was becoming more sober-minded, choosing to courageously face unpleasant ministry realities.
He is now a pastor who, after recognizing the “negative world, realizes he is leading a church that still thinks it is in the “neutral world.” He needs to make some changes to prepare for what lies ahead. So what should he do?
Counting the Cost
First, he realizes that if he talks about the truth of reality as he sees it and with the urgency the moment requires, his congregants could become angry, panic, and revolt. If he tells them what he really thinks, they may push back and send him packing. But if he says nothing, their errors will go uncorrected, and they’ll be left increasingly vulnerable to whatever heresy some 19-year-old kid with a YouTube account happens to be saying.
As pastors awaken to the evils that have taken hold of our society, I’ve noticed some of them becoming more vocal online. Plain-spoken boldness is a muscle they’ve not exercised in the past, but they’re hitting the weights now. As they express unpopular opinions, with the perceived requisite of great care and nuance, they are like kids at the pool checking the water by dipping their toes. The same happens in churches. Little by little, they get bolder in the pulpit, inching dangerously close to the line of controversy without crossing it.
There is a legitimate fear these pastors experience. I get it. They don’t want to be seen as unhinged provocateurs recklessly stirring up controversy. These pastors are trapped in broadly evangelical churches with anxious people who have a low threshold for conflict. The functional liberalism of some portion of the congregation is a conditioned response to the neutral world tools that formed them, such as gospel centrism, winsome third-wayism, faithful presence passivity, and punch-right-coddle-leftism. All these ministry strategies were effective at drawing left-leaning urban millennials, the most coveted demographic of the neutral world church planting boom. But now, these same left-of-center millennials are the pastor’s biggest liability. If a pastor, waking up to the importance of biblical fidelity in a negative world, crosses the line, they’ll sabotage him.
Some of the left-leaning urban millennials he reached a decade ago with neutral world tools have now become key donors, ministry leaders, and elders. Some of them are now in the prime of their careers, comfortably cocooned in their middle-class lives. He’s afraid of losing them. He wants to courageously lead and protect them, disciple them towards greater faithfulness, and equip them for the dark days ahead. But they are reluctant to change. Some of them now occupy the most visible positions of influence in the church. Anxious people crave familiarity and routine. They like their neutral world church mirage and don’t want any red-pilled pastor leading them out of it.
But these congregants don’t realize that the neutral world is gone. The negative world is here. And from how things are going, we’re headed for a clown world circus show in the years ahead. Sooner or later, biblically faithful, negative world pastors in “neutral world” churches will either be “outed” for what they truly believe or quietly keep things to themselves, hoping no one notices. There isn’t a “pain-free” option. It’s coming, one way or another. He’ll either face the pain of confronting controversial issues head-on or the internal anguish of his own cowardice. If he takes the former route, he could potentially lose large numbers of key members or even lose his job. If he takes the latter route, he’ll be watching the cancer of progressivism eat his church from the inside out, knowing he could have fought to prevent it.
Gangrene and Leaven
Bad ideas are contagious. Paul compares them to gangrene, a deadly disease that kills healthy tissue as it spreads through the body (2 Tim. 2:17). Neutral world ministry tools are the equivalent of seeker-sensitive church growth strategies catering to Reformed scruples. These tools are effective for getting respectable, intellectual unbelievers to church through flattery and pandering, promising to confront their sins winsomely while confronting sins on the right with blood earnestness. This style of ministry can appeal to Christians formed in the Reformed tradition because it provides confessional cover for their affirmations of homosexuality and women’s ordination through an accepted ministry paradigm. It’s the kind of Christianity that doesn’t embarrass them in public.
This is similar to Jesus’s illustration of the “leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees” (Matt. 16:11). Bad ideas spread through a church like leaven spreads through a lump of dough. Paul said the same thing about a church’s tolerance for sexual sin. “Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened” (1 Cor. 5:6–7). In other words, bad ideas need to be corrected early before they spread.
Unfortunately, many neutral-world churches built with neutral-world tools have been thoroughly leavened with destructive unbiblical ideas. It will take courage and discipline for faithful pastors to correct them. Otherwise, gangrenous ideas are normalized as unspoken expectations in the church. These unbiblical ideas are eventually institutionalized as those who hold them assume leadership posts.