Culture Talk:
Understanding the People to
Whom We Preach

by Fletcher Tink

I used to be mortified by TV evangelists. I felt that, at best, their message was a skewed gospel and, at worst, a skewered one. It seemed to me that they pandered to the basest marketable instincts of select audiences in order to pay for the insatiable financial appetite of the media itself. Of course, Billy Graham, James Kennedy, and my dad (in a three-year TV run in Canada) were exceptions.

More recently, I've modified my judgment somewhat. In fact, in reviewing these evangelists, I've learned perhaps more about the nature of the people who tune in. I've finally decided that the door to understanding them is unlocked by the key concept of "empowerment."

Our modern society, by its sheer intensity and complexity, makes many of its citizens feel like inept cogs in a gigantic machine, impotent over their own state of affairs. A presidential election that stirred the passions of so many ends in a whimper rather than a bang, and everybody feels disenfranchised. Petroleum politics in one part of the world silently does a sleight of hand on the wallets of another. HMO providers rule health care, seemingly impervious to the medical needs of its members.

Our TV evangelists step up to the camera to address these issues in one, or a combination of three ways, offering "economic," "moral" and/or "charismatic" empowerment.

The message of Economic Empowerment declares that obedient response to the gospel will provide one eventually with financial and material blessings, "30-fold, 60-fold, yes, even 100-fold." The "prosperity" gospel with its "name it, claim it" mantra by evangelists pervades much of popular preaching today.

Moral Empowerment is based on the conviction that the United States was founded on moral principles that have become dislodged by the ethics of relativism and humanism. Only a return to private and public moral accountability as seen through the prism of Scripture will give us health and happiness.

Charismatic Empowerment is the antidote to the sense that God is obscure or unattainable. Being a Christian for many requires such a succession of ecclesiastical hoops through which to jump--church rituals, doctrinal propositions, and lifestyle legalisms--that it becomes elusive and tiresome. Some demonstrate, on camera, the immediacy of God's power in physical miracles, slayings in the Spirit, speaking in tongues, and so forth, so much so that more belabored forms of access to God are short-circuited and God is produced as real, here and now, in dynamic "in your face" exhibitionism.

When I offer this paradigm and ask my students which category best represents the gospel, they invariably admit that to some degree all three in balance do. I agree. My problem is that a heresy is an exaggeration of one truth to the deficit of all others. So here is where the work of the Holy Spirit addresses balance.

As I understand it, the Holy Spirit offers not just empowerment, but also cleansing from inbred sin. Empowerment without cleansing is, at best, illusory and, at worst, may be a form of another empowerment. The sad histories of Elymas (Acts 13), Jim Jones (Guyana), and David Koresh (Waco) would indicate so.

On the other hand, cleansing cannot be simulated. Satan cannot cleanse. Some people posture cleansing through legalistic piety or compulsive social service or activism. But that tires after a while.

How should our preaching ministry engage both themes? Here are some suggestions.

1. Listen carefully and uncritically to your parishioners as they discuss their TV religious programming habits. They may be inadvertently admitting their own spiritual nutritional needs. Your observations may reveal your need to address the empowerment issue.

2. Reexamine your own preaching agenda to insure balance in your presentation in the operations of the Holy Spirit. Often because we are gun-shy about appearing to be "Pentecostal," we have failed to address the issue of the Holy Spirit's power in our lives and community.

3. Avoid linking empowerment with human institutions, manipulations, or methodologies. Holy Spirit power never justifies the means because of its end. His power may involve a "power encounter" but more often involves subtlety.

4. The Bible is replete with power-encounter stories: David vs. Goliath, Gideon vs. the Midianites, Elijah on Mount Carmel. Contemporary versions of these stories are to be found in the newspapers and magazines and in the life script of many people right within your congregation. In one church great rejoicing occurred when a young lady took a moral stand, resigning her questionable ethical work environment, only to be hired a week later at double pay on her terms. Such stories could be woven into the fabric of the sermon to show that God is in control. Invite the laypersons to share their story as part of the sermon.

5. Highlight the awareness that the real historymakers are not the world's notables but are those who live holy lives that are also powerfully productive, often in quiet ways. "His-Story" is framed not by the transient political types but by the faithful who take their faith to the edge.

6. Do not confuse bombast and bluster with empowerment. A preacher's power is not measured by decibels and brittle dogmatism but by the spiritual authority that emanates. That authority grows over a lifetime of living in the Spirit.

In my moderated state of mind, I thank these TV evangelists for unwittingly reminding me how important empowerment is to my gospel. Cleansing without empowerment is a gospel stillborn and irrelevant to the needs of our society. The Good News must emit into real change materially (not so much for ourselves as for others), morally (not using parochial history as a reference point, but rather, the kingdom of God), and charismatically (not exhibitionism, but practicing the presence of God).

Fundamentally, I am Wesleyan and believe firmly that empowerment must pass through the spiritual waters of cleansing at the deepest levels before we can trust the empowerment that should so naturally ensue.

Fletcher Tink is an ordained minister in the Church of the Nazarene, serving as adjunct professor of urban missions at Nazarene Theological Seminary and coordinator of education for Nazarene Compassionate Ministries International. He has taught leadership development and cross-cultural communication in over 20 countries. He can be contacted at <Tinkmetro@aol.com>.