I especially agree with this: “teaching and preaching rules of behavior (do not drink, do not smoke, do not swear, do not date, stop looking at internet pornography, …) is a poor method of Christian discipleship. Even if the behaviors you rail against are truly sinful and destructive, such teaching lacks power to transform.” – See more at: http://www.ubfriends.org/2013/12/13/junk-food-from-the-pulpit/#comment-11698

My hope and prayer for UBF is that we will move away from primarily imperative preaching and teaching that I do not believe really works for the long haul. Telling UBF people to constantly “make disciples,” “feed sheep,” “teach the Bible” for 50 years and counting simply does not touch or change anyone’s heart, simply because there is no Christ and no gospel with such imperative commands and emphasis. Can’t we see that?

At home, Billy Sunday seems to have practiced a common sense that he didn’t proclaim from the pulpit. He occasionally drank alcohol and listened to jazz music. In other words, he was just a regular guy, not a super-spiritual hero. And God loved him just as he was.

Rather than bringing the unreality of his church-values into his home, it would have been better for him to bring the reality of his home-values into church.

Some might say, “If Billy Sunday had truly practiced at home what he preached in the church, never drinking alcohol or listening to jazz music, then his kids would have turned out okay.”

There are no guarantees that our children will follow in our footsteps, or that their lives will turn out in any specific way, based on anything that we do or fail to do. They exercise their own wills and have a great deal of freedom, as we do.

What I took away from this story was further
evidence for something that I already believed: That teaching and preaching rules of behavior (do not drink, do not smoke, do not swear, do not date, stop looking at internet pornography, …) is a poor method of Christian discipleship. Even if the behaviors you rail against are truly sinful and destructive, such teaching lacks power to transform.

Billy Sunday did preach the gospel in the way he knew how. But when it came to his pet issues, I think he went 0-for-3, or he struck out, depending on the sports metaphor you choose. History is not on his side.

1. The 18th Amendment was a dismal failure.

2. Evolution is taught in every public school, and more and more American evangelicals are coming to believe (as Catholics, Orthodox, mainline Protestants and European evangelicals) that the theory of evolution, and science in general, pose no serious threat to the essentials of the Christian faith. Accepting evolution would mean we have to rethink some aspects of our theology, especially how we approach Scripture, but we ought to be rethinking those things anyway.

3. More and more evangelicals are recognizing how destructive it is to dismiss serious study, acting as though one man with commonsense and a Bible in his hands has better access to truth than all those highfalutin’ scholars in their ivory towers. That simply isn’t true.

The gospel that Billy Sunday preached will always endure. But all the other condiments and causes that he piled on top of the gospel, thinking that they were matters of life or death, are gradually being repudiated.

And the messages that he shouted from the pulpit didn’t lead to positive outcomes in the lives of the people who were closest to him. All three of his sons died tragic and violent deaths (a suicide, a car crash and a plane crash) and alcohol was a factor in all three.

“Lord save us from off-handed, flabby-cheeked, brittle-boned, weak-kneed, thin-skinned, pliable, plastic, spineless, effeminate, sissified, three-carat Christianity.”

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304073204579167963887805686

* I am part of God’s special elite forces, specially called and chosen by God for His divine purpose. (The problem is I began to disparage all those who were “less” than what I felt they should be.)

* Are you in or are you out? (Unless you are “in” like me, you’re out!)

* It’s either my way or the highway.

* You either shape up or you ship out.

I mentored and discipled young Christians in such a way for over 2 decades. It is truly only the grace of God that I still have a few friends left, even among those who put up with my elitism and my overweening hubristic condescension toward anything and anyone who is not “up to par.”