I meet with a Vineyard congregation, that could probably be called all of the above. It is definitely centered on Christ and the gospel, yet matters of morality are addressed all the time. As people here know, it is not always easy to strike the balance between the enjoyment of grace and the necessity to “sin no more.” But my observation is that some evangelical churches are doing a very good job of reaching all sorts of people and helping them to follow Christ and grow in faith.

Something I’ve noticed at the Vineyard: there are many Christians there who became burned out in other churches, mainly due to the emphasis on legality and regulations. Vineyard (and other megachurches) can be a place of healing and restoration, not only from the damage of sin but from the damage of a works-oriented righteousness.

— Keith Green, by the way.

Sex is just the tip of the iceberg. Most of our luxurious lives take for granted how functionally atheistic they actually are, which is how I read iMonk’s point in the original post at any rate.

And Aliasmoi’s spot on about Bonhoeffer — he’ll make you uncomfortable alright (from The Cost of Discipleship): “Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline. Communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ.” Or, to put it even more clearly, it is to hear the Gospel preached as follows: “Of course you have sinned, but now everything is forgiven, so you can stay as you are and enjoy the consolations of forgiveness.”

Where someone above states that the guy is not a good guy and just out for a piece of ***, I wonder if this is the right category.

Before God, the man in question is not good. Neither is any of us.

Before his neighbor, I don’t have a strong sense of what this guy is about. He could be as bad as suggested above. Or he could be a soft-hearted non-Christian who doesn’t have the special revelation that would make Christian sexual morality make sense (e.g. the Incarnation to sanctify preborn life, the two becoming one flesh according to Genesis). But we don’t know enough to know whether he is predatory or not. I’ve known guys who were more feeling-driven, where such behavior was driven by affection. Wrong, yes. Lacking in commitment, yes. But not cold-hearted. When we automatically treat these guys as vicious, I think we lose an ability to understand them.

What often goes hidden are assumptions Christians often hold. Something like, “These rules keep people from getting hurt.” And getting hurt is defined on the basis of personal history. But different people get subjectively hurt in different ways. Some people are rather thick-skinned, and don’t imagine they’re hurting others because they themselves would not be hurt the same way. When we try to draw God in as a divine referee, we might find that His game is different from the one we’ve been playing.

After my friend S (name withheld ’cause he doesn’t need the exposure) came to Jesus, he decided on his own to address the whole issue of whether or not to continue having sex with his uncommitted girlfriend. Seems once you start actually following Jesus, you start to become just a little convicted of sin.

But if you’re just “going to church,” well, not so much. I agree, Michael: These guys aren’t necessarily hypocrites. They’re only hypocrites if they preach abstinence, or nod and shout Amen when their preacher does so. Chances are good that nobody in their existing churches have sat ‘em down and talked to them about what it really means to follow Jesus.

Church, in the scriptures, implies there’s some degree of relationship with fellow Christians greater than mere attendance and acquaintanceship—you’re close enough to actually speak into one another’s lives. Church, in the United States, means the building you go to once a week so you can feel like “a good person.”

Evangelical does not equal Inerrant Bible

A large percentage of evangelicals would use the word inerrant - but there is a significant percentage who would not.