The R-rated church...

Ran across this interview between Phil Johnson and John MacArthur on the Grace to You website...

Hello, I’m Phil Johnson, Executive Director of Grace To You and I’m in the studio today with Pastor and Bible Teacher John MacArthur. Hello, John.

JOHN: Hi, Phil, great to be with you again.

PHIL: Let’s get right to it. We’re calling this interview, “The Case Against the R-Rated Church.” What do we mean when we say “The R-Rated Church?”

JOHN: Well who’d have thought, right? The R-Rated church...staggering. Now what do we mean by that? How about this, “Foul, coarse language in the pulpit, sexually explicit language in the pulpit, cheap jokes about sacred things, overt sexual references making public what should be private, aggressive, purposeful integration of pop-culture I think at its basest level and secular entertainment at its basest level into the worship service. I think it begs the point that it’s not even possible to consider it a worship service.

And then you have the amazing trend on sex-oriented challenge programs, where you have pastors telling their people they need to have sex every day for 30 days, or sex every day for 14 days, or sex every day for seven days. This is supposed to transform their marital life. These are the kinds of things that are common place, much more than most of us would ever realize. And some of you out there are saying, “Are you kidding me?” And we would tell you, if you were to look on the Internet and got to watch...probably don’t do that, you would shocked at the explicit nature of these kinds of things that are running rampant in the name of the church.

PHIL: Yeah, especially in the Christian districts of the Internet where you think you might be safe.

JOHN: Right.

PHIL: In a similar vein, I noticed four times over the past year, at least four different times, there have been news stories about different churches who have had these series on sex, or sex challenges, that sort of thing, and advertised it with billboards that have created a stir in the community, and people in the community who aren’t even believers, are outraged at the carnality reflected in the church’s advertising.

JOHN: You know, when I was flying into Dallas some months ago, I saw that Church where a massive banner stretched across the whole side of the building, “The Sexual Revolution Begins Here.” That’s what it said. Selling sex.

PHIL: Yeah, now this is not an isolated problem, right?

JOHN: No. It’s coming clear that this is widespread.

Read the rest of the interview!