The Impact of the Gospel
One of the basic theological premises of City Church is that the gospel can change any one, any place. Part of the driving force behind City Church is the conviction that most people have not heard the gospel clearly, whether they have been raised in liberal churches or conservative churches. Many people are on "trajectories" of reaction to either their conservative or their liberal backgrounds or experiences. But the gospel is off the continuum altogether. When people actually hear the gospel, they are surprised and brought up short. There can be neither personal transformation nor social transformation without a grasp of it. The gospel transforms our hearts and thinking and approaches to everything. As you read the following, consider ways that the gospel might transform your ways of thinking through theses areas. Some examples:

1. Approach to multi-culturalism:

• The liberal approach is to relativize all cultures.
  
• The conservative approach is to idolize some cultures.
  
• The gospel of grace leads us to be:
  
  • somewhat critical of all cultures,
    
  • morally superior to no individual,
    
  • hopeful about any individual, and
    
  • respectful and courteous to each individual.

2. Approach to the poor:

• The liberal elites tend to scorn the religion of the poor and see them as helpless victims needing their expertise.
  
• The conservative elites tend to scorn the poor as failures and weaklings.
  
• The gospel of grace leads us to be:
  
  • humble, without moral superiority knowing we were saved by grace,
    
  • gracious, remembering our former deserved spiritual poverty, and
    
  • respectful of believing poor Christians as brothers and sisters from whom to learn. The gospel alone can bring "knowledge workers" into a sense of humble respect for and solidarity with the poor.

3. Approach to difficult emotions:

• The moralizing say, "you are breaking the rules-repent."
• The psychologizing say, "you just need to love and accept yourself."
• The gospel leads us to say: "something in my life has become more important than God, a pseudo-savior, a form of works-righteousness". The gospel leads us to repentance, but not to merely setting our will against superficialities.

4. Approach to the physical world:

• The moralist is afraid of or indifferent to physical pleasure and wholeness, while the hedonist makes it an idol.
• The gospel leads us to see that God has invented both body and soul and so will redeem both body and soul. Thus the gospel leads us to enjoy the physical and fight against sickness and poverty. This is applied also to sex as well.

5. Approach to love and relationships:

• Liberalism reduces love to a negotiated partnership for mutual benefit.
• Moralism makes relationships into a blame-game and a never ending need to earn our love; often creates "co-dependency", a form of self-salvation through neediness.
• The gospel leads us to sacrifice and commitment, but not out of a need to convince ourselves we are acceptable. So we can love the person enough to confront, yet stay with the person when it does not benefit us.