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TRANSCRIPTION OF AUDIO TAPE - JUNE, 2001.
SIDE ONE OF TAPE NUMBER 1.
DR. STANLEY MONTEITH WITH ROBERT KLENCK.
There is a conscious, organized effort to change the message and the music of the Christian Church - to make it more acceptable to the world. Well, I always thought Christianity was supposed to transform the world, but of course if you look you can see what’s happening today and you look at the statistics on divorce in the church - well, it is just as much in the church as it is outside the church - maybe even more. As far as abortion, as far as so many other things that go on, there is not much difference between the church and society as a whole.
Is that what God intended? I thought that Christianity was supposed to transform individuals and not make them more like the world. One thing that happened, and I think increasingly I hear this from across the country, is that the music of the church has changed and instead of the great hymns of Christendom now we have a rock band and a loud beat because of course, it will appeal to the young people. We justify that because we want to get the young people into the church and that of course we talk about things like sin. Oh we don’t want to tell people they are sinners. After all that’s going to make them feel bad about themselves and hurt their self-esteem.
In fact, apparently Robert Schuller, who is a very, very successful minister, has said “You know, you would never want to tell them they were a sinner”, and so we no longer talk about hell or damnation or the fact that we really need a Savior - we make ourselves feel good about ourselves and that is going to get us into church. But is it going to change our lives? Is it going to transform society?
Well, we are going to be talking about this. Dr. Klenck has done a lot of work, a lot of study on this and he is one of the most articulate spokesmen on this most important of the subjects.
Bob, (Dr. Klenck,) I thank you for being with us this evening.
(For the benefit of transcription, Dr. Monteith will be identified as D.M. and Dr. Klenck as B.K.)
B.K.: You are very welcome.
D.M.: Bob has worked with us, his wife Tammy has been working with us but she is not going to be with us tonight. She is into a lot of other very, very important issues. But why don’t you tell our listeners how you got involved in this. Why have you put the time and study into this and of course, what you found so you just go ahead and just start telling us why you have began to study this so called Church Growth Movement” that is to make Christianity more palatable to people and bring them into the church.