The Therapeutic Gospel
by
David Powlison
The
appeal of a “therapeutic gospel” drives the action in the most famous chapter
in all of western literature.
In his chapter, “The
Grand Inquisitor,” Fyodor Dostoevsky imagines Jesus returning to sixteenth
century Spain (The Brothers Karamazov,
II:5:v). But Jesus is not welcomed by church authorities. The cardinal of
Seville, head of the Inquisition, arrests and imprisons Jesus, condemning Him
to die. Why? The church has shifted course. It has decided to meet instinctual
human cravings, rather than call men to repentance. It has decided to bend its
message to ‘felt needs’, rather than call forth the high, holy, and difficult
freedom of faith working through love. Jesus’ example and message are deemed
too hard for weak souls. The church has decided to make it easy.
The Grand Inquisitor
interrogates Jesus in His prison cell, posing the three questions the Tempter
put to Jesus in the wilderness centuries before. He criticizes Jesus’ answers.
The church will give earthly bread instead of the bread of heaven. It will
offer religious magic and miracles instead of faith in the Word of God. It will
exert temporal power and authority instead of serving the call to freedom. “We
have corrected Your work,” the inquisitor says to Jesus.
The Inquisitor’s
gospel is a therapeutic gospel. It’s structured to give people what they want,
not to change what they want. It makes people feel better. It centers
exclusively around the welfare of man and temporal happiness. It discards the
glory of God in Christ. It forfeits the narrow, difficult road that brings deep
human flourishing and eternal joy. This therapeutic gospel accepts and covers
for human weaknesses, seeking to ameliorate the most obvious symptoms of
distress. It takes human nature as a given, because human nature is too hard to
change. It does not want the King of Heaven to come down. It does not attempt
to change people into lovers of God who embrace the truth of who Jesus is, what
He is like, what He does.[1]
[1]
Powlison, D. (2007). The Therapeutic Gospel. In The Journal of Biblical Counseling: Volume 25, Number 3, Summer 2007
(2). Glenside, PA: The Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation.
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