Throughout the history of the Church, there have been countless movements that either rise and quickly wither, or completely reform the Church. Names like Augustine, Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Jonathan Edwards stick out as giants and innovators among the faith, while there are countless other people that perhaps conform better to modern sensibilities as they are, but are obscured by the passage of time (for example, no one regards Pelagius anymore, even though Pelagianism – the discounting of total depravity – has been silently recreeping into pop theology for over a century). What makes the reformers stand out against time, while other movements repeatedly die even after being repeatedly introduced? Let us look at three categories of theology, and look at where the various reformers fell:

1: Autocentric Theology is a theology in which faith is a means towards personal gain. Though all faith is autocentric to some degree (otherwise why have it), I’ll limit the scope of the term here to faith as a means for increasing earthly well-being, by whatever means. This includes, obviously, Joel Osteen’s gospel, as well as the entire Prosperity movement. But less obviously it includes the seeker-friendly movement: by treating Christianity as self-help, the individual becomes the means, excluding God except as a means to these personal ends. Become a better person, fill the God-shaped hole in your life, live your Best Life Now – these are all the slogans of an autocentric theology.

2: Sociocentric Theology probably gets the most credit from the world of the three, and is even well regarded within the Church. Its ends are society – the poor, the opressed, and the downtrodden. Now while these are certainly noble goals and even commanded by scripture, they are not to be our final ends (Matthew 26:11). The category includes most obviously South America’s Liberation Theology, a strange blend of Marxism and Catholicism in which the Kingdom of Heaven is brought to earth through political activism (a means ineffective at best, outright dangerous at worst), but also less obviously the emergent church. Popular authors such as Rob Bell preach a “relational” gospel, in which the purpose of God is to restore humans to harmonious relationship with one another (see Sex God). This is only partially true: though he acknowledges that our interpersonal relationships stem from our relationship with God, the interpersonal connections are still made out to be, intentionally or not, ends in themselves. Like the autocentric theology of the seeker-friendly church, the sociocentric theology of the emergent church can only lead to mass exodus once the novelty wears thin and people find no reason to invoke the name of God to clamor for social justice.

3: Theocentric Theology is the historically orthodox position of the Church: a focus on God Himself as the ultimate good and the ends of faith. But backlash caused by folks such as Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist crew, who isolate themselves and flagrantly fail to regard society (and in fact work against it in many cases), has led people both within and without the Church to completely disregard theocentrism as a relevant option in modern society. Sociocentrism is in.

Theocentrism is, however, the only sustainable theology in the long run. Both the exodus from the seeker-friendly movement and the coming exodus from the emergent church are (and will be) results of a failure of distinction. The archetypal example is liberal theology: popular in the early 20th century, its goal was to uncover universal common nuggets of truth behind all world religions. This can only be done with autocentric and sociocentric theologies. Certainly the belief that all religions are essentially the same is now more popular than ever, but these believers do not regard themselves as Christians anymore. Why would they? As long as they keep basic moral tenets regarding self and others, they’re covered by this amorphous ecumenical religion.

The common thread among all the reformers that stand out in the history of the Church has in each instance been a strong theocentrism: it is the only proper way to commend the Christian faith. Augustine pioneered the idea of God as Himself the ultimate good. Luther rebuked the Roman Catholic Church for autocentrism in the sale of indulgences, among other things. Calvin and Edwards proclaimed the glory of God as the end of all history. Social gospels and self-help gospels have been creeping up since the beginning of the church, but they cannot – and do not – last. Where a sociocentric Christianity will be virtually indistinguishable from a sociocentric Islam, theocentrically, the two could not be more different. Where a sociocentric Christianity might as well be agnostic Humanism, it’s the theocentrism that sets it apart and commends it. Our focus needs to be first on God, and only then on society and ourselves as means to the glory of God. This is true Christianity.