"I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled! I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished! Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. For from now on in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law." -- Luke 12: 49-53 (ESV)
What we have seen over the past few decades is coup of the modern church in America. Spurred on by purpose driven paradigms of church growth and seeker friendly norms of behavior, the modern church has devolved into a cesspool of human wisdom wrapped around pseudo-piety designed to generate large revenue and few salvations. I am not even speaking to the motivation beloved. We can be sincere and sincerely wrong. As Paul Washer once said, Joel Osteen exists because he is exactly what the people want and it is not God. This is in line with the path to destruction being broad and the way to eternal life being narrow. Few are those who find it because they are not truly seeking it. That is the core lie of the underpinnings of seeker friendly thinking. Romans teaches us that none seek after God. Thus the only hope for salvation is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Faith comes by hearing. What happens however when the vehicle for the deliverance of the Gospel, the church, chooses instead to change it? To make it more palatable? To make it a little sweeter? To not deal with the sin issue as much and instead play up the love of God? To essentially strip out the power to save and replace it with relevance to the world that is dying all around us?
To understand this question we must understand the key verses. Words from Jesus Himself as to why He had come to earth with the Gospel to begin with. They are not purpose driven words nor are they seeker friendly. They are not designed to pack the house filled with goats but to cull out from among them the sheep that will respond to the call of the Holy Spirit. They contain the wrath of a just God that so many pastors today refuse to be honest about for fear of having less people the following week. Jesus says in no uncertain terms that He has come to cast fire upon the earth! He laments that it is not burning already! Oh you silly pastors chasing your own dreams! Do you think He has come to give peace on earth? No sirs -- division not peace. For hereafter will we be pitted against our own. Mother against daughter. Father against son. Who are my mother and brother except they that do the will of my Father? Ron Allen is a Christian businessman and he wrote the above linked article claiming the most dire prayer priority today is for unity. As we reason together we can see how the purpose driven industrial complex has warped his thinking as so many others in the church as well. This is not a critique of his sincerity. I assume he is very sincere. Unity however, without being concerned what you are unifying with, is sincerely wrong.