Selling Fear to Christians

David Norczyk
3 min readSep 2, 2022

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Those who peddle the Word of God for profit (2 Cor 2:17), must incessantly find new ideas to sell to Christians. As a student of church history, as all Christians should be, I often chuckle when one of the Reformers of the sixteenth century laments the state of the church. He is followed by the Puritan’s lament of the seventeenth century church. The Evangelical lament has dealt with Moderatism (18th century) that morphed into Liberalism (19th and 20th century). While we lament, God is faithful to build His church (Mt 16:18)!

As I studied my way out of Evangelical fear-mongering, with much help from Reformed theology, I realized the spirit of Charles Finney continues to stir the church into diverse frenzies. History tends to show us Christian reaction to people, events, and world movements. The result is too often a Christian reactionary movement. Our reactions and remedies are suspect.

Some examples of this tendency include: Fundamentalism and Pentecostalism, to counter the encroachment of Liberalism. Interestingly, the basis of Liberalism is man-centered theology, and its high view of man, championed by Jacobus Arminius in the early seventeenth century. While Liberalism’s emphasis on God’s love led to a loosening of God’s Law, judgment, and justice, the knee-jerk counter measure by the Fundamentalists and Pentecostals was a pressured moralism. The Temperance Movement was one case example.

The battle cry of the moralist is always some version of, “If we don’t do something about so and so, who is promoting such and such, then Christianity will be no more.” Fear is a powerful motivator, to influence people, to make willful decisions that may end up enslaving them. The entering college student is warned that they will fall behind their peers, if they do not accumulate college degrees and mountains of financial debt. Instead of having children in their twenties, they are spending that decade with debt installment payments. If sex sells, then, fear sells with far greater influence and effect.

Christians may be enslaved to ideologies like “changing the world,” which channels their resources into the social gospel. Progressive Christianity partners with secular Liberalism, to embrace Socialism, with its political and economic fallout. In their altruism (God is love and Jesus was a socialist), they demand equality for everyone, even championing sexual sins and murder in the name of human and civil rights.

The pendulum swing away from Liberalism/Socialism can also enslave Christians. Fundamentalism and Pentecostalism (really only separated by the doctrine of the Holy Spirit) are also Arminian in their theological foundation. Man-centered theology has many branches protruding from its vine. Whereas Liberalism will naturally produce libertines, Fundamentalists and Pentecostals will produce legalists. They all have the same father in Arminius and his great grandfather Pelagius (5th century A.D.).

The Liberal libertine is fearful of the Legalist, and the Legalist is fearful of the trajectory of the Liberal. Both will champion their respective causes, typically in diametric opposition to one another. Of course, both will claim Jesus, as their prime inspiration and supporter.

Christian Nationalism will spar with Ecumenical Globalism and fear-mongering media will be marketed by both, en masse. This was evidenced by the selling of fear through the Left Behind series, “The world is going to hell in a hand basket, so Jesus is going to come and “rapture” His church from the world.” Got fear? Get a book deal.

The remedy to selling fear to Christians is proper Bible teaching, which helps remove fear from spooked sheep in Christ’s sheepfold. The problem with the remedy is that the Liberals, the Fundamentalists, and Pentecostals all think they are right, in their varied interpretations. This, of course, is impossible. What if they are all wrong?

Perfect love casts out fear (1 Jn 4:18), and love is to be spoken in truth (Eph 4:15). The truth is that moralism, immoralism, and amoralism hold no salvation for God’s people. We must acknowledge that human performance before the perfection of God is utterly dismal. Therefore, the moment the onerous of responsibility falls on human wisdom, will, or ability (a.k.a man-centered theology), there is an inevitable warning pitch, of forthcoming punishing consequences for disobedience.

Christian, you must grow out of these theologisms. You must learn sovereign grace, as the outworking of God’s sovereign decree, to bring glory to Himself, by His predetermined plan of salvation, which He alone is executing with precision. God is not making His salvation possible. He is making it happen. Therefore, do not fall prey to the fear-inducing, human performance directives sold to you by the purveyors of man-centered theology.

David Norczyk

Spokane Valley, Washington

September 2, 2022

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David Norczyk
David Norczyk

Written by David Norczyk

Some random theologian out West somewhere, Christian writer, preacher

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