Soft Serve?

In case anyone has this feeling that I think we should make the Gospel into a sweet little drink which everyone likes the first time they taste it on a hot day, read this essay by Doug Wilson which is the right-minded demand for the hard words of the Gospel to make men with soft hearts.

We need men who wake up in the morning knowing what they believe. We need men committed to truth in principle, who are willing to be unpopular in some quarters. We must be committed to the authority of truth over us, and know that makes debate and discussion a moral imperative. In an age as compromised as ours, this will only serve to increase that unpopularity. But the authority of truth means that hard study is not just a matter of scholarship chasing its tail. Questions are to be raised for the sake of finding answers. Splitting the difference between the right answer and the wrong answer will only result in another wrong answer.

As they say in the reg'ler blogosphere, read the whole thing. What Doug is talking about here is not the missiology of the church: he's talking about whether or not we have a church at all. In spite of himself and his inclusive take on baptism, he's talking what the necessary menu ought to be, and that the menu is necessary if we are going to be what the franchise agreement says we must be.