Book Review:
Outcome-Based Religion: Purpose, Apostasy, & the New Paradigm Church
by Mac Dominick,
Cutting Edge Ministries, 2005

Jerald Finney
Copyright © March 28, 2011

Sometimes being honest with oneself is so difficult that even a believer will not face fact and admit that he has been wrong and sinned. Even if his sin was out of ignorance and even if he was following the leadership of others within the “Christian community,” his response in the event that he discovers his sin, according to our Lord, should be one of contrite repentance. That was and is my situation as to, among other things, my religious-political actions for over a twenty year period. In the late 1990s I began to see that the political work of me and millions of other “moral conservatives” had been counterproductive. Since we had neither proceeded according to knowledge nor followed God’s guidelines as laid out in His Word, our efforts have resulted in negative consequences for people, families, churches, and the nation. In fact, many families and individuals along with churches and the nation, have slid down the drain pipe into a moral cesspool. Far fewer people are being saved, and those who are usually end up in compromising churches who are either afraid to preach the whole counsel of God or have completely abandoned Bible preaching. Many men and women conduct their lives in accordance with Satan’s principles of sexual lust, ambition, greed, and/or selfishness. Biblical principles for family are honored by only a small remnant. Apostasy is running rampant. Dr. Bob Jones accurately observed: “the culture was not saved, the converts of the Super-aggressive churches disappeared, promises were not kept, and the majority became very disillusioned.’ As a result, many newly disenfranchised former Fundamentalists were ripe for the picking.” (All quotations are from the book, Outcome-Based Religion). Well-meaning believing activists have contributed to the religious, moral, and political decline of America. En1 (Statement of repentance).

Outcome-Based Religion, studied in conjunction with God Betrayed/Separation of Church and State: The Biblical Principles and the American Application, En1 (Information on previewing and/or ordering God Betrayed and Outcome-Based Religion) explains in detail why and how this happened. Studying these books will afford a born-again believer the facts, history, and biblical analysis he needs to understand why, in general, churches in America are apostate and America is now morally awful and politically tyrannical. My studies, experiences, and observations confirm much of what is written in Outcome-Based Religion. Additionally, the book includes insights and information that I never discovered and/or considered.

Outcome-Based Religion answers many questions including the following: “Why have none of the goals of the Moral Majority or the Christian Coalition been met? What is the real impact of these conservative Christians upon American politics? Better yet, how has the Religious Right political machine impacted modern culture? Exactly what has been accomplished from 22 years of effort to ‘change America?’ Why have the well-funded Dominionists not transformed our Constitutional Republic into their ‘heaven-on-earth’ theocracy? Would the reaction to the September 11 terrorist attack on the United States result in a national religious revival, transform the culture, and result in the establishment of Robertson’s theocracy?”

Interwoven throughout the book is the theme of separation. Mr. Dominick correctly points out the two strategies for countering Satan’s attack on the true church: (1) Remain in the body and attempt to reform the body by exposing the error (as in the Protestant Reformation). (2) Separate. “Charles Spurgeon said:

‘Complicity with error will take from the best of men the power to enter any successful protest against it. It is our solemn conviction that where there can be no real spiritual communion there should be no pretense of fellowship. Fellowship with known and vital error is participation in sin. As soon as I saw, or thought I saw, that error had become firmly established, I did not deliberate, but quitted the body at once.  Since then my counsel has been, ‘Come out from among them.’ I felt that no protest could be equal to that of distinct separation from known evil. That I might not stultify my testimony I have cut myself clear from those who err from the faith, and even from those who associate with them.  Cost what it may to separate ourselves from those who separate themselves from the truth of God is not alone our liberty, but our duty.’”

Men, even saved men, have a hard time digesting the fact that “When engaging in God’s work, the end never justifies the means. Put simply, God’s work is to be performed God’s way.” “Furthermore, the ‘end justifies the means’ mindset is the certain path to a deepening apostasy. Once Scripture is ignored in one area, another departure will soon follow. The ‘snowball effect’ evidenced by history then leads one religious body after another from small compromises into a complete departure from the truth. This creeping departure is very subtle, and one must look at history and understand the battle for a pure, true church in order to combat apostasy’s deceptive nature.”

“The first six chapters of Outcome-Based Religion detail the movement of conservative Christianity in a steady slide to the left. No sooner had the quest for the truth gained momentum than another attack sought to strike at the heart of biblical truth. These attacks manifest themselves when the church loses the focus of its true mission, and digresses into areas outside of the commands and precepts of Scripture. The true mission of the church is the edification of the saints, reaching the lost for Christ, and to subsequently nurture those converts to spiritual maturity. As to the strategy of many fundamental churches starting in the 1950s, ‘the tragic results [was the production of] an entire generation of born-again individuals whose impact for the cause of Christ was virtually nullified due to the lack of Christian growth and maturity that comes only from sound biblical teaching, true Christian fellowship, and the expository preaching of the Word of God.’” “Yes, the motive was indeed, from a human perspective, noble. The stated outcome—mass evangelization—was praiseworthy. However, the methodology that contradicted the Word of God was seriously flawed. In the final analysis, evangelism in the absence of sound doctrine fails to perpetuate itself.” History proves this to be true. “The great tragedy of the second half of the Twentieth Century and the early Twenty-first Century is the fact that many of the Bible-believing churches organized in opposition to and as a direct result of Modernism in the 1960s and 1970s are now succumbing to New Evangelicalism and Outcome-Based Religion.” How this happened is the subject of the book.

“In order to fully grasp the sequence of events that birthed the New Paradigm Church, the subject of Outcome-Based Religion cannot merely be approached as a phenomenon of the last decade. It must instead be investigated from a complete historical perspective. Therefore, the study of this subject [is] approached from a historical perspective so as to lay the necessary foundation to enable a complete understanding of all aspects of that which is commonly termed the Church Growth Movement.” The book is in two parts. Part I delves into the historical events that contributed to the makeup and basis of the rise of Outcome-Based Religion and Part II discusses the details and components of the resulting organism of Outcome-Based Religion—the New Paradigm Church.

Part I addresses: church history from the first century on, the wedding of paganism and Christianity in the Catholic Church; the Protestant Reformation; the origins of modernism; the infiltration of modernism into American theological institutions and churches; the flaws in the methods of fundamentalist churches 1950-1975 and on which led to their decline; the ecumenical movement; Vatican II which brought a change in Catholic tactics and rescued the ecumenical movement and took a large step toward the establishment of the one world church and the one world political system; modernism and its effects within the Southern Baptist Convention; the Charismatic movement (basic concepts, origins, the three waves, and the results of); Calvary Chapel (a transitional hybrid between Fundamentalism and right wing Charismatic teachings); dominion theology; the rise and fall of the religious right; the attempt to establish the United States as a bona fide religious theocracy; Christian Reconstructionism versus Dispensational Fundamentalism; the Religious Right; the Moral Majority; the Christian Coalition; the death of the Religious Right; the absence of convictions along with the advance of the philosophy and the new definition of tolerance which now guides almost all Americans including those in church; George Bush as the new leader of the religious right; the relationship between the religious right and Outcome-Based Religion; and much more. In short, Part I covers most historical and factual matters which a discerning believer should at least have a working knowledge of in order to be an effective soldier in the spiritual warfare for the souls of men.

Part II explains and analyzes: the goals, motivation and methods of New Paradigm churches. Subjects addressed include a new way of playing church—by the numbers; the battle against Outcome-Based Religion; defining the terms: Purpose-Driven Church, New Paradigm Church; expository preaching; pragmatism; worship; seeker sensitive; doctrine; sin; evangelism; market strategy, change agent; felt needs, cultural relevance; Christian psychology, contemporary Christian music, the Gospel; the object of the game: (The complete transition of the Church from the traditional, Biblical, separatist position to become more aligned to and in tune with the dictates of the Postmodern Culture—thus initiating exponential church growth.); the rules of the New Paradigm Church (Change “Our Thinking of what God is Trying To Do,” Develop a Market Strategy, Build Relationships of Integrity with the Unchurched, Never Criticize What God is Blessing, Never Communicate God’s Word in an Outdated Style (which requires that the church should relate to the popular culture—no KJV—focusing on felt needs, utilizing psychology and counseling, forgetting theology and just loving Jesus, etc.), The music in the Church should be the Style the Target Market listens to on the Radio (the origins of rock and roll, the assertion the music is amoral, etc.), Those Who Oppose the Vision for Change Must be Marginalized or Eliminated); the forerunners of the New Paradigm church movement; the fathers of the church growth movement; the facilitators of the church growth movement; the facilities of the Church Growth Movement (Fuller Theological Seminary being the most influential); living in the time of the paradigm shift, defining the paradigm shift; Outcome-Based Education and Outcome-Based Religion; the Drucker/Demming connection; Drucker and Company in the New Paradigm Church, oaths, covenants, and faith promise; trickle-down church-o-nomics; paradigm shifting sands produce unstable foundations; the purpose-driven life; transformation and acceptance of postmodern, tolerance-based’ global ethics; an appeal  to pastors and an appeal to church members; a call to personal holiness; and more.

“Sadly, the ‘Christian population of western culture has forsaken the ‘old paths’ of the Word of God and  is blindly accepting any lie that sounds religious while not tampering with their lifestyle.” This book will prove very enlightening for those few who still have the ability and desire to seek truth:

1. Christians who still attend a remnant church (a church who still preaches biblical doctrine, loves the Lord and man, and attempts to honor the Great Commission) will gain great insights.
2. Those in mega churches (New Paradigm churches) who actually want to know what they have gotten themselves into and whether they should be there. They will not learn this from their church leaders.
3. Anyone in America who is seeking truth. Sadly, this will exclude a large percentage of Americans, including most who attend a “church.” Most Americans including almost all “Christians,” as pointed out in the book, are the products of Outcome-Based Education and have bought the concepts of the “New Tolerance” and Postmodernism. Such people cannot, as a general rule, seek truth. Truth is antithetical to their very mindset.

“The members of the Church of Jesus Christ must honestly ask the question, ‘How did we allow this to happen to us, and where did we all go so wrong?’ … In the final analysis, Fuller Theological Seminary, Christianity Today, the New and Young Evangelicals, Modernists, Charismatics, Reconstructionists, and Dominionists are to be sarcastically congratulated. They have successfully managed to blindly align themselves with the dark forces of Lucifer at a level sufficiently subtle to enamor the entire evangelical community from the Fundamentalists to the Charismatic Catholics into falling into the snare that has come to characterize Outcome-Based Religion.” “This alignment with Luciferic forces did not transpire overnight. The transition was so subtle and gradual that it can be compared to the proverbial frog in water brought to a slow but deadly boil.” “[T]he call for this new political paradigm known as the New World Order is based primarily on the ancient values of those early generations after the Flood of Noah and their demonically instigated desire for a return to the ungodly civilization that existed prior to the Flood.”

Endnotes

En 1 Writing this book review gives me an opportunity for public repentance. I first repent and ask forgiveness for my sins of ignorance from God; second, from my Christian brothers; and finally, from America and its citizens. I followed unbiblical, uninformed courses of action as to the above mentioned matters for many years after my salvation in 1982. My motive was honorable from a human point of view, but my goal and my methods were not according to the Word of God. That everything is falling into place as foretold in God’s Word and that the One-World government and religion will become a reality even had my actions been according to the Word of God does not nullify the reality that I sinned.

En2 Outcome-Based Religion can be ordered on amazon.com or barnesandnoble.com; Jerald Finney has a limited number of copies for sale (click this link for contact information: contact page of churchandstatelaw.com). God Betrayed/Separation of Church and State: The Biblical Principles and the American Application (Link to preview of God Betrayed): may be ordered from Amazon by clicking the following link: God Betrayed on Amazon.com or from Barnes and Nobel by clicking the following link: God Betrayed on Barnes and Noble. All books by Jerald Finney as well as many of the books he has referenced and read may also be ordered by left clicking “Books” (on the “Church and State Law” website) or directly from amazon.com at the following links: (1) Render Unto God the Things that Are His: A Systematic Study of Romans 13 and Related Verses (Kindle only); (2) The Most Important Thing: Loving God and/or Winning Souls (Kindle only); (3) Separation of Church and State/God’s Churches: Spiritual or Legal Entities? (Link to preview of Separation of Church and State/God’s Churches: Spiritual or Legal Entities?) which can also be ordered by clicking the following Barnes and Noble link: Separation of Church and State on Barnes and Noble.