Dr. Timothy Tennent, President of  Asbury Theological Seminary and Professor of World Christianity in an address at the Seminary’s  September Convocation:

“We are quite adept at measuring where people are culturally, but we are at best careless in any sustained theological reflection about where they should be culturally. So, for example, if the wider culture has become apathetic about ritual, tradition, symbolism, poetic expressions, the value of history, or the necessity of intergenerational relationships, then, no problem, we say, it is the evangelical version of the prime directive to always adapt to culture. But what if these very prejudices are actually part of the cultural malaise to which the church has been called to provide a stunning alternative? How easily we seem to forget that the gospel doesn’t need our help in being made relevant. The gospel is always relevant, and it is we who need to be made relevant to the gospel.”

via The Clarion Call to Watered Down Evangelicalism « The Bible and Culture.