THE SEDUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY Showed Me My Seduction!

I had been a missionary to college students in the U.S. for 5 years, then switched to a multi-media ministry (Note: "Multi-media" back then meant the use of 9-12 slide projectors with a visual presentation synchronized to a sound track.). I was asked to spend 4 months in the UK and Ireland doing evangelistic presentations on campuses and to church youth groups. I ended up having a lot more "down time" than I expected, and purchased Dave Hunt's "The Seduction of Christianity" to combat some theological excesses I had noticed in the British Church. For example, John Wimber was big "across the pond" at that time, not to mention Paul Yonggi Cho. One month earlier a colleague had mentioned Dave's book as addressing these influences, along with several other important issues. As I read "Seduction" I began to see how much I had been influenced by the Evangelical Church's emphasis on "Christian" psychology and by one particular interpretation of the second greatest commandment: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Matt:22:39And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
See All...). I had been told by a Christian psychologist a few years earlier that I needed to love myself to be able to adequately love my neighbor as myself. That triggered a frenetic attempt to "look out for #1" in the name of loving my neighbor. My "self love" search ended up cutting people out of my life who didn't allow me to maximize that "love." It also resulted in a ministry change in order to "love myself" more (i.e., make me look better). However, what I had turned into was a well-disguised ego maniac who refused to do anything that wasn't "self" loving. Ironically, this search for significance took me to the UK and Ireland, where God had prearranged my meeting up with Dave Hunt - through his book. About two months into my 4-month stint "across the pond" I became convinced that I needed to repent of my "self" love and make myself available to be anything, do anything and go anywhere for the Lord. In addition to "Seduction," I was spending 2-4 hours seeking God's face in His Word and prayer on a daily basis. That "greenhouse" experience resulted in some major changes, including having my eyes opened to the woman I would marry one year later, to the part of the world in which I would serve the Lord as a missionary ('til today - Latin America) and the type of ministry where I would make my greatest contribution for the Kingdom to date - among college students. So Brother Dave Hunt has gone home, but his legacy lives on. I am so thankful that he decided to write that controversial book called "The Seduction of Christianity," because I was one who had been seduced... and needed to wake up and repent! I am sure tens of thousands of others can say the same! I am where I am today thanks to Dave Hunt's "The Seduction of Christianity." Thanks for your courageous stand for truth, Dave!