conversion by concealment

Last year I read most of the book Law & Gospel by C.F.W. Walther, first president of the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod. The book is comprised of transcripts from a series of lectures Walther gave in 1884. While I'm not in full agreement with the book, I think Walther's perspective on so called "sensitive" approaches to communicating the Gospel has merit. It's interesting that these techniques had their practitioners even back then.

"Even believing theologians of the modern type are frequently too timid to use terms that are fully warranted by Biblical and ecclesiastical usage, because they are afraid that these terms might prove offensive to their audience. They are averse to speaking of hereditary sin in their sermons or of the wrath of God against sinners, of the blindness of natural man, of spiritual death, in which all men are merged by nature. They do not like to speak of the devil going about as a roaring lion, seeing whom he may devour, because that would make them unpopular with their hearers. They are disinclined to speak of the everlasting fire of hell, of eternal torment and damnation; they prefer to speak of these matters to their hearers in terms that do not seem so strange, faulty, and offensive to them, employing phrases that are more in harmony with 'the religious sentiment of an enlightened people.'

"Now, there is no doubt that these men wish to convert people by using such false terms. They believe that they can convert men by concealing things from them or by presenting matters in a manner that is pleasing to men as they are by nature. They are like sorry physicians who do not like to prescribe a bitter medicine to delicate patients. . . Preachers who do not clearly and plainly proclaim the Gospel, which is offensive to the world, are not faithful in the discharge of their ministry and inflict great injury on men's souls. Instead of advancing Christians in the knowledge of pure doctrine, they allow them to grope in the dark, nurse false imaginations in them, and speed them in their false and dangerous path.

"The history of the Church shows how dangerous it is when theologians, otherwise reputed as orthodox, use wrong terms, which can easily be misunderstood. As a result, the most abominable heretics, to cover up their errors with a halo of sanctity, have appealed to phrases which men admittedly orthodox have used."

[pages 275, 276]