http://sermonsearch.worshiphousemedia.com/mini-movies/11396/The-Stool
A Dangerous Theological Shift:

The Postmodern experience pervasive in our churches is made possible by a theological shift in the modern church. Two doctrines stand at the core of a Biblical Worldview – Providence and The Cross. When you take the Sovereignty of God and the Grace of God through Christ out of the center of the Christian mindset, all kinds of slippery slopes are created. This is especially true when it comes to the locus for determining Truth. You see, when human free will becomes the thing that determines destiny, then God is forced to subject Himself, theologically speaking, to human desire and human free will. We are left with little choice but to base God’s will, and our understanding of God’s will, on some interpretation of our choices, our tendencies, our emotions and our experiences. This is evident throughout the post modern church. We no longer preserve tradition, or orthodox doctrine, because we believe it is True. It has to "work" in todays world, or it is easily cast aside in favor of something more personally profound or accepatble. Our tendency is to hold on to truths which meet our needs, since felt needs are fundamentally sovereign in the post modern Christian experience. That which we embrace as truth must line up with a reality we discover through our own personal experiences in life, and this is increasingly true whether we speak of life inside or outside the church. In other words, since we have decided that felt needs are the most important part of my church experience, it is very easy to convince myself that if my felt needs are not being addressed, God is calling me away from this church toward another church, or to demand change within the life of the church we attend. We want to believe it is God calling us, and we do not want to be seen as Christians who are disobeying what God would have us do, so we are forced to proclaim that which we desire is synonymous with what God desires for us. Seldom does the post modern Christian question their own personal emotional reality when it comes to discerning God’s will, clearly seen through our post modern tendency to proclaim God’s will through the popular Christian phrase – “I feel led”. We simply do not question our tendency to believe that God’s primary arena for revealing Himself and His will to us is through our own private emotional reality and our own personal experiences. This creates all kinds of problems for God’s people.

For example, what happens when our choices in the church, as a “priest of God”, lie in direct contradiction to the clear mandates of Scripture? (This term is used by many good Baptists, but I fear has seldom been thoroughly studied by those who use the phrase. Please see the note at the bottom of this article.) We face these type decisions all the time, in our marriages, with our children, in our churches. Scripture is quite clear that we are to love our enemies, that we are to work through our differences in Christian love, that we are to let our “yes be yes” as we fulfill our promises, that we are to learn to humble ourselves when things are not going as we want them to go. This clear call of God upon our lives often runs in direct opposition to what we feel or what we have experienced. It is so much easier to get a divorce, or buy our kid an x box, or run from our responsibilities, or attend the church down the street where I can get a fresh start. The Sovereign choice that God has made in bringing us this marriage partner, creating our children with the personalities they have, calling us to a particular office or vocation, or giving us opportunity to serve with our brothers and sisters in a local church in spite of our differences, gets laid aside in favor of our feelings and intuitions pertaining to God’s will.

Have you ever noticed that there is not a single example in all the New Testament of a person leaving one church for another, or an apostle to a particular church giving up on His congregation and moving on? Not a single example. In other words, the Sovereign Lord, who directed every single page of Scripture pertaining to the Church, never once gave this option to people. Which makes sense, If the cross is the incarnation of God giving himself fully and completely to a world full of enemies and sinners. Why would God expect less of us? If the cross is the symbol of our faith, and the call of each Christian, and the supreme example of God’s love, why would the cross not be the core and clear definition of our relationships with one another? Do we honestly believe the cross applies to our salvation, but does not apply to our relationships within the local church? Which part of the gospel of Jesus Christ would give us the freedom to abandon our brothers and sisters because we have been hurt by them, or don’t agree with their theology, or no longer feel our needs are being met? One can see that only through a denial of God’s Providence and The cross of Christ is one able to elevate felt needs as some how being the primary place where God reveals His will to us. Sadly, and I fear dangerously, we have adopted these practices quite faithfully in our churches. I am left daily thanking God that He does not adopt the same “philosophy” in His dealings with us. God chooses to relate with me through the Death and Resurrection of His Son. This is our only Salvation, yesterday, today, and forever more. Thanks be to Sovereign Lord of the Universe through the Cross of Jesus to which we cling!!! (peace/out)    

Note:   Growing numbers of Baptists lament the individualism that seems inherent within contemporary notions of the doctrine, pointing out that the 'priesthood of all believers' is not the same as 'the individual priesthood of each individual believer'. It is rather, the gathered community as a whole that constitutes a priesthood, and as such represents God to the people (mission) and the people to God (intercession). For further study please read http://tbcmarion.org/pastors-blog/33-blog/66-priest-or-priesthood,          http://www.simonperry.org.uk/#/intercessory-prayer/4537349944