As evangelicals, we hold the gospel central. But which gospel? ‘How would you explain the gospel message to a teenager?’ is a question I’ve asked repeatedly, in various contexts, over a number of years. It’s wonderful to hear dear brothers and sisters, who love Christ and have a heart for young people, respond instinctively to this question.
Yet, I’ve also been troubled. The answers I’ve heard are full of glorious Bible truth: ‘I’d want them to know that God loves them’, ‘I’d share how they can have life to the full’, ‘I’d explain how Jesus died for sinners’.
Are these things true? Undoubtedly. But are these statements the gospel? In these conversations, talk of Jesus’ Lordship, or of the need for repentance, have – almost without exception – been absent. Does this off-the-cuff gospel gossip reflect wider trends in UK evangelicalism? Like the proverbial frog in the saucepan, has the temperature of our Christianity imperceptibly changed? Have we acclimatised ourselves to a fluffy, pink, and syrupy version of Christianity? A melt-in-your mouth gospel, which is high in sugar, but low in substance? Have we been spinning a candy floss gospel? Does this matter?
The week of 16 June 2025 was bleak in recent British history. Twice in one week, the House of Commons voted in such a way as to promote the deliberate killing of the inconvenient, vulnerable, and unwanted, at both the beginning and the end of life. The decision to decriminalise those seeking an abortion for any reason, including up to birth, was taken after just 46 minutes of debate. How have we arrived at this point? How ought believers to respond? With lament, certainly. But it is also an opportunity for the frog to say, now I think about it, this water doesn’t feel altogether quite as cool as it used to.
Is it reasonable for us to ask: have our elected representatives voted for these changes, not despite the church’s ministry, but heartbreakingly, in some measure, because of it? Are these cultural trends, tragically, downstream of candy floss Christianity? What are the marks of a candy floss gospel?
For one thing, a candy floss gospel is sweet. Sharp or salty flavours are masked, and a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. ‘Yes please’ to glugs of grace, lashings of faith, and a splash of Jesus as Saviour – quite rightly. But God’s holiness, the necessity of repentance, or Jesus’ authority as Lord? Put those ingredients back on the spice rack, please; those flavours might put people off.
For another thing, a candy floss gospel is pink. ‘God loves you’ is made primary and central. Am I suggesting God’s love is not a glorious New Testament theme? Of course not, for ‘God is love’ (1 John 4:8). I am asking, however, that we consider how frequently ‘God loves you’ features in the recorded preaching in Acts, where apostolic evangelism is modelled for us. The answer is that it does not. Not once, to any audience. The very word ‘love’ features zero times in the entire book. Should we ban the word, and embargo John 3:16 in our evangelism? Of course not. But perhaps we might ask: were the apostles lopsided, or are we? If Jesus and the apostles continually served up a Sunday-roast-with-trimmings gospel that proclaimed ‘Jesus is Lord’, then surely our role is to replicate the meal, not change the recipe.
Lastly, a candy floss gospel is fluffy. If sin and repentance do feature, it can often be in vague and theoretical terms. Contrast this with the sharp edges in John the Baptist’s preaching. When he called on his hearers to ‘produce fruit in keeping with repentance’, he spelled out concrete examples of what this would mean (Luke 3:7-18). He called people to tangible repentance from named sins. He challenged individuals and communities at the very point they needed challenging. His example is summarised for us: ‘And with many other words John exhorted the people and preached the good news to them’ (Luke 3:18). In short, this was gospel preaching.
The question I am posing is this: are we drifting from the New Testament gospel? And at what cost?
Challenge, discomfort, and offense have no place in candy floss Christianity. They are viewed as distasteful rather than inseparable from normal gospel preaching. The result is truth decay: a growing list of topics, like abortion, from which we shrink in silence. The consequence of a distorted gospel is therefore, inescapably, a diminished impact on our lives and on our culture.
Candy floss entices, but it does not nourish. Contrast this with the shocking clarity with which John Wesley railed against slavery, the great moral calamity of his day: “But the innocent blood which is shed in consequence of such a detestable law, must call for vengeance on the murderous abettors and actors of such deliberate wickedness.” Such a statement is flavoured with the very ingredients missing in a candy floss gospel: God’s holiness, justice, law, and the sweeping scope of Jesus’ authority.
Please do not mishear me. Speaking about abortion requires sensitivity, wisdom, and grace, all in abundance. It would be reckless not to recognise how painful an issue this is for many in our culture and in our churches. I am asking, however, that as we look at our culture in lament at this sorry moment, let’s not neglect to look also at ourselves and the gospel we’re proclaiming.
“How would you explain the gospel message to a teenager?” I wonder how John the Baptist – or the Apostle Paul or John Wesley – would respond today? Surely it would be the declaration that Jesus is both Saviour and Lord, with a call both to repentance and faith. I doubt it would be a sugary pick-me-up that left us disturbingly like the world around us. I expect it would be one that spelled out repentance in concrete and uncomfortable specifics. Their gospel was flavoursome, not sickly sweet; blood red, not pink; substantial, not fluffy.
As we proclaim that big gospel, we have a duty to apply it to the most counter-cultural areas in our own context. This will include the sanctity of life and the family, with implications for abortion, IVF, end of life care, our view of children and of marriage, with husbands loving their wives and wives submitting to their husbands. These areas are not embarrassing ‘optional flavours’ of Christianity, but outworkings of the loving Lordship of Christ in areas that our autonomous culture, presently, most resists it.
It should not be lost on us how frequently in history the church has led the way in major cultural change. This is not because our forebears thought ending the Roman games, or abolishing the slave trade, or outlawing widow burning was the gospel. No, it was instead that these things were inescapably tied to the gospel. They proclaimed, lived, and applied a big gospel that thundered up and down the land: all people are in the image of God, all manner of sins are forgivable, and all areas of life are under Jesus’ rule.
