Brokenness theology is not only unbiblical and spiritually damaging. It is also the gateway drug to a whole host of other heresies and errors. By teaching people that they are primarily helpless victims of forces outside their control, rather than willful sinners in need of salvation, it opens the door toward seeing every difficulty or challenge in life as an incapacitating force over which they have no control.

A popular, contemporary evangelical song opens with these words: 

O come, all you unfaithful
Come, weak and unstable
Come, know you are not alone

A few verses later we read:

O come, bitter and broken
Come with fears unspoken
Come, taste of His perfect love

A subtle, yet devastating error is found in such sentiments, one that is causing great mischief in evangelical churches. It is, at its most basic, a substitution of the language of brokenness for the biblical language of sin.

It is subtle, as much false teaching is, because it sounds on the surface very biblical. Has not the fall introduced disorder into the world? Has it not wrecked human relationships, destroyed families, churches, and nations, and brought about the dissolution of God’s good design for human life? It has done all of these things and more.

Is brokenness, then, such a bad way of describing the human predicament? It is indeed. Brokenness theology is, in fact, a denial of the Bible’s teaching on sin, a perversion of the Bible’s teaching on salvation, and a theology that leaves fallen sinners without hope.

What are the components of brokenness theology? First, it must be said that brokenness theology may give lip service to orthodox tenets of Christian theology. It may not deny that the Fall has corrupted human nature outside of Christ, or that we all are guilty sinners as a result. It does not, however, as a matter of routine patterns of speech (seen in sermons, songs, conference talks, articles, books, etc.) emphasize fallen human nature and individual acts of sinful rebellion as the most fundamental problem facing humanity. Instead, it emphasizes brokenness, which can be defined as disordered aspects of human existence. Brokenness, however, is not the same thing as sinfulness. Brokenness happens to a person. It comes from outside of him. The song I opened this article with gives a representative sample of the kinds of things one finds in brokenness theology: weakness, instability, loneliness, weariness, barrenness, bitterness, fear. But note that all of these states are framed in this song as if they were caught like the common cold; they are things that happen to you.

The biblical picture is far different: yes, we are weak in ourselves; yes, we face manifold temptations to give in to disordered instability in our lives, to succumb to self-pity and despair in the face of loneliness, to become bitter when God’s providence is hard, to rage against God for our barrenness, to succumb to fear and anxiety in moments of stress. But all of these responses are sinful. They are not neutral things that happen to us. Brokenness theology turns humans into passive victims of forces outside their control, rather than sinners who chose to rebel against God and who are therefore in desperate need of forgiveness and spiritual transformation.

In short, brokenness theology gives sinners a false understanding of the fundamental problem they face (God’s wrath), obscures the solution (repentance, faith, sanctification), and leaves them without hope (they’re simply broken victims). As such, it is a narcissistic, therapeutic perversion of the gospel. Sinners outside of Christ are indeed slaves to sin (Rom 6:17–21), but those savingly united to Christ are not helpless victims of forces outside their control. The grace of God has pulled us out of ourselves, to turn us to the savior in whom we find forgiveness for our rebellion, anxiety, fear, bitterness, grumbling, and doubts, and to find daily strength to fight against these sinful states of heart and mind. Brokenness theology teaches that God’s grace merely gives us help to endure all of these states, which are taken as characterizing the normal Christian life. These states, however, are sinful and must be repented of, not endured as so many unfortunate things that simply happen to us.

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