In Searching for God Knows What, Donald Miller tells of a lecture delivered to students at a Christian college. He began by telling them that he was going to present the gospel, but leave out one very important element.

He described the rampant sin that plagued our culture: "homosexuality, abortion, drug use, song lyrics on the radio, newspaper headlines, and so on." He said that the wages of sin is death, talked about teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and all the supporting statistics. He described how the way sin separates us from God. He spoke of "the beauty of morality," telling stories, citing examples of how righteous living was better. He detailed greatness of heaven. He spoke of repentance and how their lives could be God-honoring and God-centered."

Describing what happened when he finished the lecture, Miller writes:

I rested my case and asked the class if they could tell me what it was I had left out of this gospel presentation. Not a single hand raised … I presented a gospel to Christian Bible college students and left out … Jesus. Nobody noticed.

To a culture that believes they “go to heaven” based on whether or not they are morally pure, or that they understand some theological ideas, or that they are very spiritual, Jesus is completely unnecessary. At best, He is an afterthought, a technicality by which we become morally pure, or a subject of which we know, or a founding father of our woo-woo spirituality.