One
of the most fascinating speeches in the Bible happens in Acts 5 with Jewish
Pharisee Gamaliel addressing the Sanhedrin. He warns them that if the message
being preached by the Apostles of Jesus was of man, it would fail. But if it was
from God, it couldn't be stopped.
Peter Heck is
a speaker, author and teacher.
It
was of God, and it wasn't stopped.
I
find that passage particularly relevant today within American Christendom.
There
is a reason that liberal Christian movements like those championed by Jim
Wallis, Rachel Held Evans, Shane Claiborne and others are so ineffective and
unpersuasive in American culture. Rather than seeking to glorify and build the
Kingdom of God, they regularly appropriate the language of Scripture to advocate
for earthly, largely political causes that never address the principal need of
humanity: redemption from sin.
For
instance, preaching the words of Scripture when it comes to our nation's policy
towards refugees is admirable (provided it is done in context) only if you don't
ignore, downplay, or reject the counsel of Scripture when it comes to policy
regarding abortion, marriage, and human sexuality. So-called progressive
Christians have long chastised their conservative brethren for cherry-picking
Scripture to support certain political causes. And to the extent that
conservatives have done that, it has been to our detriment.
One
need only walk through the graveyard of the "Religious Right" for confirmation
of that reality. The Religious Right did not fall apart because it sought to
apply the truth of the Bible to politics. It was when it tied the message of the
Gospel to a political agenda. Before long, the Republican Party became an idol,
and its success was seen as the most effective way to advance righteousness in
the land. The Religious Right ceased to be about God, and thus it ceased to
be.
But
the same is happening with the Progressive Christianity of Wallis, Evans,
Claiborne, Brian McLaren, and Tony Campolo that so desperately wants to be a
formidable political force in America. In an effort to become such, they use the
Bible as a weapon not against the sin and unrighteousness that plagues humanity,
but against those who don't share their politics.
Loving
like Jesus means caring about what He cared about, wanting what He wanted,
acting like He acted. And any rational reading of Scripture reveals that Jesus
always cared first about the spiritual health of the individual, second about
their physical health. Healing the physical was His way of demonstrating He had
authority to heal the spiritual — which was far more important.
Progressive
Christians who focus only on physical poverty while ignoring spiritual poverty
are not contending for the faith. They are a political movement that finds
themselves in a flesh-driven struggle for power rather than a spirit-driven
struggle for Kingdom building. They mistake seeking social "justice" for the
poor with seeking eternal justification for the sinner. That is a tragic
confusion.
Take
Sojourners Magazine, headed by Jim Wallis (and historically associated with the
shocking promotion of
misery-spreading communism in Central America), which recently ran a piece describing how American Christianity
had failed because it, "looked nothing like Jesus."
Now,
on the surface, one need only view the opulent auditoriums and crystal palaces
of some of the country's largest churches to recognize that there is certainly
some truth to that assessment. But at the same time the progressive Christians
at Sojourners are promoting that narrative, they are simultaneously running
glowing accounts and magnanimous reporting about the "Women's March" in
Washington, D.C. the day after the inauguration.
This
was a gathering that specifically barred many Christians, atheists, Jews, men,
women and minorities for their biblically-consistent view that abortion
dehumanizes innocent children. Is that the inclusivity of Jesus that Sojourners
touts so often?
And
speaking of looking "nothing like Jesus," does the Wallis operation contend
that
1. March organizer Linda Sarsour, who infamously attacked a fierce defender of Islamic women seeking freedom, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who suffered through Islamic female genital mutilation as a five year old, but Women's March organizer Sarsour growled that she would take Ali's "vagina away,"2. Grotesque signs stating "P**** Power," "Viva la Vulva," "P**** Grabs Back," "Abort Mike Pence,"3. Placards depicting Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin engaged in perverse sexual acts,4. The caustic rhetoric and militant feminism of Ashley Judd that manifested in a profane and coarse rant that was antithetical to the Biblical admonition of Ephesians 5,5. Giant models of bloody tampons,6. Posters adorned with explicitly anti-Biblical statements like, "I didn't come from your rib – you came from my vagina,"7. Featured speakers like Donna Hylton who was sentenced to 25 years in prison for the kidnapping, anal rape with a three foot steel pole, torture, and eventual murder of a 62-year old man...
...
is what progressive Christianity sees as the face of Christ?
