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November 18 - December 21, 2020
The “Confessing Church” resisted, openly confronted Nazism, and ultimately paid the price for this choice with their lives.
Lost was the biblical approach to ministry that seamlessly links evangelism and discipleship to matters of justice and social transformation.
“Souls are more or less firmly attached to bodies.”3
For second-wave feminists, sexual equality meant getting women out of the home and into the workforce. They associated domestic life with servile oppression.
The biblical notion of male headship in the home—disparaged as “the patriarchy”—was anathema.
Evangelicals who hold to a “complementarian” view increasingly find that they are a minority in churches, Christian schools, and organizations.
Any entity that requires government accreditation or touches government dollars will be in the immediate line of fire. Some organizations will face the choice either to abandon [historic biblical sexual morality] or risk potential closure.
Here’s the problem: we no longer have agreement about what racism is. Some say it is “prejudice plus power” which only applies to white people by virtue of their monopoly on cultural power.
Douglas Murray describes this as “antiracist racism.”
The challenges in the black community can be overcome in ways that are not dependent on the actions of white people, but the choices and actions of black people themselves.
The devastation of the black family is largely attributable to the rise of the modern welfare state.
changed welfare from an emergency rescue to a way of life.”
Today, America is one of the least racist countries in the world and a land of opportunity for people of all ethnic backgrounds, which is why immigrants continue to flock here in huge numbers, including many with black and brown skin.
Historically, racism in America was perpetuated primarily by those on the political left. The Democratic Party defended slavery, started the Civil War, opposed Reconstruction, founded the Ku Klux Klan, imposed segregation, perpetrated lynching, and fought against the civil rights acts of the 1950s and ’60s.
Both of these motives are understandable and well-intentioned. But as Christians, our primary obligation is to the truth and to love. That means we have to evaluate narratives carefully. We need to affirm what is good and true and reject what is false and destructive.
It’s message to white Americans is this: By virtue of your skin color, you are guilty of benefiting from these same systems whether you realize it or not. It’s a disheartening message to blacks and a guilt-inducing message to whites, one that only exacerbates racial tensions.
The Preservation Narrative says to young black people: In America today, if you graduate from high school, hold almost any job, and wait until you are married to have children, you will be well on the road to a fruitful, flourishing life—and you can make these choices no matter what white people do or don’t do. This is an empowering and unifying message.
The reality today is that a police officer is far more likely to be killed by a black male than an unarmed black male is to be killed by a police officer.
although blacks constitute 12 percent of the population, they consistently commit over one-half of all homicides.
The rise of crime in the black community parallels the breakdown of the black family starting in the 1960s and ’70s. Crime rates rise as the capacity to self-govern erodes.
This alone should prevent Christians from supporting it.
It teaches that our founding principles in the Declaration of Independence made the eventual eradication of slavery possible.
While racism and slavery are common among all nations in human history, what makes America unique is our response to these evils. We ended slavery and have made tremendous progress in addressing overt racism, eliminating barriers to equal opportunity, and recognizing the racial sensibilities of minorities.
Why then, do overwhelming numbers of black people support the Democratic Party today? Advocates for the Preservation Narrative have a straightforward answer: massive government welfare programs have resulted in a debilitating dependence on the government for millions of black Americans. Democrats support these programs, so a vote for the Democratic Party is a vote to keep the money flowing.
They should take time to look at what they are supporting, what’s behind the organization’s very clever (and devious) marketing and branding.
Christians who wish to truly see flourishing in the lives and communities of their black brothers and sisters should consider supporting groups that work to strengthen black families, strengthen black businesses, advocate for school choice, and fight against the scourge of abortion in the black community—groups
Anyone who dissents from the narrative can expect to be denounced as a racist and summarily bullied, shamed, intimidated, threatened, or fired.
They want submissive compliance. The bending of the knee is a perfect symbolic expression for the Revolutionary Narrative as a whole.
As Christ-followers, we should have nothing to do with these despicable bullying and intimidation tactics, and we sho...
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We must remain a people committed to civility, respect, and free and open debate and dialog...
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The most passionate black advocates of the Revolutionary Narrative, past and the present, are either non-Christians or nominal Christians. By contrast, the vast majority of black advocates for the Preservation Narrative are deeply committed Christians.
It grieves my heart to see that we so often treat each other like we’re from different bloodlines.”26 “My dream is that we lock arms together as true brothers and sisters. . . . We need to look at each other and say, ‘You’re family.’”
The church needs to be a family training center.”
He does not back up these claims by evidence.
The church isn’t supposed to blindly follow mainstream cultural trends—even powerful ones with massive elite support and financial backing. It is supposed to uphold and live out the counter-cultural ways of Christ’s kingdom as salt and light in the midst of an increasingly dark and chaotic culture.
Unless the church pulls its foot out of the ideological social justice quagmire, and places both feet firmly on the solid ground of biblical truth, the consequences will be devastating for both the church and the nations we exist to bless and serve.
close to 40 percent think the United States is “among the most unequal societies in the world.”
moving toward theologically liberal views was “the beginning of the end” of his faith:
I passed through every stage of heresy. It starts with sovereignty going, then biblical authority goes, then I’m a universalist, now I’m marrying gay people. Pretty soon I don’t actually believe Jesus actually rose from the dead in a bodily way.”
While these evangelical institutions and organizations continue to affirm historic statements of faith and doctrine, they simultaneously validate the presuppositions of ideological social justice by adopting its language and endorsing its core presuppositions.
“Those who let the culture, a political ideology, popular opinion, or any other extrabiblical source define ‘justice’ for them will soon find that Scripture opposes them. If they are determined to retain a perverted idea of justice, they will therefore have to oppose Scripture.”
Rather than defending Christian social engagement, with its seamless, biblical relationship between gospel proclamation and cultural transformation, they are calling into question the very validity of Christian cultural engagement and justice ministry.
This meant that the secular culture alone was able to define what social and cultural engagement was, and how it should be done, for more than a generation.
He writes: “I went from minding my own business . . . to practically fainting when [people] used the wrong pronoun or expressed a right-of-center view.”
Wilson reminds us that “Social justice is a surveillance culture, a snitch culture.”
For them, ideological social justice fills the hole in their soul for meaning, identity, and purpose.
We rightly despise the moral abomination of antebellum slavery, but legal abortion—including the trafficking of baby body parts for profit—is happening right now, on our watch.
And yet, for those evangelicals who have drunken deeply from the fountain of ideological social justice, the fight against abortion, if engaged in at all, takes a back seat to issues like “demilitarizing” the police, lamenting systemic white racism, or deconstructing the criminal justice system.
Yes, we are shaped and influenced by our groups, but our groups don’t define us.
If your story tells you that your primary identity is “victim,” your life will be marked by bitterness, resentment, grievance, and entitlement. If your story tells you your primary identity is privileged oppressor, your life will be marked by guilt and shame. However, if your story tells you that your identity is “sinner, yet loved by God and saved by grace,” your life will be marked by gratitude and humility.
