The culture war in our society today is reflected within the broader Christian community in predictable ways from a standpoint of liberal vs conservative theological beliefs based on views of the Bible. This conclusion can be drawn from the article by George Yancey on The Gospel Coalition website, “Who’s More Political: Progressive or Conservative Christians?” https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/political-progressive-conservative-christians/. The article reveals insights drawn from research conducted to compare conservative Christians with progressive Christians. This research is to be published this summer in One Faith No Longer: The Transformation of Christianity in Red and Blue America, written by Mr. Yancy and Ashlee Quosigk. One of the questions dealt with was the role of political values in creating identity for conservative and progressive Christians. One key finding in the article was the fallacy of the popular notion that conservative Christians are more politically active than progressive Christians. The research found that the opposite was true: progressive Christians are involved in political activism far more than conservative Christians. Conservative religious beliefs do not normally or necessarily translate into involvement or activism, whereas the politically-based views of progressives do involve activism to a demonstrably greater degree. This totally debunks the cultural stereotype of conservative Christian political involvement. That stereotype is probably not accidental, but generated by disingenuous hype from the liberal elements in society.
Another point I wish to make from the findings is the matter of the progressives’ liberal view of the Bible (they typically do not accept inerrant divine inspiration but hold a humanist view of authorship). This position clearly coincides with their progressive views and vice a versa–they tend to interpret the doctrines of scripture from the lens of their progressive viewpoint–scriptures are seen by them to back up the reprobate political notions of social justice, inclusion, tolerance, etc. instead of teaching the moral laws of God and the Christocentric redemption message. Therefore, from the standpoint of a conservative or evangelical Christian, progressive Christians twist the scriptures to derive alien meanings and dogma that are contrary to it or outright heresy or blasphemy. This treatment of the Word of God could be seen as essentially coming from individuals that are NOT Christian in the strict sense, but are persons that may have a merely intellectual interest in scriptures but still arbitrarily choose to adopt the label of Christian. Otherwise they are no more Christian than an Aardvark is an otter. Instead they are just another group of individuals in society that promote a liberal left ideology while trying to mascarade with a Christian identity. The Bible very clearly explains what defines a Christian (Acts 11:26), which in truth is not open for debate, so that false adherents should never be accepted or humored for their claims to being Christian, but rather called out as false prophets that are destructive to the Church.
There is a more insidious side that is revealed in this article that I believe needs mentioning to send an alarm to the Church and society at large. The article relates a story in the beginning about Curtis Freeman, a Duke Divinity School professor and liberal Baptist, who is alleged to have tweeted that, “Evangelical Christianity is the greatest threat to human existence today. It must be laid waste.” After being called out on it, he evidently deleted the tweet afterwards while excusing his apparent hate speech with intellectual gibberish by saying that he was focused, hyperbolically, on expressions of evangelical activism tied to President Trump. To that I would say, “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh”–that one’s speech expressed from a passion-filled reaction will often reveal what’s in a persons heart, unless they are a master at decoy and deception. This statement by Mr. Freeman does not just imply a shocking expression of genocidal pretentions against a religious group, which is nothing new in human history, but appears to reveal the true sentiments of this Christian professor–that of murderous Haman-like hate (see Esther) for persons that the Scriptures teach should be the primary objects of unconditional love (John 13:34, 1 John 3), his fellow brothers and sisters in Christ! Strongly held political views cannot be an excuse for lashing out in this manner against any kind of social group whatsoever, unless you’re a Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, and Mao Tse Tung. Thus, Mr. Freeman himself could be considered guilty of murder against his Christian brother, according to the standards set forth by Jesus Christ and his apostles (Matt. 5:21 – 26; 1 John 3:11 – 16). Just as disturbing is evidence that this professor, seen as a progressive, and as such, belies that his political passion and philosophy trumps (I use that term intentionally) or eclipses any claims to a Christian affiliation which, I argue, is typical of progressives. And to carry this further, it is far too common and typical of those of the broader progressive camp, but more so of those in the radical left, neo-Marxist camp, their violent revolutionary brothers, that are now in the process of an overthrow of our society. It is sad how there are far too many in the Christian community who identify with them to some extent and others that are outright Judases amongst us who are wolves dressed in sheep’s clothing, who would join the persecuting mob once they come for the flock of Jesus Christ. This is every bit as much hate for God’s people as has occurred in the great persecutions down through the ages, committed by non-Christians and in some cases, Christians. The one final point to be made is that the community of true believing Christians across the world must be extremely wary of the progressives and their radical left brothers in these days of rampant deception, censorship, increasing abridgement of personal freedoms under the Constitution, cancel culture, and social divisiveness that they are creating in their burgeoning insurrection movement. It is clear from the slip by Mr. Freeman what their objective is: to eradicate evangelical Christianity that is antithetical and a chief obstacle to the advancement of their humanist religion. This has been one of the chief planks of the Marxist movement over the past 125 years and it has reared its ever blood-thirsty head once more, now in the heart of Western civilization. In these times, true Christians must heed the Lord’s admonition to be “wise as serpents and innocent as doves” (Matt 10:16) and not be dupes of the wolves who pose as Christians.
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