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Seduction of the American Church

Posted by :admin On : September 5, 2014
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Category: Archives, Christianity, Truth

This article should be of interest to Christians and those who may not be Christians by confession and lifestyle but who believe in the importance of maintaining a biblical Christian worldview in America. Christians are the church. The church is not the buildings or organizations that serve the church body. So when we speak of the seduction of the church, we are speaking of the seduction of individual Christians and particularly the leadership of churches and other Christian organizations.

To seduce means to lead away, to persuade to disobedience or disloyalty, or to lead astray. Only one of its definitions refers to the enticement into unchastity.[1] Seduction was Satan’s original weapon used to attack God by separating man from Him. At his first encounter with Eve in the Garden, Satan’s seductive words led Eve into disobedience and disloyalty to God. Seduction worked well because God gave man a free will. Man can choose to obey or not. To love God is to obey Him, but to disobey is sin which results in separation from God. That is Satan’s purpose, to separate man from God.

However, man was not created stupid. He soon reasoned that separation from God led to pain, misery, emptiness of soul, loneliness, and death without God. Therefore, Satan created a new god for fallen man to worship and obey—the god of self. Self would be deified and worshiped in the temple of humanism. Man would be liberated from the need to obey anyone but the new god of self. However, man found that liberation of self merely anesthetized the symptoms of disobedience and separation from God. Soon the morphia of power, wealth, and pleasure wears off and the suffering and loneliness return along with the reappearance of the hideous specter of death apart from God.

The greatest threat to Satan’s seduction of mankind is the empowered and obedient church of Jesus Christ. Frontal attacks against the church are of no avail. Therefore, Satan again resorts to seduction, his most trusted and lethal weapon. Satan’s strategy is to defeat the church by subtly injecting the god of self into the church body. It is the little foxes that destroy the vine. At first he encourages a little compromise here and there. Mix in bit of disunity. Allude to the harshness and inflexibility of the Bible. Question the relevancy of the Bible and the church in light of modern problems. Concentrate the churches’ focus and efforts substantially if not exclusively on the temporal problems and injustices in the world. Attempt to discredit the truth of the Bible through science and psychology. Finally, the church elevates self above God. The new church is now consumer-oriented, and its patrons are clients to be pampered. The gospel is softened so as not to offend. Therapy replaces salvation in dealing with sin. Worship becomes entertainment. Commitment becomes optional as church attendance for many is limited to an hour or two on Sunday mornings a couple of times a month. The gospel of self-improvement is preached instead of the word of God found in the Bible.

David Wilkerson (1931-2011) was the author of the best-selling The Cross and Switchblade and was the founder of Teen Challenge addiction recovery program with centers found in many countries of the world. The recovery rate for its residents exceeds 80%, one of the highest among similar organization. Formerly the pastor of Times Square Church in New York City, Wilkerson preached a sermon in 1998 titled “The Dangers of the Gospel of Accommodation” in which he described the seduction of the modern church in the United States.

A gospel of accommodation is creeping into the United States. It’s an American cultural invention to appease the lifestyle of luxury and pleasure. Primarily a Caucasian, suburban gospel, it’s also in our major cities and is sweeping the nation, influencing ministers of every denomination, and giving birth to megachurches with thousands who come to hear a non-confronting message. It’s an adaptable gospel that is spoon-fed through humorous skits, drama, and short, nonabrasive sermonettes on how to cope—called a seeker-friendly or sinner-friendly or sinner-friendly gospel…The gospel of Jesus Christ has always been confronting—there is no such thing as a friendly gospel but a friendly grace. [emphasis added]

If you are a young man and have certain skills, you find those skills and a part of the city that would best suit you. You move into that area, poll it, and find out what the nonchurchgoers want. “You don’t like choirs. Well, would you go to a church that didn’t have a choir? Yes. You don’t like to wear suits. Would you go where it’s informal? Yes.” Then you go to your computer and design a gospel that will not confront but will shoot out the desires and the needs of the people…then you design your message to help people cope with their needs. The program you design is intended to make the church comfortable and friendly for all sinners who wish to attend.[2]

Wilkerson spoke of three things that identify the heart of the gospel of accommodation:

The accommodation of man’s love for pleasure – “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers…of pleasures more that lovers of God.” [2 Timothy 3:1-4. KJV].

The accommodation of all man’s aversion to self-denial – Jesus said, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” [Matthew 16:24. KJV]

The accommodation to man’s offense to the gospel – An accommodating gospel is the way of cheap grace. As Wilkerson described it, “It’s cruel, pastor, to lead sinners to the Cross, tell them they are forgiven by faith, and then allow them to go back to their habits and lusts of the flesh, unchanged and still in the devil’s shackles.”[3]

A recent variant of the accommodating church is the multisite electronic church. One such church has multiple campuses in the metro area, others around the state, and is establishing new churches out of state. The total combined attendance on a recent Sunday morning was reported to be 79,000. Each site may have as many as eight one-hour services on any given Sunday; each tightly packed with rock-concert style worship, simultaneous water baptisms, and a video message from the senior pastor. The founder and senior pastor explained that “…the service is designed to appeal to unchurched people, with casual dress, refreshments in the sanctuary, and a concert-like atmosphere. We’ve found that a lot of unchurched people love to go to concerts, and so our worship experience is very concert-like. There’s intelligent lighting, great sound systems…We’re not doing church for church people…” The pastor defends the accommodating nature of the church services by explaining that every service ends with an invitation to make a commitment to Christ.[4] One wonders if those making the commitments understand that a genuine commitment to Christ leads to the cross and ultimately death to self. Paul’s letter to the Galatians makes this clear. “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, wo loved me and gave himself for me.” [Galatians 2:20. RSV]

Often the gospel preached by the accommodating church tends to perversion or denial of biblical truth over time. A recent example has been a significant topic of discussion in the church world with regards to comments to the congregants by the wife of a pastor of a large Texas megachurch. With her nearby pastor-husband’s nodding approval, she said,

I just want to encourage every one of us to realize when we obey God, we’re not doing it for God—I mean, that’s one way to look at it—we’re doing it for ourselves, because God takes pleasure when we’re happy. That’s the thing that gives Him the greatest joy…So, I want you to know this morning: Just do good for your own self. Do good because God wants you to be happy. When you come to church, when you worship Him, you’re not doing it for God really. You’re doing it for yourself, because that’s what makes God happy. Amen?[5]

This particular ministry had a Godly Christian heritage and history. But the siren song of power, popularity, and success has seduced the new generation to bow to the god of self. Paul in his first letter to Timothy warned of the days in which some of the American church presently finds themselves. “Now the spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by giving heed to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, through the pretensions of liars whose consciences are seared…” [1 Timothy 4:1-2. RSV] Many leaders and congregants in the American church have been seduced by Satan and are following the path described by Paul which results in a powerlessness and apostate church destined for judgment and eternal damnation.

Larry G. Johnson

[1] “seduce,” Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, (Springfield, Massachusetts: G. & C. Merriam Company, 1963), p. 781.
[2] David Wilkerson, “The Dangers of the Gospel of Accommodation,” Assemblies of God Enrichment Journal, http://enrichmentjournal.ag.org/199901/078_accommodation.cfm (accessed September 2, 2014).
[3] Ibid.
[4] Bill Sherman, “Growing in faith,” Tulsa World, August 17, 2014, A-1.
[5] Heather Clark, “‘Do good for yourself’ Osteen Says. Obedience, worship ‘Not for God’.” Christian News Network, August 28, 2014. http://christiannews.net/2014/08/28/do-good-for-your-own-self-osteen-says-obedience-worship-not-for-god-video/ (accessed September 2, 2014).

Why I believe

Posted by :admin On : August 29, 2014
1

Category: Archives, Christianity, Truth

A child-like faith

I became a Christian as a child of six. Owasso was a tiny little hamlet of about 250 people, barely four blocks long and two blocks wide straddling a two-lane concrete highway meandering southward towards Tulsa through the perennially-flooding bottom lands and across an old bridge over Bird Creek. This little wide spot in the road had two or three churches, a grocery or two, a school, a collection of small houses, and not much else. Our children’s church teacher and her husband (a nonbeliever) were dairy farmers as were my parents and as my mother’s parents had been. Our teacher helped with the milking and some of the farm work, but on Sunday mornings after chores, she would pick up her grandchildren and any other neighbor kids that were so inclined and take them to church. I still remember well those Sunday mornings when she taught us flannel graph stories from the Bible including Noah, Moses, Joseph, David and Goliath, and Daniel in the Lion’s Den. She mixed in her own stories of “Barney in the Barrel,” “The Little Red Hen,” and others, all reflecting the truth of Christ’s love for each of us.

One Sunday morning she asked if any of us (probably about eight or nine in attendance that morning) would like to accept Jesus into their heart. I moved from the back row of three homemade benches and came to the front and accepted Him as my Lord and Savior. Why did I believe? Some will say my child’s faith was mere emotional manipulation. Others will say it was the Christian influence of family and friends to conform. But the Bible gives the real reason. I believed because my child-like faith responded to the gentle wooing of the Holy Spirit. Luke recorded Christ’s words as He described the utmost importance of a child-like faith, “Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” [Luke 18:17. RSV]

Reason

As we grow physically and mentally, our child-like faith must not remain static. Since that day I moved from the back bench to publicly profess my belief, my faith has grown and continues to grow because of reason. Right reason applied to my observations and experiences in the light of the biblical revelation and divine guidance increases my faith and helps me in my everyday life’s walk of faith. Life happens, and bad things happen to people who are faithful to God. How should Christians respond when they experience the trials of life such as when a spouse unexpectedly files for divorce, the death of a child or spouse, loss of job, betrayal by friends, and agonizing pain or loss of health? Here, right reason helps sustain faith in times of adversity. The believer continues to believe because he or she knows the truth of God’s word and because their life’s observations and experiences substantiate the truth upon which their faith rests. All the while the world shouts that there can be no faith in a God who would allow such tragedies, but the world only sees the natural and temporal. Faith transcends the natural to the realm and reality of the supernatural. The Apostle Paul wrote of how Christians should deal with the difficulties of life in their faith walk.

How weary we grow of our present bodies. That is why we look forward eagerly to the day when we shall have heavenly bodies which we shall put on like new clothes. For we shall not be merely spirits without bodies. These earthly bodies make us groan and sigh, but we wouldn’t like to think of dying and having no bodies at all. We want to slip into our new bodies so that these dying bodies will, as it were, be swallowed up by everlasting life. This is what God has prepared for us and, as a guarantee, he has given us his Holy Spirit. Now we look forward with confidence to our heavenly bodies, realizing that every moment we spend in these earthly bodies is time spent away from our eternal home in heaven with Jesus. We know these things are true by believing and not by seeing. [2 Corinthians 5:2-7. Living Bible]

Is Paul saying that faith is blind and denies reason? Absolutely not. Paul is speaking of the eternal hope of the Christian in spite of present circumstances. Faith is not an abandonment of reason. C. S. Lewis challenged the widespread assumption that there is a battle between faith and reason, “It is not reason that is taking away my faith: on the contrary, my faith is based on reason. It is my imagination and emotions [that attack faith]. The battle is between faith and reason on one side and emotion and imagination on the other.”[1]

Reason is an ally of faith. Our observations and experiences of life aided by right reasoning lead us to belief in the truth of Christianity and all upon which it rests in spite of circumstances. In one sense reason leads us to the door of Christianity, but faith invites us in and holds our hand as we continue the faith journey. However, reason was not left at the door. As we move along our faith journey, we encounter life—all sorts of thoughts, ideas, things, situations, difficulties, trials, struggles, disappointments, opportunities, and so forth. At that point reason continues to assist and guide within the framework of truths we hold and have incorporated into our faith walk. In this sense, reason helps us to accept the seemingly unreasonable as we search the Bible, pray for Divine guidance, and work out our own salvation.[2]

Lewis captures well the linkage between faith and reason when he wrote that faith “…is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods.”[3] It is not blind faith but a faith that is supported and increased through right reason. In time faith grows to be more important to our belief in the God of the Bible than our reasoning ability. Faith never abandons reason for it continues to play a secondary and supporting role. As faith grows and reason diminishes, reason has helped us come full circle once again to a child-like faith, and through faith we can withstand changes in our moods, our failures, our doubts, our circumstances, or any other of life’s challenges.

I believed because of a child-like faith. I continue to believe and my faith grows as right reason filters my observations and experiences in life in the light of the biblical revelation and divine guidance. However, there is a third reason I believe.

Best evidence

We humans have an insatiable thirst for truth about the meaning and purpose of life. Man has always recognized a divine order in the universe, nature, and human relationships. The more science reveals about the earth’s exquisite and complex order, the greater the evidence for a supernatural creator of that apparent order. Those that deny a supernatural creator continue to search for an over-arching theory of everything. For them the universe nothing more than a cosmic box full of puzzle pieces in which each piece must to be analyzed in its minutest detail. Once understood, the pieces can be fitted together to answer the basic questions of life, all of which is to be accomplished without help from a mythical God. In their attempts to fit the pieces together, often forcing un-natural and harmful configurations, they focus on the minutia, constantly arranging and rearranging, and end with meaningless patterns which reveal neither truth nor offer satisfactions demanded. Richard Weaver diagnosed modern man’s affliction which he described as a “…severe fragmentation of his world picture…which leads directly to an obsession with isolated parts.”[4]

The Bible is a book of history, poetry, prophecy, parable, and allegory in which God reveals Himself and paints the grand mural of the creation, the purpose of man, our present sorrow, the means of redemption, and our eternal destination.[5] It is the unifying picture on the puzzle box which in one grand sweep makes sense of everything in man’s experience since his creation. However, the picture is not enough for it is prescriptive and must be applied by each human being in order to fit the pieces together in a way that gives meaning, purpose, and satisfaction in this life and the next.

In spite of all the protestations of humanists, Darwinists, atheists, intellectuals, pundits, false religions, and others, the long view of man’s sordid history on this planet and the heart-breaking immediacy of the world’s pain and suffering revealed by today’s 24/7 news cycle point to man’s failed efforts to answer the basic questions of life with false philosophies and religions that deny the God of the Bible. It is the biblical revelation that gives the best explanation and evidence of who we are, what went wrong with the world, and how we can get out of the mess we are in. This is the third reason why I believe.

Larry G. Johnson

[1] C. S. Lewis, The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics, Mere Christianity, (New York: Harper One, 2002), p. 116.
[2] Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods-Humanism and Christianity-The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), p. 111.
[3] Lewis., pp. 115-117.
[4] Richard M. Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences,” (Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago Press, 1948), p. 59.
[5] Johnson, p. 176.

The most powerful weapon

Posted by :admin On : August 22, 2014
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Category: Archives, Truth

The terrorist will argue that the bomb is the most powerful weapon. Who can dispute the destructive power of a nuclear bomb? Others will declare the airplane or drone is the most powerful weapon because those deliver the bombs and without the means of delivery their explosive power would be dormant or ineffective.

Yet, others will say that the question of power overlooks the greater question of purpose. The target for which a weapon is used is the more important consideration than the power of the weapon itself. The assassin may prefer the thrust of a well-aimed stiletto, for the garrotter the seemingly innocuous cord is the weapon of choice, and for the timid or less-strong a few grams of cyanide in the victim’s cocoa will suffice. And we must not forget the megalomaniac or neighborhood bully’s invisible weapons of fear and intimidation.

A third group will submit that it is not a question of the powerfulness of a weapon or choosing the correct weapon to fit the target. Rather, the important thing is that a weapon is not inherently evil in itself but can be used for both good or ill. The laser used to destroy enemies can destroy the cataract to improve sight. The poison of chemo-therapy kills the cancerous portions of the body in order to sustain the larger organism. The bullet that kills the dictator bent on genocide may save thousands of lives.

Weapons evolve over time. The first weapons were blunt instruments (fists, stones, or clubs) and still favored in some detective stories. The up-close-and-personal blunt instrument was replaced by the more impersonal projectile (the arrow, the bullet, and the bomb). Through man’s ingenuity and industriousness, each generation of weapons provides new ways to oppress, maim, and kill. In time all weapons deteriorate and become ineffective. Even the bully’s power fades, and he is replaced by a younger, stronger thug. Although weapons corrode or become obsolete and tyrants die, there is one thing that never loses its power and never grows old. It is the word.

The supreme importance of two things is shown by their existence in God’s realm before He created the universe and all therein including man: the word and love. How is this possible? It is possible because God was the word and God is love. We know this from John’s gospel. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He (Jesus) was in the beginning with God…” [John 1:1. RSV] We are told in 1 John 4:8 that, “…God is love.” In the Revelation to John we also see that God’s love for His special creation existed before creation itself, “And all mankind—whose names were not written down before the founding of the world in the slain Lamb’s book of life—worshipped the evil creature.” [Revelation 13:8, Living Bible] [emphasis added] God loved man before his creation. God did not need man’s love, but rather it was a will to love, an expression of the very character of God, to share the inner life of the Trinity.

Language is unique to mankind. To compare the screeches, grunting, and howls of various species to that of human language is to compare mere recognition of night from day to that of a watch of intricate precision which can measure time to an accuracy of a fraction of a second. Richard Weaver wrote of the power of the word.

[There is an]…ancient belief that a divine element is present in language. The feeling that to have power of language is to have control over things is deeply imbedded in the human mind. We see it in the way men gifted in speech are feared or admired; we see it in the potency ascribed to incantations, interdictions, and curses. We see it in the legal force given to oath or word.[1]

The author of the New Testament book of James called the tongue a small member of the body but which boasts great power. He compares it to a small fire that can set ablaze a great forest. James also speaks of the difficulty of taming the tongue and the great harm it can cause. “For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by humankind, but no human being can tame the tongue—a restless evil, full of deadly poison.” [James 3:5, 7-8. RSV]

In the first chapter of Genesis we see that God spoke into existence the universe, the earth, and all therein, and a divine order was stamped on creation. Man was God’s special creation and given dominion over the earth and the power of the word to name every creature. But man rebelled against God’s order and was separated from a right relation with Him. Disorder now ruled man’s life.

As Weaver has said, speech is a divine element for humans were made in the image of God. But man is a fallen creature, and the poet Ralph Waldo Emerson sums up the consequences, “The corruption of man is followed by the corruption of language.”[2] In His revelation, God instructed man on how he ought to live life and included the right use of the word. Such was the importance of the word to God, His instruction to man as to the proper use of the word required two of the Ten Commandments, “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain…You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” [Exodus 20: 7, 16. RSV]

For all of man’s time on earth language has been the means of achieving order in culture. But in this modern age humanists have effectively used semantics to neuter words of their meaning in historical and symbolic contexts, that is, words now mean what men want them to mean.[3]

We live in a world of increasing disorder sustained and propelled by the perversion of language in which the meaning of words and ideas are separated from truth. Weaver recognized the folly of such perversion, “…here begins that relativism which by now is visibly affecting those institutions which depend for their very existence upon our ability to use language as a permanent binder.”[4] Words freed from the anchor of truth (reality) disorient and provide no clarity or direction regarding fixed, eternal values necessary for order that mankind craves and requires for living life.

The ordering and sustaining power of truthful words reverberates through history. Whether our words are a weapon of evil or an instrument of good is a matter of choice, and three thousand years ago Solomon identified the importance of that choice when he said there is power of life and death in the tongue. We must choose life, and life is found in biblical truths revealed to the ancient Hebrews and first century Christians.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Richard M. Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences, (Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago Press, 1948), p. 148.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid., pp. 148, 151.
[4] George M. Curtis, III and James J. Thompson, Jr., eds., The Southern Essays of Richard M. Weaver, (Indianapolis, Indiana: Liberty Fund, 1997), p. 196-197.

Baphomet – Another symbol of American cultural decline

Posted by :admin On : May 23, 2014
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Category: Archives, Culture Wars, Truth, Worldview

These days it seems that nonsense and silliness have more than their share of the headlines. If you haven’t followed the moral indignation of the Left regarding the 2012 placement of a privately-funded monument depicting the Ten Commandments on Oklahoma’s State Capitol grounds, then you probably haven’t heard of Baphomet. Baphomet is a supposed depiction of Satan, a goat-headed figure with horns, wings, and a long beard sitting on a pentagram-shaped throne surrounded by smiling children. The New York-based Satanic Temple has proposed to erect a statue of Baphomet on the Capitol’s grounds in response to the erection of the Ten Commandments monument which a Satanic Temple spokesman says opened the door for placement of their statue on the property. [1]

But sometimes a pesky cultural rash evidenced by an overabundance of nonsense and silliness (e.g., the Baphomet statue) is merely a symptom of a more serious disease that is attacking the culture’s central nervous system—its central cultural vision. A culture’s central cultural vision develops over time as an expression of the collective worldviews of its citizens which create a pattern, design, or structure that fits together in a particular way to explain the world. This explanation of order generally must have a coherence or consistency to give that society orientation and direction for living life. The central vision of a culture reflects its citizens’ values, those things and ideals it considers worth fighting for. Healthy cultures become diseased and decline for two reasons. First, a culture declines and ultimately fails as it loses it cohesiveness or ability to unify its citizenry. Second, even if a culture maintains unity and cohesiveness, its vision of order needed to answer the basic questions of life must over the longer term be based on truth.

In America, the central cultural vision of the Founders and the American colonists before them was based on the principles of biblical Christianity. However, in spite of voluminous historical evidence from the colonial period and founding era, secularists and humanists deny the special role that Christianity played in America’s founding.

A popular culture that misreads and wars against the validity of a morally sound central cultural vision will either be destroyed or cause that society to disintegrate. That is happening in America. The post-Christian and post-modern worldviews misread and are warring against the morally sound central cultural vision upon which the nation was founded, that is, the principles flowing from the biblical Christianity.

Due to rampant radical egalitarianism, surgically precise efforts to separate church and state, and a growing humanistic worldview, all evidence of our Christian cultural heritage is being swept from America and its institutions. Even our constitutionally guaranteed freedoms of religion and speech are no longer sacrosanct from such assaults.

America’s central cultural vision built upon biblical Christianity is in danger of utter removal because of a loss of an understanding of the uniqueness of its worth, the loss of America’s ability to exclude those things which strike at the heart of its central cultural vision, and America’s inability to distinguish that which counts for much and that which counts for little. With the steady dismantling and removal of the central cultural vision upon which the nation was founded, America is staggering in a moral stupor as it drinks the poison of humanism with its disintegrating notions of the autonomous individual, relativism, radical egalitarianism, progressivism, and denial of a supreme being. [2]

Without its central cultural vision firmly anchored in transcendent unchanging biblical truth, America will continue its cultural drift to oblivion in a sea of competing voices, each clamoring for recognition of their particular brand of truth. The Baphomet statue controversy is one more fitting symbol of America’s cultural decline because of its loss of cohesion and flight from transcendent truth. If there is doubt about this assessment, one needs only to look at Baphomet’s competitors who also want space for a monument on the Capitol grounds: a Hindu leader in Nevada, an animal rights group, and the satirical Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. [3]

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Sean Murphy, “Satanists want Baphomet statue in Oklahoma,” 3NEWS, January 7, 2014. http://www.3news.co.nz/Satanists-want-Baphomet-statue-in-Oklahoma/tabid/417/articleID/327468/Default.aspx (accessed May 6, 2014).
[2] Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods-Humanism and Christianity-The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishing, 2011), pp. 404-405.
[3] Murphy, “Satanists want Baphomet statue in Oklahoma.”

Is God Out of Touch with Mainstream Views?

Posted by :Larry G. Johnson On : April 25, 2014
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Category: Archives, Christianity, God's Law v. Man's Law, Homosexuality, Truth

For many in the media establishment, Easter is a great time to talk about religion, but for ABC News Easter was an opportunity to showcase the perceived decline of evangelical influence in America. One of the reasons given was Christianity’s supposed intolerance with regard to homosexuality and same-sex marriage in America. Reverend Franklin Graham, president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and son of its founder, and Cokie Roberts of ABC News were among guests on ABC’s “This Week” panel whose topic was “Are Evangelicals Out of Touch with Mainstream Views?”[1]

In response to a question from panel moderator Martha Raddatz of ABC News, Graham reiterated his strong opposition to same-sex marriage. Graham assured the audience that any gay person can go to heaven if they will repent. However, he stated that gays, like others in adultery or some other type of sin, cannot stay in their sin and be accepted by God. He said, “Franklin Graham is a sinner, and I’m no better than a gay person. I’m a sinner, but I’ve been forgiven, and I’ve turned from my sins. For any person that’s willing to repent in turn, God will forgive.”

Ms. Raddatz responded that Graham’s view appeared to be at odds with dramatic changes in the attitudes of many Americans as reflected by various polls. She pointed to a recent ABC poll that indicated 59 percent of Americans now approve of same-sex marriage and 61 percent approve of gay adoption. For those under age 30, 75 percent approve of same-sex marriage including 43 percent of evangelicals under 30.

ABC News’ Cokie Roberts suggested reasons for this change in the attitudes of Americans regarding homosexuality and same-sex marriage.

The reason the numbers have changed so fast and so dramatically on this question of gay marriage is because everybody in America now has experience with someone who is gay. People have come out of the closet and said, ‘I am your brother. I am your sister. I am your cousin. I am your friend.’ And then they have seen these families raising children and see these loving families.[2]

Ms. Roberts’ comments and Ms. Raddatz’s recitation of the results of recent polls imply that evangelicals are wasting political capital through their opposition to gay marriage because they are out of touch with mainstream views. Ms. Raddatz’s poll numbers reflect the results of just one of the battles in the continuing secularization of America over the last 75 years. However, I strongly disagree with Ms. Roberts’ assertion that Americans’ change in attitude regarding homosexuality and same-sex marriage is because Americans have come to understand and respect homosexuals and the rightness of allowing same-sex marriage. To the contrary, the change of attitudes are the result of a three-generation slide into post-Christian and post-modern worldviews in which a large number of Americans have abandoned Christianity as the standard of truth and morality and have embraced a relativistic view of truth in which the barometer of right and wrong always points in the direction of popular opinion.

The assumptive language posed in “Are Evangelicals Out of Touch with the Mainstream Views” implies the highest importance to which ABC News attaches to being in touch with mainstream views and therefore being politically relevant. Of course ABC News is an entity that feeds on ratings and therefore must seek the mainstream and determine how to be in the middle of it.

It would be interesting to hear Raddatz’ and Roberts’ response to the following question. If evangelicals are deemed to be out of touch with mainstream views, by inference could they not also say that God is out of touch with mainstream views? Of course, this is a rhetorical question, and the answer must be found in either the opinions of man or God’s word. To illustrate, we look to the biblical truth with regard to God’s condemnation of homosexuality.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth…Therefore, God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever! For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their own person the due penalty for their error. (emphasis added) [Romans 1: 18, 24-27. RSV]

Based on God’s view of homosexuality, it would seem that Roberts and Raddatz must also label God as being out of touch with mainstream views. But God doesn’t have a view. He is God, the great I AM, and Creator of the universe including the laws of nature and laws of human nature. God is truth, and how feeble are man’s attempts to distort that truth revealed in His creation, the biblical revelation, and His image stamped on His special creation called man.

ABC News and much of secular media continue chipping away at the Christian principles upon which the nation was founded. Thirty-five years ago Malcolm Muggeridge identified the source of the attack on Western civilization (Christendom).

Previous civilizations have been overthrown from without by the barbarian hordes. Christendom has dreamed up its own dissolution in the minds of its own intellectual elite. Our barbarians are home products, indoctrinated at the public expense, urged on by the media systematically stage by stage, diminishing Christendom, depreciating and deprecating all its values.[3] (emphasis added)

Rather than reinforcing Christian principles, morals, and manners upon which the nation was founded, the humanistic worldview of modern mass media molds public opinion by setting the agenda and influencing what people think about. From such manipulation has come a cultural shift as mass media’s humanistic worldview has ascended while the Christian worldview is marginalized and demeaned through substantial and constant attack.[4]

So what should the evangelical do in the face of a rising tide of secular humanism in America? We take our instruction from the Apostle Paul’s exhortations to Timothy.

…preach the word, be urgent in season and out of season, convince, rebuke, and exhort, be unfailing in patience and in teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own and wander into myths. As for you, always be steady, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. (emphasis added) [2 Timothy 4: 2-5. RSV]

In other words, evangelicals must evangelize whether they are in the mainstream or in the marginalized minority.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Mary Alice Parks, “This Week Panel: Are Evangelicals Out of Touch With Mainstream Views?” ABC News, April 20, 2014. http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2014/04/this-week-panel-are-evangelicals-out-of-touch-with-mainstream-views/ (accessed April 20, 2014).

[2] Ibid.

[3] Malcolm Muggeridge, The End of Christendom, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1980), p. 17.

[4] Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods-Humanism and Christianity-The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), p. 374.