The Long Struggle to Preserve the Gospel (pt. 2)

"A previous blog post by Dr. MacArthur focused on some of the past few decades of conflicts within the evangelical movement that have provoked me to preach and write in defense of the gospel. It wasn’t an exhaustive list—that would be tedious, I suspect. Evangelicals as a group have shown an unsettling willingness to compromise or unnecessarily obfuscate all kinds of issues where Scripture has spoken plainly and without ambiguity.

For example, despite the clarity of 1 Timothy 2:12 (“I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man”), leading evangelicals have been debating for several years whether women qualify to be elders or pastors in the church. Many capitulate to cultural preference rather than submitting to biblical authority on this and other similar issues. Some have tried to redefine the role and proper functioning of the family. Others seem to want to deconstruct—or simply ignore—what the Bible says about divorce and remarriage.

More disturbing yet, over the past few years some evangelicals have begun to borrow moral rationalizations from secular culture in the wake of America’s sexual revolution. For years there has been a slow but steady softening of evangelicals’ stance against sex outside of marriage. More recently, and more ominously, several vocal evangelicals (including some in positions of leadership or influence) have been tinkering with novel ideas regarding gender fluidity, sexual orientation, transgenderism, and homosexual marriage. Those are issues that generations of believers would never have dreamed of putting on the table for debate or redefinition in the church. But at this very moment there is a burgeoning campaign to reconsider and abandon the church’s historic stance on LGBT issues under the banner of “social justice.”

Why have so many evangelicals openly embraced such compromises? The answer is very simple. It’s the next logical step for a church that is completely ensnared in efforts to please the culture. For decades the popular notion has been that if the church was going to reach the culture it first needed to connect with the style and methods of secular pop culture or academic fads. To that end, the church surrendered its historic forms of worship. In many cases, everything that once constituted a traditional worship service disappeared altogether, giving way to rock-concert formats and everything else the church could borrow from the entertainment industry. Craving acceptance in the broader culture, the church carelessly copied the world’s style preferences and fleeting fads.

Social (In)justice and the Gospel

John MacArthur has heard enough.  The Gospel Coalition's regular promotion of social justice and various expressions of critical race theory under the banner of Gospel-centered church ministry demanded a thoughtful response.  Over the past many Sundays at Grace Community Church and via the Grace to You blog Pastor John highlights what many lesser known pastors and bloggers have been saying for years. "Scripture says earthly governments are ordained by God to administer justice, and believers are to be subject to their authority. The civil magistrate is “a minister of God to you for good . . . an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil” (Romans 13:1–4). But it is also true that no government in the history of the world has managed to be consistently just. In fact, when Paul wrote that command, the Roman Emperor was Nero, one of the most grossly unjust, unprincipled, cruel-hearted men ever to wield power on the world stage.

As believers, “we know . . . that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one” (1 John 5:19), so worldly power structures are—and always have been—systemically unjust to one degree or another.

Even the United States, though founded on the precept that all members of the human race “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,” incongruously maintained a system of forced slavery that withheld the full benefits of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness from multitudes. Many generations of people from African ethnicities were thus legally (but immorally) relegated to subhuman status. According to the 1860 census, there were about four million in the generation of slaves who were being held in servitude when Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.

The Civil War and the abolishment of slavery did not automatically end the injustice. A hundred years passed before the federal government banned segregation in public places and began in earnest to pass legislation safeguarding the civil rights of all people equally. Until then, freed slaves and their descendants in Southern states were literally relegated by law to the back of the bus and frequently treated with scorn or incivility because of the color of their skin.

I got a small taste of what it felt like to be bullied and discriminated against in the American South in the 1960s. I spent a lot of time traveling through rural Mississippi with my good friend John Perkins, a well-known black evangelical leader, preaching the gospel in segregated black high schools. During one of those trips, as we drove down a dirt road, a local sheriff—an openly bigoted character straight out of In the Heat of the Night—took me into custody, held me in his jail, and accused me of disturbing the peace. He also confiscated (and kept) all my money. He ultimately released me without filing charges. I suppose he considered the money he took from me an adequate fine for doing something he disapproved of.

Russell Moore's Social Justice Crusade is Flawed

Pastor Thabiti Anyabwile's infamous "pro Bernie Sanders" Tweet

With far too many white (American) believers, "normal Christianity is white..." so says TGC's beloved Russell Moore. 

Friends, don't buy into everything that Dr. Moore and friends are actively promoting under the banner of so called "Gospel-Centered" ministry.  Let's use our minds to think critically and biblically about this multi-layered issue.  Let's first understand what critical race theory is before we begin to call it a Gospel-centered mandate of the Church.  

One can love and show grace to ethnic minorities without embracing the social justice gospel.  For example, Grace Community Church in Southern California (and many other churches) that DO NOT EMBRACE Critical Race Theory or TGC's progressive understanding of "social justice" are ethnically and economically diverse.  If that fact shocks you, you are likely spending too much time watching MSNBC and perusing the Huffington Post's website.  Here's another real life example.  My former congregation (which did not embrace TGC's version of social justice) overwhelmingly affirmed an Indian Christian to serve over them as a key lay-leader (which is what Moore advocates for in this video); We rolled out a red-carpet when a precious Mexican family visited and later joined our Christian fellowship.  In our midweek youth and Awana ministries, and during our Sunday School hour, we regularly demonstrated the love of Christ to countless children and families (the vast majority of whom were not white skinned).  For some church leaders, to be "color blind" is itself a racist form of white privilege.  On a personal level, my wife and I regularly had low income, single-parent family children over for meals (even on holidays like Father's Day or Easter).  We took ethnic minorities with our own children to the local ice cream shop, or to the movies with us, I plowed snow for our African American neighbor, and the list goes on and on.  Here's another example that confirms my central point.  A predominately white evangelical congregation in Pennsylvania is currently taking care of six children who have been removed from the care of their African-American mother; (this single mom is trying hard to improve her particular life situation).  Many of my "conservative white friends" have adopted children from Asia, Africa, and from the struggling neighbor across the street.  What's my point?  One doesn't have to imbibe "critical race theory" in order to love one's neighbor.  Gasp! I know.  It was MLK himself who famously said,  “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

And STILL those who don't buy into TGC's interpretation of biblical justice (i.e. critical race theory) are called "ignorant fools" or worse.  Tim Keller recently said that white evangelicals aren't jumping on the MLK50 bandwagon because of the "stubbornness of the sinful heart."  Many who agree with Voddie Baucham, James White, John MacArthur, Robert Gagnon, Ardel Caneday and yours truly are afraid to speak out and push back against this TGC trend because they don't want to be marginalized (or to be unfairly labeled a "racist.")  Trust me, I get it. My experience is not unique.  However, we pastors must fear God more than man and should speak out if/when the church is drifting from the true mission of the Church (Col. 1:28-29; Eph. 4:11-16; Matt. 28:18-20).  For starters read this helpful series and this helpful article.  This "movement" is a big deal within the larger, Bible-believing, Christian church right now.  It's the primary reason I have invested so much time researching and writing about it.