Is it possible leftist, socialist, progressive ideas and values have begun to make inroads into the American Evangelical Church?
Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #166 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.
In her book published 2024, author Megan Basham asks the question: “Why have so many well-known evangelical institutions and leaders in recent years started promoting causes that no plain reading of Scripture would demand, like lobbying for fossil fuel regulations or dismantling white privilege, while issues that unequivocally call for Christian charity find them silent and stymied?”
She wonders aloud, are Christian pastors letting culture, rather than Scripture, dictate the content of their preaching?
Ms Basham is a culture reporter for the The Daily Wire, who shares her own spiritual journey wherein she grew up in a Christian home, made multiple professions of faith that didn’t stick, struggled with alcohol and drugs, then finally and forever came to Christ for his transformative reconciling forgiveness and healing. It took some time, but the Word of God, faithful church friends, and a loving family nurtured her toward a maturing faith.
So, like the prodigal son, Basham has some understanding of what life among the pigs, so to speak, is like. She knows the temptation to lie to yourself, to believe even demonstrably failed ideas, to seek the acceptance of the world.
Her concern in what some call an exposé are actions and trends she sees in the American evangelical church. She reviews how in the early 2000s, secular, leftist progressives recognized that conservative, evangelical, biblical Christianity was the primary if not the only real obstacle in American society to their moral views, social goals, and power. So, secular, leftist, progressives shrewdly began to deploy foundations to funnel money toward infiltrating the conservative church with the stated aspiration to modify, even rework, conservative evangelicalism’s stances on political issues.
Since the early 2000s, these leftist organizations and their billionaire sponsors have worked a thus-far rather effective plan to appropriate Christian values for a progressive rights agenda.
Leftist activists work to gradually displace biblical values, vocabulary, and goals with those of the left – discarding, for example, “economic equality” in favor of “economic equity,” which is not about opportunity but outcome.
As Basham demonstrates with extensive footnoted quotes, these leftist influencers, and soon, evangelical leaders too, begin suggesting Bible-believing evangelicals should adopt more “nuanced” positions on abortion or begin to affirm same-sex couples because, since Obergefell vs Hodges, it’s the law. In other words, not at first arguing to discard traditional, biblical, or conservative views, but for now, just tone them down, reduce their airtime – don’t talk about sin, but maybe talk about feelings.
Basham has been criticized and the book is controversial in part for naming names. But Basham explains here journalistic approach: she used names when leaders spoke publicly or published or broadcast their words, and when these words could be documented. She did not name names, even if citing a quote, if the persons involved were holding a conversation with reasonable expectation of privacy.
Long ago in my academic days, I learned that a leader who makes a public statement, vocally or in print, should be ready for critique. Scholars know this. Their published work is subject to review and quite often, disagreement. To make one’s comments public, then demand no one criticize them is to want the recognition, the glory as it were of public discourse, without taking responsibility for one’s views.
So, it would seem Basham has endured some pushback she does not deserve, simply for daring to ask legitimate questions and to look for answers.
Basham is a member of a Southern Baptist church, the largest Protestant denomination in the US, so perhaps it is understandable that she spends considerable time in the book detailing what she considers are repeated evidences of cultural accommodation on the part of Southern Baptist leaders.
Perhaps the most useful red flag the author raises is noting how the biblical doctrine, “Love your neighbor” or “Love your neighbor as yourself,” has been adapted maybe co-opted by leftist, progressive influencers in their effort to reduce or remove the conservative resistance to progressive views that persists in the evangelical church.
As noted earlier, this is a well-conceived, planned initiative intended to change conservative evangelical’s disagreement with a laundry list of leftist, socialist, woke, progressive views. Basham dedicates a chapter to each of the following issues: climate change, illegal immigration, abortion, Christian media, COVID-19 governmental overreach, critical race theory woke DEI views of race and racism, #MeToo and #ChurchToo, and LGBTQ.
In each chapter, she catalogs the sad recent record of various evangelical leaders or pastors who:
- softened their statements on these matters,
- suggested the church should reconsider its traditional views on these matters,
- or suggested the church flipflop to a position of accepting, even endorsing or promoting these views,
much of it in the name of “Love your neighbor.”
Basham asks, why do some embrace leftist causes? Then she responds with speculation based upon her scores of interviews with these leaders: passivity, fear of reprisal, lack of discernment, maybe just straight out compromise with culture as a trade-off to reduce criticism, gain fame or influence, or be accepted and affirmed by the in-crowd.
Basham does a good job of demonstrating how progressives are adept at hijacking commonly used words or even special-purpose religious words, redefining them, then promoting them for their far-left social justice purposes. This is now happening with the biblical command, “Love your neighbor,” wherein we’re told that one must maintain open borders for to do otherwise is to not love our neighbor. We’re told that one must be gender-affirming for trans and other LGBQ individuals, no matter how outrageous and abnormal their proclivity, because not to be gender-affirming is not to love our neighbor.
During the pandemic, we were told that anyone who truly loves his or her neighbor must wear a mask, get a vaccine, shelter in place, and not go to church.
It gets more out there. If you love your neighbor, you will favor reject the Second Amendment and favor gun controls. Anyone who loves his or her neighbor will want to reduce carbon emissions and purchase and EV.
If you love your neighbor, you will embrace climate change and decide not to have children. Think about this. Globalist climate change alarmists, like former Sen John Kerry and his daughter, Bill Gates, Greta Thunberg, are now saying the quiet part aloud – humanity is the problem. Consequently, the only way to make a dent in climate change doomsday scenarios is to reduce world population, which now stands at 8 billion. They say the earth is only good for 1 billion people, so 7 billion have to go. Did you get this? We want to save the earth for people, so we must do away with billions of people. This is why I say climate change alarmists promote a culture of death. Incredibly, gullibly, some evangelicals are buying into this anti-biblical cult.
What Basham offers is a concise catalog of examples of what is happening and how it is happening across a broad spectrum of institutions within American Evangelicalism, what she calls “Big Eva.” Sadly, we’re likely to witness more Christian institutions bowing to the Baal of Woke progressivism.
But Basham offers a solution to what we’re seeing, a remedy if you will: she says evangelicals have been the toughest nut for leftist to crack because “we have the objective source of truth…We have the Word of God that is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword.”
We must sally forth and speak the truth in love.
Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends. For more Christian commentary, check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com. Or check //www.youtube.com/@DrRexRogers">my YouTube channel @DrRexRogers for more podcasts and video.
And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.
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