Back in the glory days of the Gospel Coalition, before the great awakening in 2020, Big Eva freely roamed the earth on their high horses, mostly unnoticed and mostly unimpeded. They would exhort their soft exhortations, preach their soft sermons, and be blown around whichever way the wind takes them. These kinds of people were the kind who wanted to be as attractive as possible to everyone except for the Christians who thought they should be a little more concerned about what God thinks and less about what their social media followers think. It would take a lot to get them fired up. But what would fire them up is those nasty Christians who actually took a hard stance on truth. The softies were livid at the idea that a fellow Christian would dare to take hard stances on issues like abortion, homosexuality, gender identity, government authority. Therefore, the Big Eva Christians manned their guns and took aim at these hard and apparently unchristlike stances.
And so, because it’s difficult to tear down the truth, the enemies within the church were able to build a surprisingly effective straw man. Instead of attempting the insurmountable task of arguing why homosexuality really isn’t Biblically all that bad, they were able to lump all of those controversial issues into a single category and attack the category. That category is politics.
In my father and grandfather’s generations, it seems to have been accepted that politics should stay out of the church. Not only would a church risk losing their government money as a 501(c)(3) organization, but back in ye olden days, most people probably had the impression that economic policy was the determining factor in a presidential election. Not social issues.
Therefore, politics as a weapon to silence Christians standing up for truth was born, because it just so happens that abortion, homosexuality, gender identity, and government authority (along with almost every other topic you can think of), could be considered political.
The argument goes like this…
So the argument goes like this. Christians shouldn’t be political. We shouldn’t have strong stances on political issues because the Bible doesn’t give clear instruction on these things. What’s more, if a Christian is seen as political, not only could that be unattractive but it could damage their witness. Also, Jesus wasn’t a Democrat or a Republican. There are serious problems with people both on the Left and the Right. Faithful Christians should be somewhere in the middle. So Christians must follow a “third way,” as Tim Keller was fond of arguing. We must flee from political categories and instead, just be Biblical.
This third-way-ism characterized “Big Eva,” who were, and still are, defined by a steadfast desire to please the broader culture. After all, you can’t attract the liberals if you appear too conservative. And you can’t attract the conservatives if you appear too liberal.
What’s the problem?
I’ve explained how egregiously unbiblical this argument is in this video and others, but suffice it to say, if Jesus was around today, he’d be labeled a right-wing extremist, just like his most faithful followers. Are you against sex outside of God’s design of one man and one woman? You’re alt-right. Do you think Christians should have a right to gather and worship? You’re anti-democracy and you probably hate your neighbor. Are men men and women women as God made them, and there’s no such thing as changing sexes? That’s just about as right-wing as it gets. Do you think abortion is murder and should be punished accordingly? God did. It sure sounds like God must be a radical neo-conservative fascist.
If you hold the Biblical position on every controversial social issue today, sorry, but you’re what the vast majority of America would call conservative.
Does that mean every conservative is a faithful Christian? Far from it. But it does mean that we shouldn’t be afraid of labels if they’re accurate. We probably shouldn’t be afraid of the inaccurate ones either.
The truth is, anything and everything is being made political now. This is because politics, policies, and the government’s fat greasy fingers, are encroaching on religion. And everywhere else for that matter. Things that used to be purely religious issues, like worshipping in church, in 2020 became a very political stand.
Don’t think so? Tell that to the pastors and churchgoers who were arrested or fined not just in America, but in multiple countries, for worshipping on the Lord’s day like God commanded.
So if Christians are supposed to avoid being political, than Christians need to avoid being Biblical. They need to avoid living in reality, in fact. Because, being political, one way or another, is unavoidable.
The New and Improved…? Argument
Nowadays, it’s not uncommon to still hear the argument that Christians shouldn’t be political. But recently, I’ve seen a new version of it that argues exactly the same thing, but with far more subversive and manipulative language. We live in a post-modern world where the culture broadly loves to deny the existence of the very ground we stand on. People will lie, know it’s a lie, know that you know it’s a lie, and still say it. And if you call them out on it, they won’t care.
This is the perfect environment for this new version of the “Christian’s shouldn’t be political” argument.
The new trend among Big Eva and their cronies is to actually argue that Christians should be political. They argue that our Christianity has to effect everything in our lives, including our politics. However, these people hold all of the same premises of the previous version of the argument. So they still believe that Jesus was neither Left or Right, neither Democrat or Republican, and held no strong stances on any political issues whatsoever, and firmly believed that the Church and our faith should have nothing whatsoever to do with the State.
Therefore, Christians should be political, by being utterly a-political. Christianity is political because of how separate it is from modern politics. Our faith intersects with politics by how little it actually has to do with politics.
It’s exactly the same tired argument, but with new post-modern clothes.
Instead of being honest, and just saying that Christians shouldn’t be political, you’ll hear people argue that Christians should be political by not being political at all.
It’s a lie. And a stupid one. Don’t fall for it.
