Evangelical Reformation

The virtual Christianity embraced by most American evangelicals constitutes a bubble that is about to burst.

In my previous post, I compared contemporary evangelical Christianity to a nanny state. A majority segment of evangelical radio, television, and books describes a relationship between the believer and God in which God accepts us unconditionally. Therefore, as with a governmental nanny state, we get all the benefits and have no responsibilities.

I further described this arrangement as virtual Christianity, since it finds no reality in Scripture or in real life. Hundreds of passages expose its error. Many of my previous posts demonstrate the error of this perspective.

This virtual Christianity is problematic on any number of counts. One of its major faults is its inability to produce strong Christians, strong men, strong fathers, strong leaders.

Europe provides a graphic display of the inability of nanny states to produce strong leadership. They stand idly by as Muslims take over their countries, either feeling impotent to do anything about it or not caring. Both are signs of weakness.

Feeling impotent is an evident indication of weakness. Standing by, wringing one’s hands, while others invade and take over their supposedly sovereign states, is not a picture of strength.

Not caring represents an even greater weakness. It reflects the deterioration of the soul described by Aldous Huxley in Brave New World, which leaves the inner person caring for nothing by self-gratification. Socialistic Europe is willing to have Islam take over in the future if it can have its state supported short workweek and long vacations in the present.

We find the evangelical church in America, with its nanny state, producing the same weakness of character. It is reflected in our President’s lack of resolve in protecting our borders. It is reflected in the fact that of the strongest leaders on the horizon, most are Catholics or Mormons, and few are evangelicals. It is reflected in many of the characteristics of the evangelical church uncovered by Barna.

Several days ago on a Christian radio program, a man who had been converted from Islam was asked why Christian women marry Muslim men, a good question, especially in light of the many serious downsides of doing so. His answer was that these women view Christian men as wimps, while they find a strength in Muslim men.

Why does a nanny state, be it political or spiritual, produce wimps? The answer is simply this: the stronger ones cause, the stronger ones personality.

Muslims may be misguided, but they believe that they have a cause worth dying for. This gives them a strength lacking in the West, both in secular and evangelical circles. While they are blowing themselves up for their cause, we (both secular Americans and evangelicals) are preoccupied with the latest movie—another expedition into our world of virtual reality.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad recently pronounced that the United States is a sunset civilization whereas Iran is a sunrise civilization. Judging from the strengths of personality of each, I tend to agree with him.

Many of the experts predict that catastrophe will soon fall on the United States—another 9/11, or even worse. We are like the population in Brave New World, living in virtual reality, both spiritual and otherwise, unaware and unconcerned that the enemy is about to burst our virtual bubble.

The solution must begin with the church trading in the comforts of its nanny state, it’s virtual reality, for biblical reality, for the recognition that God demands righteousness from his people and will judge them if they do not produce it.

I believe that the church in America ultimately will break out of its bubble of virtual reality. The question is what that will take. Will the preaching and teaching of the Word of God bring us to reality, or will it take a horrible disaster?

9/11 woke us up—for about a week. Apparently it will take something far worse than that. That leads to the follow-up question. By the time something sufficiently terrible to get our attention comes along, will it be too late to salvage life in America as we know it?

About three days from now it will be over, or rather, about to begin. The choices made by the American people at the ballot box will take effect in January, and we will start reaping the fruit of our votes.

At this writing, it is difficult to predict the outcome. Most pollsters believe that the Democrats will make significant gains in the House and Senate, but whether those gains will be enough to take over either or both is to be seen.

Therefore, from all appearances, the Republicans will take a beating. It is only a question of how bad that beating will be. Their only hope would be if the Republican base is suddenly gripped with the urgency of the situation and votes early and often.

Why the beating? One major reason is shameless bias of the media, especially around election time.

Findings of one watchdog organization doing a study on a major media outlet revealed that about 77% of the “news” items regarding Democrats were positive and about 88% of the “news” items on Republicans were negative. I watched a little of MSNBC today, and they did a commendable job of supporting those findings.

For their part, the Republicans are trying hard to give the media plenty of ammunition—and succeeding. The media has gotten maximum mileage out of the Mark Foley scandal.

To help the media make the point that Republicans in general, and evangelicals in particular, are hypocritical on the values issue, Ted Haggard, President of the National Association of Evangelicals and pastor of New Life Church is contributing to the cause.

At this writing, the accusations of Mike Jones that Haggard had homosexual relations with him have not been verified. In fact, Jones failed the part of a lie detector test related to this accusation.

However, two aspects of this case seriously damage Haggard’s credibility. He first denied knowing Jones and later admitted that he did know him. He also admitted that he bought methamphetamines but denied using them. Imagine what a hostile media can do with that information.

However, Republicans have won against a hostile media before, even one armed with hurtful scandals. These are not the ultimate source of Republican woes. Nor is the war in Iraq, though the media are trying hard to make that the issue and everyone seems to be pretending that it is.

The eight hundred pound gorilla at the ballot box that no one wants to talk about is the illegal immigration issue.

Bill Bennett on his program, Morning in America, keeps asking why the Republicans aren’t making the border a campaign issue since it is such a hot item with the American people. He believes that Republicans can make the case that they would do better than the Democrats on the border issue.

However, there is no way Republicans could sell this position, because they have done nothing of substance to resolve the border problem in six years.

It is true that they have passed some election year legislation in a weak attempt to appease the voters, but most Americans realize that after the polls close, they might never get around to following through on that legislation. Lloyds of London should give odds on the chances of the seven hundred mile wall being built before Spanish is the official language of California. I’m betting on Spanish.

The Democrats don’t’ want to mention that eight hundred pound gorilla, because they have no intention stopping those millions of Democratic voter from crossing the border. Therefore, the pro-Democrat media do not want to make an issue of the border, either.

Therefore, millions of Americans will walk past that eight hundred pound gorilla as they cast their votes, and few will talk about him. However, when the votes are counted, the Republicans will discover that an eight hundred pound gorilla standing at the ballot box has quite a bit of influence.

Scripture says: Do not oppress an alien; you yourselves know how it feels to be aliens, because you were aliens in Egypt. (Ex 23:9 NIVUS); When an alien lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him. (Le 19:33 NIVUS); And you are to love those who are aliens, for you yourselves were aliens in Egypt. (De 10:19 NIVUS)

Some Christians contend that opposition to illegal immigration, and especially advocating the removal of the illegal immigrants, is contrary to such verses. Is this true?

One of the most significant approaches we must utilize in understanding and applying Scripture is that there is a hierarchy within scriptural mandates. That is, there are times when one principle will take precedence over another.

Going a step further, it appears that for every principle in Scripture there is a counterbalancing principle that delimits the first principle. For example, Scripture requires that we obey the government, but when the government makes laws that violate scriptural principles, we have a responsibility to disobey.

We even see this mechanism at work in the more practical areas of life. God calls us to a life of work and sacrifice, and yet Scripture conveys that there is a point when rest and recreation takes precedence.

The teaching above regarding the stranger assumes that the person’s alien status is the only variable. To mistreat him because he comes from a different country or has a different color skin is wrong.

However, the insertion of additional variables changes the equation. For example, if the stranger is breaking a law, that would have to be factored into our treatment of him.

Or what if instead of dealing with a stranger, we are dealing with 12 million of them? That is an added consideration.

Or what if those strangers formed extensive organizations that promoted the idea that large portions of our country really belongs to them, and that they had every intention of taking them over? That would certainly have to be considered in the application of the mandate to love the stranger.

Or what of those strangers had massive rallies aimed at demonstrating their political strength and therefore at influencing legislation? And what if because their birthrate was somewhat higher than the native population, they expressed the intentions of ultimately displacing the current citizens as the dominant force?

Or to put the argument somewhat differently, what if loving the stranger would mean that we were not loving our children, but rather creating a political and cultural disaster that could make our children’s future very difficult? Does the scriptural mandate to love the stranger take precedent over loving our children, especially if the strangers are intentionally planning to take actions that will harm our children?

Candidly, the theology of liberal-leaning evangelicals tends to be quite shallow. We have exposed this tendency in many of our posts. This is just another example of their inclination to use Scripture to advance an agenda without any sincere attempt to genuinely determine a scriptural perspective.

The evangelical community desperately needs an evangelical reformation that would provide intellectual leadership that takes Scripture seriously.