The New Evangelicals – Busy Sweeping Out Spider Webs
By Michael Bresciani (05/31/07)
Some forty years past I had to look up the word “apostasy.” In the Bible
it refers to the church in the last days being influenced by
faithlessness, liberalism and secularism. Sadly I have witnessed this
trend gaining and now it is spiraling out of control.
Evangelicals have until recently held the line on major moral issues like
abortion and same sex marriages. Rev Lieth Anderson the new president of
the National Association of Evangelicals says that he doesn’t see these
two issues going away for the organization that now represents about
45,000 churches. But things are morphing at an alarming pace among younger
Evangelicals.
The new causes now being considered for the front burner are global
warming, poverty, especially in places like Darfur and the scourge of
aids. From California, the state that has Christians already deeply
concerned about SB 777 a bill that effectively wipes the traditional
family off the map, Pastor Rick Warren of Orange County’s Saddleback
Church has endorsed the battle effort against these social issues as
worthy of the churches foremost attention.
New York Times and Washington post have signaled a heads up about the
death of Jerry Falwell and craftily connected it to the death of the
entire Evangelical legacy of actively embracing political conservatism in
America. This is no surprise considering the source, but is it true?
The answer is both yes and no. On the yes side it is true as much as it
pertains to the willingness of Evangelicals to bring the much touted
global warming and aids issues into their agenda. According to recent
Barna and Pew Forum research estimates the social justice and the
traditional moralist camps are about equal in size. But concerns are
rising that the Evangelical church sees itself left out of the loop and
may be afraid of appearing indifferent to issues that the rest of the
country takes so seriously.
On the no side of the answer is the fact that although the numbers of
moralists and traditionalists are shrinking somewhat they are
intensifying. The new concentrated version of the old standard bearers is
also fully capable of holding the line and getting the job done. To the
churches still guided by the Bible, God and one are still a majority with
or without Rev Falwell.
To many conservative Christians, getting onboard the social justice train
is the equivalent of joining a local church because it looks good to the
neighbors and the business community. The causes are worthy but the motive
is not.
After careful scrutiny, the science of global warming is still fraught
with diametrically opposed findings and scientific opinion leaving it in a
very suspect state at best. It will take more than a panicky documentary
from former Vice President Al Gore to convince the conservatives. Global
warming hype is for some the new magic bullet that bypassed the Food and
Drug Administration’s usual scrutiny and is now being taken as the cure
for everything that ails both America and the world. To many Americans
global warming frenzy is only proof that the snake oil peddler is still
alive and well in the USA.
To the conservative Christian, deep concern over the spread of aids is not
without reason but it raises questions about liberalism’s blatant social
hypocrisy. Government and the Evangelical church combined are wearing
their own helplessness to stem the tide of immorality, Educators that
welcome the new morality and choose to add it too their mission, and media
that rakes in billions promoting overall licentiousness hardly seem worthy
or qualified to be on the forefront of this issue much less to put it on
the front burner for the church.
Unknown by many outside the church is the fact that it is plagued by the
same forces and shifts that dog the American political scene.
Evangelicals, Pentecostals and many historical denominations in America
have both conservatives and liberals trying to drive or hinder the polity
of the church.
The Bible is the document that is questioned in the church. In national
politics the Constitution comes under fire because it was drawn up so long
ago that there are those who wonder if it applies to the rapidly changing
face of the country’s social fabric.
In the church there are those who wonder if such an ancient book has
anything at all to do with the business of the present day. The Bible
addresses holiness and the Constitution speaks to freedom, both documents
are subjective so it is easy to wrangle and wrest either one with other
highly subjective interpretation or extrapolation and thus leave them
impotent and meaningless.
It is the Conservative believer that holds the Bible up to its plainest
and original interpretation. Such people have largely been Evangelicals in
America, until lately. Neophytes of the new social justice set are at
their best misinformed and at their worst they are fear mongering
purveyors of all that is nascent and innocuous. Liberalism could never be
charged with having a war to which nobody came. It does produce a war
whose soldiers may be fighting against an imaginary enemy or at best the
wrong enemy.
Liberalism is the plague of the modern church in America and some would
add ecumenicism and syncretism to that diagnoses. Ecumenicism is the idea
that separate denominations should come under one roof and function as
one, developing a centralist leadership and purpose. It’s a big church
house where one size fits all.
The rub with ecumenicism is that by its very nature it leads to
syncretism, the next step in the plague. Syncretism is the need to unify
the doctrine of the newly joined divisions of the ecumenicised body. This
requires throwing out or seriously altering disparate views and doctrines
to make everyone amenable to the final statement of faith. In the process
many traditional beliefs or core beliefs are shattered all the way up to
and including the Bible itself.
Many churches elect to stay out of the fray and remain autonomous and
independent. Fortunately when the Bible forewarns of an apostasy it also
implies that some will do just that, stand alone. Like the statesmen,
soldiers or pioneers of early America, those who stood alone carried the
day and often made history in the process. The church will do the same and
in the end only those independent and conservative churches that refuse to
meld into the greater emerging body will not be part of the promised
apostasy.
Conservative Christians don’t see issues, causes or opinions in their
Bibles. What they see is a plan laid out by a living God to aid the
living. If the plan is not followed it leads to trouble, sickness,
calamity and death.
If global warming is a fact it is an outgrowth of human indulgence. Our
clamoring for ever more consumer goods, gasoline and toys keeps the
exhaust fumes and smokestacks bellowing out the hydrocarbons. They are a
byproduct of a sinful and concupiscent society that is panicking at the
result or the effect of their behavior and not once admitting that they
are part and parcel to its cause.
Our push for complete unbridled sexual freedom has created its own side
effects. Blaming any particular person, group or section of society for
causing the spread of aids is a debate that has come and gone. Sadly, the
collective behavior of this nation and the whole world never comes into
debate. Will the whole world accuse itself? It surely will not and it will
resist anyone or anything that does, including the constitution or the
Bible message.
Conservative Christians hold to the message of the Bible as the bottom
line. What is that message and does it directly address the latest social
justice issues that are slipping into the apostate church of the day?
The Biblical message addresses the latest social justice issues by
prioritizing all the issues that affect civilization. At the top of the
list is “sin” that penchant to indulge the body and the mind with anything
it should desire at any moment of the night or day. It is this penchant
for indiscriminate sexual fulfillment and insatiability in the pursuit of
material goods that are the cause. The effect is among other things global
warming and the spread of aids.
Denying nothing to ourselves is called the “good life” and will never be
recognized as the bad way of life that conservatives say it is. Getting
liberals to admit to any mistakes is hard enough, getting them to admit
that they are the cause of the very problems they seem bent on solving
would be a miracle. Liberalism doesn’t allow for miracles!
Forty years of witnessing the church and the body politic in this country
slipping headlong into apostasy is disconcerting. More disturbing is that
the cause and the answer for this downward trek is very simple to find and
easily understood. It is not an answer that is readily accepted and that
is what creates such a dismal bottom line.
Simply put, the Bible says that replacing the God given Biblical view of
our world with the secular view is what causes every problem not just the
latest social issues. Sin is still at the top of the list. It is in our
nature, it is in our past, it will be in our future and it alone is our
final demise.
Sin is the spider weaving its web all over our private and national life.
Dealing with the effects of sin such as global warming or the spread of
aids is like constantly sweeping out the spider’s webs but never doing
anything about the spider.
(Printer friendly version) Email: Michael Bresciani
