Woke Evangelical Tactics

Woke Evangelical Tactics and the Four Basic Strategies

Woke evangelical tactics. Anyone paying close attention to how social justice activists convince evangelical Christians to adopt their principles notices four general tactics. Tactic 1. Associate egalitarianism and activism with the gospel.

Tactic 2. Attach quality of life issues to the pro-life movement. Tactic 3. Assume conservative views conflict with public witness. Tactic 4. Attribute worldly motives to conservative causes. In some ways, influential evangelicals, out of step with the people they claim to serve, picked up where the new atheists of more than a decade ago left off.

They present Christianity in general, and the church in particular, as responsible or complicit in past and present bigotries. Western colonialism, American slavery, barriers for women, the Holocaust, opposition to immigration, an unbridled free market, racial segregation, and the persecution of LGBTQ plus people are all placed on the doorsteps of the church.

Only, instead of coming to the new atheist conclusion that Christianity is evil, evangelical elites blame these social maladies on an inauthentic version of Christianity they separate themselves from.

This strategy has proven effective in convincing Christians to feel ashamed of their own history. In some cases, professing evangelicals desperate to find a link between egalitarian heroes and their own tradition even claim heretics of the past as their own.

In other cases this thinking leads to a crisis of faith. How can Christianity be true if its practitioners for hundreds of years promoted evil? Of course, this posture plays right into the hands of Marxist academics, working toward revolution for decades by vilifying their own countries.

In an ever-widening list of abuses, whether true or manufactured, Christians are forced to feel the weight of their involvement in oppression. I remember a few years ago when a fellow seminary student suggested in class that Christians should apologize for their complicity in the Holocaust.

The professor responded by saying that he believed more and more evangelicals were coming to the same conclusion and that it was a positive development. Instead, I suggested Christians should become more involved in teaching their people about the truths and complexities of history so they would not be so easily persuaded by ideological oversimplifications intended to evoke misplaced guilt.

My comment was not accepted favorably, but I still stand by it, and more so now than I did then. While it may be true that Christians are capable of evil, it is not true that it characterizes them. Even a cursory look at many of the social ills attributed to Christianity shows major gaps in the current narratives.

For example, it was not Orthodox Lutheran doctrine, so much as it was the waning influence of it in favor of higher criticism and neo-Orthodoxy that allowed for the scientific racism that led to the Holocaust.

And while there were Christians who incorrectly favored forced racial segregation in the United States, for many the Civil Rights Movement was a peripheral campaign associated with things like ecumenicism, Soviet subversion, and disrespect for law and order.

Also, Christians who oppose importing large groups of unassimilated migrants claim their motive is not hating others, but rather loving their own neighbors and wanting to preserve the valuable things about their culture for future generations.

Underlying much of this criticism is an assumption that Christians had the influence and understanding necessary to stop great evil, and refused to do it. Yet, failing to participate in the overturning of established hierarchies attached to the created order is not evil.

Neither is undermining sinful habits by working through conventional channels instead of revolutionary ones. Occasionally, even social justice advocates can see the truth in this. For instance, if Oskar Schindler staged a protest in Berlin during the Holocaust, he would likely have been executed or held as a political prisoner.

Instead, he engaged in racially based slavery by purchasing kidnapped Jews from the Nazis. Yet, his participation in an unjust system was intended to save lives. Unlike consistent ideologues who view most every issue through the prism of a moral binary, Christians understand many issues are decided through wisely applying absolute principles to various situations.

Living within the boundaries of an evil arrangement does not necessarily make one guilty of that evil. This is why Paul instructed masters in a Roman slave system attached to much evil to apply God's law themselves.

Things like paying taxes, some of which go to Planned Parenthood, shopping at Apple, which uses sweatshop labor, and working in the welfare system, the Bible forbids rewarding someone with food who refuses to work, are not sins even if the related organizations need reform.

Modern evangelical elites accept the political left's shortlist of social crimes, fail to consider their prevalence in non-Western societies, and then blame their own religion for the of not participating in enough activism and revolutionary activity.

Faithfulness to the Gospel Versus Egalitarian Ethics

However, the worst part of all is the next step. Influential evangelicals also confuse faithfulness to the gospel with egalitarian ethics and social activism. Russell Moore thinks it is a gospel issue to allow illegal migrants to use services paid for by American taxes without objection.

Christianity Today recently published an article about the Me Too movement in which the author states that the gospel of Jesus Christ requires us to believe the word of women. Of course, the examples are endless.

If someone strongly resists the equity, diversity, and inclusion agenda, they are cast to the outer darkness, reserved for idolaters, Pharisees, and certainly not respectable Christians. Another tactic of social justice evangelicals is to attach quality of life issues to the pro-life movement.

Because evangelicals have a strong tradition of opposing abortion, it is very difficult to convince them using the standard secular pro-abortion arguments. Instead, political progressives try to hijack the movement by adding social justice concerns and treating them as if they are just as important as breaking God's direct command not to murder.

Things like systemic racism, environmental issues, and even personal decisions like smoking are considered pro-life issues. Ron Sider, in his 1987 book Completely Pro-Life, was one of the first to make this argument to evangelicals.

Sider defined being completely pro-life as defending human life wherever it is threatened. That is how he could go after pro-life Senator Jesse Helms for inconsistency since he opposed abortion but also supported government subsidies for tobacco.

The mistake in this thinking is comparing something like smoking, a quality of life choice made by adults who probably also eat cheeseburgers and fail to exercise at times, with actual murder. The unlawful taking of another person's life is very different than choosing to drink soda.

One is a sin in and of itself and subject to civil penalty in God's law. The other could potentially be negligent, but it is an issue of personal jurisdiction and does not usually accompany an intent to immediately end one's life.

Over the last few years, things like police brutality and following government guidelines concerning the COVID outbreak are being attached to the pro-life cause. The Gospel Coalition published an article about NFL player Benjamin Watson's pro-life work, which included the problem of police brutality against black people.

Popular evangelical author Karen Swallow Pryor believes pro-life Christians brought the culture of death they warned others about because they failed to follow COVID health protocols. This new interpretation of a womb-to-tomb pro-life position is changing the movement from within.

Allegedly contributing to increased numbers of COVID cases by attending a church service, not wearing a mask, or declining a vaccine are not the same as actively and intentionally murdering someone with the permission of the government.

Likewise, police brutality does not enjoy the sanctional law whereas abortion does. Given the size of the United States and the corruption existing in the heart of mankind, it should come as no surprise that some police departments cover up incidents in which officers murder innocent people.

This is very different, though, than a hypothetical Supreme Court case granting departments this ability with impunity. The concern many conservative Christians have about the holistic pro-life approach is that instead of strengthening opposition to legalized abortion, it deludes opposition.

That is how evangelical leaders like Richard Mao and Joel Hunter were able to support pro-life evangelicals for Biden. Things like racism, poverty, health care, smoking, climate change, minimum wage, and affordable access to child care were all life issues considered in the balance more important than Donald Trump's anti-abortion policies.

Such thinking seems like it comes from a severely broken sense of proportion, but for many young pro-life evangelicals it is starting to work. Another tactic used to neutralize politically conservative viewpoints within evangelicalism is to portray them as in conflict with a Christian commitment to be a public witness.

Winsomeness, Public Witness, and the Critique of Conservative Anger

In other words, what will the people we are trying to reach with our message think if they find out you support a conservative cause? Consider these titles from the Gospel Coalition, Be Winsome and Persuasive, Blog Winsomely, Trading Moral Outrage for Winsome Persuasion, and Al Mohler on Confronting the Culture Winsomely Yet Subversively.

What one finds when they look at these pieces is that an unfavorable perception exists within evangelicalism about itself. Christian leaders think their followers have a problem being rude, unfriendly, rigid, and hateful.

They also tend to lack love, compassion, and gospel centeredness. The truth is, this side of heaven Christians will never be perfect, and many of these charges do apply in certain situations. But is this attitude unique or characteristic of Christianity?

It is important to remember that in the face of political movements forcing evil agendas, there is a place for anger and uncompromising fortitude. David certainly did not approach Goliath in a winsome way.

Rather, he declared, who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should taunt the armies of the living God? Neither was Elijah winsome when he mocked the prophets of Baal. John the Baptist called King Herod a fox.

Jesus said the Pharisees were whitewashed tombs, which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanliness. Paul expressed his desire for false teachers to mutilate themselves.

The Bible is filled with examples of men who are not very winsome and would definitely be considered angry today. Yet, Scripture teaches that while there is never a time to sin, there is a time to be angry about sin.

Righteous indignation is sometimes appropriate. One of the more recent popular catchphrases used by evangelical elites over the past decade is the term cultural engagement. Trevin Wax, who works for the North American Mission Board and Wheaton College, sees the term as including understanding people and cultures, presenting the gospel as a better story than the false hopes of the world, and creating a new culture.

Often it seems the phrase conveys an almost obsession with understanding how modern people think and their preferences so as to effectively persuade them toward Christianity. The assumption seems to be that Christians are on the outside of culture and need to strategically manufacture a culture of their own capable of competing with the outside culture and drawing outsiders in the least offensive way possible.

This is the history of neo-evangelicalism over the past several decades. In order to keep up with the times, evangelical industries reinvent themselves almost every ten years. Yet nowhere is this thinking represented in Scripture.

Though Christians are to be separate from the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the boastful pride of life, they are necessarily embedded within the culture they are members of, and should understand enough about themselves and the people around them to be an effective witness.

It is true that there were times when the Apostle Paul was around Jewish people and willingly lived by standards in the Jewish law, for the sake of the gospel. Yet his goal was to keep from unnecessarily offending them, not creating an alternative culture to attract.

Them.

Political Motives, Power, and the Limits of Conservative Critique

The last way that social justice advocates are pushing evangelicals toward the left is by attributing worldly motives to conservative candidates or causes. I remember as a student at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary hearing Professor Bruce Ashford in chapel characterize the political right as idolizing the ethno-nation to the point of being unjust toward people who are not members.

Tim Keller regularly compares political conservatism to idolatry or false religion. The Gospel Coalition published a blog a few years ago entitled The Selfishness of the Religious Right. Many evangelical leaders ascribed the motive of gaining and keeping power to Christian nationalists and Trump voters over the past few years.

To give one example, Beth Moore recently said that wedding evangelicalism to a political party was also about power, position, access. In a sense, evangelicals are probably somewhat mimicking the narrative emanating from left-wing media voices.

MSNBC host Joe Scarborough said that fear of Trump and lust for power have made cowards of GOP politicians and evangelical leaders. CNN recently published an article claiming that evangelicals traded their radicalism for social acceptance and political power.

Of course, power in itself is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, God delegates power to the government for a reason. If the government's job, according to Romans 13, is to be a minister of God to you for good, then it makes sense that Christians who know what God says is good would want to gain and use political power as salt and light.

Compared to the history of the world, Christians in the United States have a unique opportunity to express their convictions through voting. The way in which political power is gained and used can be evil, but power in itself is ordained by God.

There is no doubt that there are evil people after personal power on the political right, but treating this fact as if it characterizes all political conservatives is inconsistent. Evangelical elites do not say all members of the political left support progressive candidates because they want perversion, stealing, and murder.

Yet the Bible describes many of their fundamental objectives this way. Perhaps if today's evangelical elites said such things, they would not be winsome. The overall effect of associating egalitarianism and activism with the gospel, attaching quality of life issues to the pro-life movement, assuming conservative views conflict with public witness, and attributing worldly motives to conservative causes has been to move evangelicals toward the left politically.

If evangelicals are not careful, their new inconsistent ethical views will bleed into their core theology over time. They will no longer be evangelicals. Some, including this author, already thinks this is taking place except for one thing.

Many of the people in the pews are still resistant to these changes. While those running evangelical organizations may be going in a bad direction, the gap between them and those they are supposed to serve is fairly wide.

It is up to small-town pastors and faithful laymen and laywomen to uphold biblical thinking and reject the social justice movement while there is still time. This has been a section from Christianity and Social Justice, Religions and Conflict.

You can go to ChristianityandSocialJustice .com for more information. There's an Amazon link there if you'd like to purchase the book on Amazon. You can get a Kindle version of it or you can order the book directly from myself and I'll send you an autographed author's copy.

But this is the kind of thing that you can look forward to more of if you get the book. So, I wanted to give you the tactics of progressive evangelicals, social justice evangelicals.

I hope that was helpful.

More coming later this week.

God bless.