Beware of Evangelical Inc.'s "Third Way"

The Political Third Way and Evangelical Hesitation to Name the Enemy

Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. My name is John Harris. Should a Christian be a Democrat? How about a Republican? Maybe a Christian shouldn't be either. There's been a movement since especially the election of Donald Trump in evangelical circles to say that a middle way exists between conservatism and liberalism by which a Christian can inhabit the moderate ground and engage culture in a more sensitive way, perhaps.

I remember a year ago I was at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary where I got my MDiv and the provost gave a speech about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and he really made it clear in his application that state worship was wrong.

And then he moved on and spent most of his time saying that Christians should not align themselves too closely with the Republican party or conservative political philosophy or the Democratic party and liberal political philosophy because these things have idols in them and Christians should not worship idols.

Now I don't know whether this comes from ignorance or there is a nefarious purpose. The reason I say from ignorance is because if you know anything about American conservatism, read for instance The Conservative Mind by Russell Kirk, you'll know that conservatism is biblical principles coming to us through hundreds of years of tradition shaping it to apply to our context and they value things like individual rights which is attached to responsibilities and a limited role for government.

Just like the Bible gives a limited role for government, government has a different job than the family, than the church, than the individual, and that job is primarily to function with a sword for administering justice.

So the conservative political philosophy does not confuse the state with government. In fact, it's just the opposite. Government has a narrow role and God has his role and government operates under the role that God gave it.

Now in progressivism, we look to the government as if the government were God. It is literally state worship. We are looking to them to fulfill our basic needs. And so if there are warnings that we should have against a political philosophy, it really should be, in regards to state worship, it should be against progressivism and let's call a spade a spade, the Democratic Party.

But there is an unwillingness to do that. So it could be ignorance or there could be a nefarious purpose. How come evangelicals are voting for Donald Trump in the high numbers that they are? Let's let everyone know that this ought not to be the case, especially those in the media.

That's not who we are. We're not bigots. So I'm going to give you some more examples of this kind of thinking, but there's only really two options for why this thinking exists. Now to set this up, let's let's talk about the world we are living in right now.

Abortion, State Power, and the Democratic Party Platform

If you are in the United States, there's endless examples out there of the cultural rot. We are leaving out Romans 1, the Illinois House bill, and there's a Senate one as well. Reproductive Health Act will create, if it goes into effect, abortion havens in Illinois.

No parental consent. Any stage of development is fine. Come to Illinois and kill your child. The decriminalization of prostitution has its own movement now in New York. The New York Coalition for the Decriminalization says that it exists to decriminalize, decarcerate, and this is the big one, de-stigmatize the sex trade in New York City and state.

De-stigmatize. So the government is supposed to now, I guess, get involved in limiting what people say about a certain occupation. Well, why is this happening in New York? It's very simple. The Democratic Party, for the first time in a long time, has the New York State Senate.

So it's in free fall. There's the Senate, there's the Assembly, there's the Governor, and they're all controlled by Democrats. Who is the enemy in these different cases? The Democratic Party. Now of course the battle is not against flesh and blood.

It's against primarily spiritual forces. But these spiritual forces, just like there's tares in the church, they use physical entities to get their work done. Why can't we, as Christians, call a spade a spade?

Why is there an unwillingness? I mean, I'm not that old. I remember when the Southern Baptist Convention rebuked Bill Clinton. And they've certainly been involved with rebuking Donald Trump and white supremacy in their minds or nationalism.

And so what is the hang up here that there's just a resistance against calling out the Democratic Party? Now here's something encouraging. There are people that are Christians who are being a prophetic voice.

Trevor Batten at the Austin City Council last week and Marcus Pittman at the Bitveria New York City Council last week. Both were prophetic voices to these city councils and they basically said, you know, using the doctrine of the lesser magistrate, you need to be standing in the gap.

You need to be protecting the life of innocent babies. No matter what the federal government says, no matter what the state government says, this is your job. This is your fundamental purpose as government.

Now those who would be uncomfortable with this and say, well, that's lawlessness. They're disobeying the law. Think about, you know, do a thought experiment, go back to Nazi Germany. What if there were local authorities resisting what Hitler was trying to carry out?

Would you support them? They're government too. They have a responsibility too. And so there's a jurisdictional issue here, but the basic function of government is to protect. Now, of course, in the Weimar Republic under Hitler was dissolved because that's what big government types do.

They get rid of all potential opposition and they nationalize. But you know, imagine that that was a possibility and that is a possibility more so in our structure of government, or at least it has been.

We do have these tools. Nullification. Even, you know, we should probably have a conversation in another podcast about secession, but there are ways, structures in our government, checks and balances for when tyranny takes place to stop that tyranny or to create a safe haven from that tyranny.

Now, what are our top leaders doing? Well, if you remember on, I believe it was the 25th, the Born to Lie Protection Act went down in flames. Now we can argue about whether that's constitutional or not.

Should the federal government be getting involved in criminal proceedings in these states? I just talked about a version of, I guess, states' rights and local authority, but that's not the reason that this bill went down in flames.

These Democrats, the 53 who voted against, the margin was 53 to 44, the 53 who voted against this thing were not doing it based on federalism. They were voting against it because they believe that it's a fundamental right to be able to kill your child.

And there were only three Democrats from states in which I believe Trump did very well, who decided to not vote against this thing, or rather who supported the pro-life position. So 53 Republicans in the Senate, 45 Democrats, two independents who caucus with the Democrats, and only three Democrats opposed this thing, opposed the abortion perspective.

Why? Why is it that overwhelmingly the Democrats decided to kill the Born Alive Protection Act? Let me read for you the DNC party platform. Democrats are committed to protecting and advancing reproductive health rights and justice.

Well, there's that little word justice again, isn't there? We believe unequivocally, like the majority of Americans, that every woman should have access to quality reproductive health care services, including safe and legal abortions, regardless of where she lives, how much money she makes, or how she's insured.

Okay, what does this mean? It means that if she doesn't have money, taxpayer, you need to pay for her to kill her baby. We believe that reproductive health is core to women's, men's, and young people's health and well-being.

We will continue to stand up to Christian efforts, Southern Baptist efforts, PCA efforts, no, Republican efforts to defund Planned Parenthood centers. Now it keeps going and going and going. How come the Democratic Party has no problem identifying its enemy, its Republicans?

In fact, well, I don't want to get off on a big tangent here, but it seems like it's easier to call out Republicans even for some Christian leaders. But the Democratic Party has no problem calling out and identifying the enemy that they have.

It's a Republican Party. They're standing in the way of justice. Why are we, we, and I say by we, us in evangelical circles, how come it's so hard for us to say that? The Democratic Party is evil. They're literally, I've just read for you what they have adopted.

This is their party platform. Now, what was the reaction to this? I want to give you something. This is the Southern Baptist Convention president, J .D. Greer. He says, this is not a Democrat or Republican issue.

It is about whether to keep babies born alive, alive. This was on the 25th, so this is right after this went down in flames. And I remember Tom Buck said something. He said, what if it was Nazi Germany and it was Bonhoeffer saying, it's not a Nazi Party issue.

It's just about whether to kill Jews or not. It would seem ridiculous. He'd say, well, call out the Nazi Party. Now, I posted this on the Conversations That Matter Facebook. And I had some dear brothers who said, you know, you may be reading this wrong.

Maybe he's just being sloppy. And really what he's trying to say is that this should transcend these political parties. This is a moral issue. And I said, you know what? That's fair. I'm 90 sure that's not what he's doing, but that is fair.

It should transcend these things. Now, under this comment was a million and a half. I'm exaggerating. There were a lot of comments, though, correcting this. Most of them were, J .D. Greer, what are you talking about?

Call out the Democratic Party. Call a spade a spade. These people are evil. Why can't you just say that? And his response the next day to all of these people saying, J .D. Greer, please have a little bit more moral clarity on this.

He says, supportive life should never fall along party lines. All Christians should agree we stand for life from womb to tomb. Okay, that's true. That's very true. But you didn't learn anything from those comments.

Assuming you read them because you put out another statement where you kind of doubled down, there's an enemy here. Why can't we identify the enemy that's right in front of us? I beside myself with this.

I'm going to comment on this, but let me give you another example. This happened just recently in Oklahoma. The Abolition of Abortion in Oklahoma Act, Senate Bill 13, filed by Senator Joseph Silk, who's a Republican, by the way, and a member of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Well, what happens to this bill? The Southern Baptist Convention in Oklahoma, which is the General Baptist Convention of Oklahoma, decides to oppose the bill. This bill would have done essentially what is the opposite, the mirror image of what's going on in Illinois.

It's saying, let's make a safe haven for babies in the state of Oklahoma. It goes down in flames, or it hasn't yet, but the Southern Baptist Convention in Oklahoma wants it to, I guess, go down in flames because they think it will set back pro-life efforts.

They've made so much progress over time, and they're trying to make this progressive progress against Planned Parenthood and abortion. Again, do the thought experiment. Go back to something that you think is a real injustice.

I usually pick Nazi Germany just because everyone seems to be able to agree on it. I'm going to pick the Civil Rights Movement as well, but let's go with Nazi Germany first. Would we stand for that kind of logic?

No, it's evil. Stop the killing. Wouldn't we say that? I hope we would. Here's the thing about Southern Baptists. They will trumpet MLK till the cows come home. Don't believe me? Go look at the MLK 50.

See who spoke there. See what they said. I know this from going to a Southern Baptist school. They will trumpet MLK till the cows come home. He is the hero. They do readings of him on campus. His books are sold even at churches that I've attended that are big Southern Baptist churches, and they're promoted.

MLK is the hero. But when it comes time to stand against a holocaust that's actually happening right in front of them, they're cowards. Because they will not identify the enemy. They talk a lot about speaking truth to power.

We need to speak truth to power in the civil rights context. But when it comes time for those who actually hold power, the Democratic National Committee, the senators in the Democratic National Party, they won't speak truth to them.

They won't identify them. The efforts to do it are kind of pathetic, honestly. And I wish I could just hear from all of them, but even just one, like a prominent seminary head or a denomination head, institution head of some kind, saying the Democratic Party is evil.

It would be really nice. But instead we get these weird, like, you know what, Democrats and Republicans, both of them. It's like, call the party that's doing the evil, evil. So that's kind of where I'm frustrated.

The church needs real men, and we certainly have a lack of that. Now, on February 27th, so this is two days after this bill in the national government went down, Keller makes a remark about individualism.

Tim Keller on Liberal and Conservative Individualism

And I want to play for you a little section here from Keller. This is what he says.

It is really true that in a post-Christian Western society, whether that's in North America or Europe or Australia, wherever you are, there is a great danger that in your interaction, trying to reach out and engage your non-Christian culture, that the culture colonizes you.

And the reason for that is that a post-Christian culture is quite different than a non-Christian or pre-Christian culture. The post-Christian culture has co-opted a lot of Christian ideas. It has, for example, taken care of the poor and human rights and many of these things that did not grow up in non-Christian cultures.

They grew up in the West in Christian culture. The West has sort of taken over a lot of Christian ideas, but taken them to an extreme. So, for example, the importance of human rights and doing justice has been turned into an extreme individualism.

And so what can actually happen is a Christian can easily fall into getting co-opted by that individualism. So there's a kind of, I call it a liberal individualism that says, I need to do justice for the poor and I need to do racial justice, but nobody should tell me what to do sexually.

There's a kind of conservative individualism that says, I believe in traditional values, but I can do anything I want with my money and please don't talk to me about race because I didn't own any slaves.

And I don't think that's a problem. And it's extraordinarily easy for Christians to think that they are being Christian, but they're actually getting co-opted by either what I would call blue state or red state individualism.

That's just not as likely to happen if you're a Christian growing up in India. You're not likely to just sort of fall into Hinduism. You're not as likely if you're a Christian growing up in Japan to just fall into Buddhism, but you are very likely to fall into one of these forms of liberal or conservative individualism thinking it's Christianity.

So what's important is we just need to understand how the biblical worldview differs from all other different worldviews. And so worldview education or apologetics is actually necessary even to disciple people nowadays.

For all these reasons, it's not easy to engage the culture and to reach out and to seek to convert people and know them. But we have to do it because the Bible commands us to do it. And even in Western culture where there's those dangers, we have to do that.

Why the “Third Way” Is Just Liberalism with Exceptions

All right. Keller said a lot there. I want to talk about this because I think it's a good example of what I was trying to get across in the beginning of this presentation. Keller is taking this. This is the middle ground.

This is the third way. OK, so individualism is an enemy. I don't know if you caught that, but individualism was brought up several times as an enemy. And Keller uses the terms that are being used now.

So individualism, colonization. Colonization was used when the Christians were colonized. So I guess if you compromise with the culture, I mean, we used to just call that being worldly. Now we're using the term colonized.

That's so interesting that these terms are being twisted and polluted. But anyway, I'm going to kind of put that one on the shelf and not comment anymore. But this idea, though, that there's red state individualism and that this is somehow and blue state.

And so he's talking about Republicans and Democrats. Red state is Republican. Blue state is Democrat. Red state individualism and blue state individualism is compared to Hinduism and Buddhism. Hinduism and Buddhism.

So if you're part of a political philosophy, the Republican political philosophy, you don't want to get too sucked into that. It's like getting sucked into Hinduism or Buddhism. OK, he stereotypes red state.

Notice what he does. He stereotypes both of them. But notice in the blue state individualism, sexual ethics go out the window. Now we have clear thus saith the Lord on sexual ethics. If you want to call it individualism, I mean, I prefer using biblical terms.

It's evil. It's porneia. It's an abomination. I mean, these are. But anyway, OK, we'll just call it individualism. There's a thus saith the Lord. And it says these things are wrong. There's a law of God and it contradicts the blue state individualism is contradicted by the law of God.

How about red state individualism? Listen to what he says again. He says, I can do whatever I want with my money. And please don't talk to me about race. Now, let's take the first part of that. I can do whatever I want with my money.

Well, it's private property. Yeah, yeah, I mean, there's stewardship going on, but God gives you money. And when you have your resources that God has given you, you're supposed to worship him with those resources, which means that you should be giving to the poor.

You should be giving to your church. There's a lot of things you should be doing with those resources, but it is your decision. Even in Acts 2, when the communitarian model seems to come so much from Acts 2 and look at them all sharing their property.

What does Peter say after Ananias and Sapphira lie to the Holy Spirit? He says, was it not your property when you had it? Was it not yours? Private property is still there from the beginning. Private property is a Christian, if you want to say our Judeo-Christian, but it is Old Testament, New Testament.

It is a Christian ethic that private property exists. He says, I can do whatever I want with my money. Well, okay, that's wrong. That's red state individualism. And please don't talk to me about race because I wasn't a slave owner.

I didn't own slaves. Well, this is the idea of personal responsibility. Yeah, if we're talking about doing reparations or affirmative action or quotas or any of these things, and you didn't own a slave, assuming that this was all wrong, that owning slaves is a sin and you committed this sin and now you need to pay them somehow, and you weren't involved in that practice, then what are we punishing?

The practice or a person who wasn't even related to it, but just happens to share a skin color with someone who owns slaves? I mean, we should judge people. This is an Old Testament concept for the sins that they themselves engaged in, not their children, not someone that's completely unrelated to them just because they happen to share similar features physically.

So personal responsibility, these are both private property and personal responsibility are biblical concepts. And Keller kind of packages them in this really sneaky way. I can do whatever I want with my money, and please don't talk to me about race.

I didn't own slaves. And the most horrible way to phrase arguments for private property and personal responsibility is that stereotype. And he knocks it down and says, yeah, it's just the same as living any way you want sexually.

That's ridiculous. That's moral insanity. But because of the way it's so sneaky, the way that it's being presented, it seems right. So there's a third way. Christianity is not red state. It's not blue state.

There's a third way, and we need to do worldview education to get people aware of this third way. Well, what does that worldview education look like? Well, I'm glad you asked because I happened to notice that the day before, this was retweeted by Danny Akin, who's the president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, where I went.

There's a BA now in justice and social ethics, and it assists in constructing a biblical framework through which to understand and evaluate how God's righteousness applies to ethical topics important in life, relationships, the Christian community, and society.

Sounds good, right? The problem is, if you listen to the episode, the first one I did with Judd Saul a few weeks back on the Oikonomia Network, Tim Keller's involved in that. Southeastern's even involved in that.

They're receiving money. The curriculum that's going out there undermines these biblical concepts of individual responsibility, private property. There's a communitarian. It's kind of like a Christian socialistic idea that's advocated in these things.

And so that's the curriculum that's being used for this stuff, or at least part of the curriculum. That's what's going on, and that's where this push is headed. That we Christians need to be about the third way, and we're going to have to educate those who are going out into churches according to this third way.

Let me just tell you in brief what this third way looks like. Third way looks like basically a socialism light when it comes to the government's responsibility and role, including quotas and reparations and these kinds of things.

Softer stance on the climate, perhaps even gun rights. It's liberal, but it makes an exception for sexual deviancies, but not a very big exception because orientation is okay. It's just if someone fully—and of course we're not going to punish any of these sexual deviancies with the force of the law.

Maybe child abuse or something like a man-boy love association type of thing. Well, maybe that can be punished by law, but who knows? Next year that might not even be the case. But it's weak on those things, but it at least says we're not going to go as far as the Democrats have gone with pushing transgenderism down people's throats.

We don't want to go that far. It is a form of liberalism. I'm willing to commit to saying that. It's liberalism with a few little exceptions to try to fit the Bible into this somehow, and the Bible doesn't fit well into liberalism, so we're going to cut a few things.

Russell Moore, Christian Cowardice, and the Need for a Prophetic Voice

So these guys are involved in politics. Greer is involved in politics. Keller is involved in politics. Of course the Southern Baptist Association in Oklahoma is involved in politics. Danny Akin is involved in politics.

They're involved with shaping people to be ready for it, to understand how to navigate it, but they're not identifying who the enemy is. I have no doubt all these men are pro-life in the basic sense of the word.

They don't think abortion is a good thing, but they're not identifying the enemy, the party that is forwarding abortion. I don't know if it's just they're not brave. There's probably different motivations for different ones, but they certainly don't seem to mind identifying the other enemies.

And I think back to something that just happened like three weeks ago, two or three weeks ago. Russell Moore went to NPR. Now NPR is not a Christian organization. It is very liberal, and he basically threw the church under the bus in a sense.

He said, number one, that he gets these hate mail from white supremacists. OK, you said that on NPR. OK. But then he goes on, and I'm summarizing here, to talk about the problems within Christian community or Christian thinking and how we need to correct these issues.

And he's identifying really what would be considered a more, if you want to say alt-right or racially insensitive group in the church. And he's saying this is wrong. OK, I might even agree with him on some of that.

But why doesn't he have a problem calling out the Democratic National Party? Why does he have a problem with that when he doesn't have a problem calling out white nationalists, white supremacists, the alt-right?

No problem there. But there is a problem when it comes to Democrats. I don't know if it's cowardice. Again, but there's a problem. There is a problem here, because this is the effect. The church ceases to be salt and light.

Its role is gone. How is it going to be a prophetic voice to the culture if it just keeps bending and bowing to the culture at every step, thinking that it's being this voice to the culture? It's not.

You have to be able to call out who the enemy is. This is so basic. And so I don't like to end on a bad note. I am frustrated, though. And I hope those who are watching this who agree with me, I hope that you can be encouraged just from the standpoint that there's someone else who sees these things.

And we're not alone in this. God certainly sees them. But you have community. You have people in the faith who do see these things and are willing to say something about it. I'm willing to say something about this.

Democrats are in a godless party that loves death. I don't have a problem saying that. And no Christian should be a Democrat. No Christian. Given that that is their party platform, if you're in the Democratic Party, get out of the Democratic Party.

I'm not telling you to be a Republican. I'm not telling you the Republican Party is the party of Christ. I've never heard anyone say that that I can recall, even those in the moral majority back in the 80s.

I don't think they were saying things like that. But no, I'm not saying that you have to be a Republican. But you can't be a Democrat and be consistent and uphold biblical morality. The Lord will accomplish His purposes.

And He will do it. Maybe this is the encouragement. He will do it through men like Marcus Pitman, like Trevor Batten. Go to the info section. I'm going to put those links for their videos. Trevor Batten at the Austin City Council, Marcus Pitman at the Bavaria New York City Council.

Be encouraged by their speeches. Be encouraged. Compare that with what you hear from Tim Keller, frankly. Ask yourself, who's being the prophetic voice? Who's being the man? Who's being the consistent Christian?

I love the fact that God is raising up the weak things. The weak things of the world are put to shame those who think they're wise. And we have a God that we can trust because He is able to do those kinds of things.

Regarding Tim Keller, regarding all the people that I mentioned like J .D. Greer, pray for them. Pray for them. Because some of them might be in ignorance. They're just following what they hear coming from other places.

But watch out for them. Seriously, watch out for them. But pray for them. And encourage those in your local community who are taking stands like Marcus Pitman is taking. Go out and assist them. Do the same thing.

Go to your city council. Write your congressman. I mean, I've done these things. And I remember even for a college career group one night a couple years ago, just getting everyone together and saying, you know what, tonight we're going to write some letters to our legislators.

And we're going to, it was state legislator, and we're going to encourage them to support life. And we're going to give the gospel. Look at the videos that these guys, in the links that I put in the sidebar here, in the info section, look at how they present their case.

The Lordship of Christ is all over it. We cannot sacrifice the Lordship of Christ. He is Lord of all. And so I'm encouraged by those gentlemen. And we need to follow in their footsteps, not in the footsteps of those who are in, unfortunately, the positions of power in these organizations and denominations.

So hopefully you're inspired and encouraged by that. And hopefully I've given you something to think about. If you're not on board with everything that I said, hopefully you at least have something to think about.

And what does the prophetic voice look like? What should the church be doing? We need to answer these questions. So God bless, and until next time, have a good day.