A State Religion Right In Front of Us

Social Justice as a Parallel Religion

Hey everyone, good morning. I just want to make a quick video for those especially who have asked me to explain why I'm taking some time to focus on the overreaction to, we'll say, the current ailment that's gaining so much media attention and has been for the last year and a half.

The reason, primarily, even though I do have people that are affected by this and will be affected as the mandate in New York for healthcare workers spreads to other industries and states, is because I see parallels between this and the social justice religion.

For those who have followed my podcast for any length of time, you know that I've made the argument, and I think effectively, that there's a relationship or a parallel between Christianity and social justice.

And in the early days of when this was making inroads into evangelicalism, I was careful to try to not put everyone in a false teacher category because I realize this is new, there's a lot of ignorance out there.

But as time's gone on, it's obvious that social justice, and it really always has been a parallel religion, a state religion, and those who adopted it within Christianity were syncretizing with it. And adopting, importing aspects of it into Christianity, and they're incompatible with Christianity, and so it's false teaching.

And I'm making that argument with much more specificity in the book I have coming out next month called Christianity and Social Justice Religions and Conflicts, so look out for that. I have a whole chapter on it.

But I see some similar things going on with COVID and the reactions to it. So I want to talk about that. And first, though, real quick, some news, and then I'm going to make some announcements after we go through all this material on the current ailment.

John MacArthur’s Lawsuit Win and Tim Keller’s Public Praise of an Atheist

Number one, this is just sort of evangelical news, things that are trending. I just wanted to let everyone know, if they don't know, John MacArthur won, in Grace Community Church, I should say, won their lawsuit with the city of Los Angeles.

The city of Los Angeles has to pay them damages. They have to pay for their lawyers, their lawyers' fees. And they also, they were trying to take their parking lot away, or there's a parking lot that the city of Los Angeles, I guess, leases with the church.

And the church gets to keep the parking lot. They get their lawyers' fees taken care of. It's a win-win. And I want you to just remember back over a year ago when John MacArthur was saying, you know what, Romans 13 says we should shut down.

And then like two or three months later, he said, you know what, the state does not get to dictate to the church what it does. We're going to open back up. And that courage to stand alone, even though there was a few other churches, some Calvary Chapel churches in California standing, but that courage to stand even if it was alone in his own circles and to take the heat, take risks, it was infectious.

And people, other pastors rethought their positions on this because of his stand. And he's been rewarded for it. So we just praise God. We thank God so much. He's been so merciful here. And I want that to encourage you.

There's some, there's a little bit, sometimes you'll see some justice on the earth. And this is one example of it. And we just got to keep praying and keep fighting and let that example inspire you. The other thing I wanted to mention is Tim Keller.

I mean, the sorry state of Tim Keller. He just thanked a friend of his who's an atheist, or he didn't thank, he congratulated a friend of his who's an atheist for receiving a position at Harvard University.

And it's a religious position. I can't remember if it was the dean of the school of theology or if it was a chaplain, head of chaplains or something. But it's a religious position. And this guy's an atheist.

And Tim Keller is congratulating him. And the key thing here is it's public. He's publicly congratulating him. I just don't see any reason to publicly congratulate someone who is going to basically shipwreck the faith even further of young students going to Harvard.

It'd be better if a millstone was hung around his neck. That's according to Jesus. And so I just think this is very sorry, a very sorry thing that Tim Keller is doing. And it's I don't even know. I don't have words.

It just it just shows the this ecumenical strain really accompanies the social justice stuff. And Tim Keller is no exception. So I wanted to mention those things. Now, let's get into the the covid stuff.

Government Scientists as Infallible, All-Knowing, and Pure

And what I believe is the formation right in front of our eyes of a state religion. And maybe it was already there. Some people already believed this, but it's just it's going mainstream. And here's some things to look at.

And I encourage you as you're as you're talking with friends or family who are adopting some of this paranoia and and just blindly trusting things that they shouldn't without doing their own homework, that kind of thing.

I want you to think about what you're hearing them say and how they defend their their positions and so forth. And ask yourself whether or not it sounds like this is a religious commitment on their part.

Or this is because they've actually done research and they're convinced by data and they've tried to objectively study this as best they can. So, number one, here's something that I've seen a lot of ascribing attributes of deity to the government approved scientists, assuming they're infallible, all knowing and inhumanly good.

And let me just give you a few. I mean, this happens in the world all the time. I mean, there's just blind trust. The government said it and I believe it. And that settles it. I mean, that's their logic.

And this is a religious commitment that they have. We need to view it as that this is not going through the filters of reason. This is just blind faith. It's not it's not even a reasonable faith in most cases.

It's I realize there's some people who are trying to weigh cost benefit and that's fine. But if you if you come to the position that you can't even question these people at all, you can't question Fauci, let's say, then you're talking about some something that's impervious to reason and logic and rationality.

And again, they're ascribing aspects of deity infallibility like they can do no wrong. All knowing this, they just, you know, they they know all the alternative treatments and they've decided that they're not they're not worthwhile in like pure as the driven snow goodness.

They just have our best interests in mind. And there's no corruption here. There's no way there could possibly be any of that. So a few things I just wanted to point to. Eric Erickson, I just saw recently.

He's a talk show host, conservative talk show host said that doubting the Bible has a lot in common with doubting the vaccine. Eric Erickson doubting the Bible has a lot in common with doubting the vaccine.

And I watched his bit on it. And it was one of the more absurd things I've ever seen a talk show host, a segment. It's just it's like, what made you think this was a good idea? But essentially, his argument comes down to the people who doubt the this treatment are they don't have any good reasons for it.

They're just they're the ones that are blindly believing conspiracies. And and so they should just look at all the preapproved fact checked websites, government responses, various health department responses to these objections, which, by the way, I do look at those things.

And most of the people I know who are skeptical do look at those things, but that they just got to trust those people. And so it's kind of like projection in my mind. He's the one that actually is exhibiting kind of like a blind faith, but he's he's equating this with like atheists or skeptics of the Bible and saying, well, if you are skeptical about the Bible because you believe that, you know, there's inconsistencies in, let's say, the gospel narratives and you're not drilling down deep to find out if there's actual reasons for it, then you're just the same as people who doubt the current treatment.

And that is it is disrespectful. It is it's it's not fair. There are people who have thought very deeply about this and they are doing their homework. And I think they're drilling down a lot deeper than Eric Erickson is.

They are looking at the responses. And but but look at just the example he uses. He he he compares it to people who doubt the scripture. Why compare the vaccine or this this treatment to to the Bible?

As if, you know, this this book that we believe as Christians is infallible, is inerrant, is truthful in every aspect when it speaks about something. This is an article of faith and this is something that it's not a blind faith.

There's there. It's a reasonable faith. But but we we are going to have rescuing devices for the attacks that are made against it because our whole our way of looking at reality is built on this foundation, this revelation that we have.

And you're going to compare that to the people in lab coats that the government says we have to trust and the institutions they work for. I mean, that that is just that should be kind of insane to people.

You also have like Russell Moore saying things like he feels like a truck ran over him after he got the treatment and then got covid. But yet he encourages people in the same tweet thread to get the treatment that he just got, even though he feels like a truck ran over him.

And I pointed out yesterday that many people in the thread were commenting and basically saying like, oh, it would have been so much worse. How do they know that? I mean, the data that just came out of Israel seems to show that it would have been much better if if someone if you got the ailment and did not get the treatment, you would have been you would have had a better chance of not only surviving, but just not even being hospitalized for the variant.

But that's the data. That's what we're that's the data that we have right now. Like actual like observable stuff. But but there is a blind faith. And and Russell Moore is showing that, I mean, this is impervious to reason.

Remember, I don't know if you remember this, too, when last year at the end of last year, when Operation Warp Speed had completed, I remember Duke Quan and there were others who were saying similar statements, but he said that it was like the already and the not yet.

It was like eschatology. It was like Jesus's return waiting for the treatment. I mean, this is like you should just spot this. This is religious language being used. And it's it's showing that there's a religious and this is an evangelicalism.

I'm not even talking about those who are completely secular, who just trust whatever the government says. When bad things happen, people tend to call out for their gods. And and so that's what's happening in the world right now.

And their god is government. Government's going to save us. I mean, I don't see days of humiliation and prayer like there used to be in this country for an ailment or an affliction of some kind. It is all what's the government going to do?

The government is our savior. And then you have your profits. You have the people that are pure as the driven snow and their motivation. Thou shalt not touch them. They can do no wrong. And people like Fauci are like this.

They there's there's really nothing you can say to some people, even though the corruption is off the scale with this guy. The lying. I mean, I'm not going to go into all of it, but it's like we have to trust what he says.

We have to trust any anyone the government approves this. This is because he's a prophet. He takes that place in this state religion. So the government is impervious to rational discussion. Faith in the government is impervious to rational discussion, treating the government as a primary savior, calling out to them first, cooperating with the sovereign will of the state.

And that's the only thing that can defeat the virus. And these are just a few factors in this equation that causes me to think we got a secular religion forming right in front of us. And then there's the sacrifices.

Sacrifices, Rituals, and Public Displays of Compliance

Right. In every religion and Christianity is no exception. In Christianity, of course, we believe Jesus Christ made the ultimate sacrifice for his people. He died on the cross. He paid for their sins.

He his life and death are applied to them so they can be in a right relationship with God if they have faith in him. And and this is this is the basic message of Christianity. And of course, then we are called to be living sacrifices to God.

We if we love God, if we are thankful for what he did, we keep his commandments. We have a new relationship with him, a new heart. Right. Sacrificing is part of Christianity. And as part of every religion out there, you have to sacrifice something.

And it's no different here. People are sacrificing their personal individual liberties as if it were a ritual. And why do I say that? Because they're posting it on social media, pictures of after getting the shot, pictures of social distancing, pictures of being of masked selfies.

I mean, these are the most ridiculous thing in my mind. You're taking a selfie of your self mask. What are you trying to communicate in that? There's nothing innately wrong with taking that picture. But what are you trying to communicate?

And I think more often than not, it's sort of a virtue signal. It's it's saying, like, look, look at me. This is I mean, remember Russell Moore's. This hobbit is vaccinized tweet where he had a double mask and he got vaccinated and he's showing I mean, this is like, look at me.

And of course, it didn't really do him much good. He got it anyway. And it was felt like he got run over by a truck. So another thing that exposes this willingness to make sacrifice and it exposes who the authority and who we make the sacrifices to, who is the god of the system.

Another thing that exposes this is last summer, the BLM rallies. Right. It was OK to break the rules of the quarantine to go out and to participate in those, because ultimately the state is God. The state is the authority.

And we saw this even with David Platt, with Jonathan Lehman of Nine Marks Ministries, with Thabiti Enabuile. They all went out to the same march when their churches were closed. Their churches were not open.

They were trying to follow these guidelines, yet they would publicly gather for a BLM styled rally. That's the kind of thing that exposes this whole thing. It shows that it's acceptable. There's exceptions that can be made if the state justifies it, if the state is OK with it, if it follows the spirit of the age, the zeitgeist of the age.

The State as a Totalitarian Savior and the Idolatry of Central Authority

Now, I want to head off an objection at the past that people might have to my whole line of thinking here. And they say, John, government can't be God to these people because, look, Trump was in office and they didn't worship the government then.

And this is what I want to say to that. It's it's the concept of a it's not government per se. It is the concept of an all powerful totalitarian styled central authority capable of redistributing privilege, power, et cetera, to create some kind of a just society or a utopia.

That's what that's the idolatry. That's what's being worshipped. Trump didn't represent that when he was at the helm. He didn't. He was against that. He won in their minds. He was against that kind of thinking.

And so, yes, he may have been leading the government, but it's not it's not the entity of the government. It's not the government itself. It's the concept. It's the line of thinking. It's the ideology of the central authority and what it's supposed to do.

And so now that you have someone who has that thinking, who is a utopianist and is at the helm of the government, now the government is in a more favored position with these people. And if it wasn't attached to Trump, right, if it was Fauci, then, of course, even when Trump was president, it was let's follow let's follow the government.

Right. So so Trump represented a threat to to the government, to in their minds, to this central authority that was going to make a just society through redistributing everything and destroying hierarchies that would challenge it.

So that's the idolatry. Now, I want to say this in closing, kind of the gospel coalition constantly. There's so many examples of it, the gospel coalition and other ministries as well. But I want to pick on them constantly go after idolatries.

They go after marriage. They go after family. They go after your commitment to your country. Nationalism, right. Christian nationalism. You know, Russell Moore says that if you are you value your family too much, it's a satanic deception.

And it's idolatry because you can idolize your family, you can idolize your marriage, you can idolize your country. And in so doing, all they're doing is they're trying to pour cold water and prevent someone from objecting to the revolution that is right in front of them.

That's destroying everything they care about. They you know, you want to go out and defend a monument that's being taken down. You want to because, you know, that represents the sacrifice your family made or whatever.

You want to go out and defend your family's in the health care field, their right to not have an exemption or I'm sorry, rather have an exemption, not participate in the mandate. You want to defend the inroads made by the LGBTQ lobby in your church.

You want to whatever it may be, if it's under attack, then you just got to be careful of idolizing those very natural and good things God's given us. I mean, marriage is an institution from from God. Our family is.

And you have to somehow check yourself against that. Yet when it comes to the state, when it comes to this state religion, they are all on board. Oh, the what the government's doing to make us wear masks in church and not sing in church and take this this treatment that they're they're approving, even though there's tons of alternatives out there that have proven to be better and at least have success rates that we can actually quantify.

No, don't look at any of that. You need to just blindly trust what the government says. And the best that I've seen any Christians with any kind of a platform do is they'll try to say, well, let's let's try to kind of like make this out to be a personal decision.

We'll downgrade this controversy so that those who are for and against it can somehow live in peace. And and we won't split the church. But other than that, I mean, most plasters with with a platform and certainly the gospel coalition, they're all on board with this stuff and they don't even see that this is idolatry, like this is real idolatry.

And this isn't just, you know, and yeah, you can value something God gave you too much. But look, the state is not God. There's only one king. It's Jesus. The state is not the king, not not in a divine transcendent sense, not in the sense that the state has pure of the driven snow motives.

I mean, it's composed of people. Right. Not in the sense that the state can do no wrong. It's inerrant. It's infallible somehow. It's all knowing. No, that's not the state. And we're not supposed to be making sacrifices to it.

And, you know, the only exceptions are when it approves something. No, I'm sorry. They don't get to make those rules. And that's the real battle that we have in front of us, guys. I hope that clarifies it for you, because we are fighting over two religions.

COVID, Social Justice, and the Next Revolution

And if you don't see this with the COVID stuff, hopefully you see it with the social justice stuff. It's getting us to the same place. And if you if you've been watching over the last five years, six years, seven years, you'll notice every two or three years it switches.

It'll be the Me Too movement. Right. Then it'll be BLM, social justice. Then it'll be the current ailment and how they're using that. What will it be next? There's an advancement made. And in every single case, it's somehow it benefits those who want totalitarian authority over your life and they want to create some kind of a utopia or some kind of a just society here on Earth by destroying other hierarchies and redistributing privilege and power and money, et cetera.

That's what we got. That's what we're up against. And it's time we define who the enemy is and who's working with them. People, many of the writers at the Gospel Coalition are working with the enemy. Many of the celebrity pastors are working with the enemy, whether they know it or not.

They are fusing this mindset with Christianity. And it's a syncretized religion and it's downright wrong. And it's time someone said it. So I'm saying it. And I hope that clarifies some things for you and at least causes you to think about it some more.

So God bless. More coming next week. And some quick announcements. I got a lot of stuff. I feel like I'm at the precipice of so many big projects you're going to love. And look, those who give on Patreon, those who pray, I mean, you're making this possible.

Thank you so much. Lots of big I haven't even announced all of it, but there's a lot of big stuff. We're on the precipice. I think in the next month, the next month and a half especially, and certainly the next two months, you're going to see a bunch of big projects coming out that I've had that I've spent a lot of work on.

And I'm now talking about even other projects. In fact, I would encourage you, those who are giving, keep giving. I mean, I'm very efficient with what you give me, and it goes to the projects that I'm doing and this podcast and writing and curriculum and all the rest.

But there is an opportunity, and I think it'll either be early next year or it'll be the end of this year, but there will be some opportunity, I'm hoping. I started this process this morning with a 501c3 organization to do some documentary work.

So stay tuned for all that. Lots of announcements coming. I hope this was helpful to you. God bless, and enjoy your afternoon and your morning wherever you are by now.