In 1947, Carl Henry, a key theological shaper of 20th century evangelicalism, warned post-World War II believers that “historic Christianity risked losing cultural influence because of the church’s hesitancy to apply the gospel to ‘pressing world problems.’” Evangelicals were withdrawing from the public square, retreating into their churches instead of engaging culture. David Closson writes, “Henry encouraged Christians to engage the public square by applying the fundamentals of their faith to the full range of issues to which the gospel speaks – including government and politics.”
Even into the 1950s, the Supreme Court made decisions with the argument that America was a “Christian nation.” For more than sixty years, however, two movements aggressively pushed biblical principles and intelligent biblical reasoning to the periphery of the public square. These movements are secularism, which means living life without acknowledging God, and the sexual revolution. Both fronts shared an opposite view of reality than biblical Christianity. And both movements worked to minimize the church’s influence in just about every area of public life: education, entertainment, the media, business and government.
In my lifetime, I’ve seen politics move largely from
the arena of policy issues to that of moral and spiritual matters. In most of
the twentieth century, both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party
shared a basic, common worldview. To compare party platforms for many decades,
you would find a common basic understanding about fundamental matters. However,
in the twenty-first century, a massive shift occurred in worldview between
parties, as the Democratic Partly largely embraced both secularism and the
sexual revolution.
Albert Mohler says, “Secularization, just
sociologically defined, is the decline of the influence of religion, but in the
case of the United States, of historic Christian theism in the culture. And so
that means that the message preached by evangelical Christians and other Orthodox
communities of faith is more out of step with the direction of the culture than
would have been the case in the 1950s. In the 1950s, the leadership of the [church]
and the leadership of the United States and Congress or corporate America or
all of us would have been seen as part of the same world. That’s not so much
the case now.”
Today, instead of the church having a robust biblical
and practical theology about influencing the culture, Christians often adopt
the lie thought in public, “It’s not polite to talk about religion and
politics.”
Adolf Hitler used a similar strategy. In the 1930s, he
knew in order to advance his agenda, he must control the German church. By fear
and intimidation, the Nazis scared the clergy into not speaking out about
Hitler’s regime. At first people didn’t want to believe the “conspiracy
theories.” Finally, by the time good people realized what was actually
happening, most were too afraid to rock the boat. A few pastors and Christians,
like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, realized that to be faithful to God meant to speak
out against the Nazi party and Hitler.
Angel Studios will release in theaters on Thanksgiving
Day a movie called Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin. I encourage you to
view it as well as read Eric Metaxas’ companion books, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy and Letter to the American Church. Metaxas
believes Bonhoeffer should serve as a model for Christians living in Western
culture. He says, “Silence is not an option. God calls us to defend the unborn,
to confront the lies of cultural Marxism, and to battle the globalist tyranny
that crushes human freedom. Confident that this is His fight, the Church must
overcome fear and enter the fray, armed with the spiritual weapons of prayer,
self-sacrifice, and love.”
Today we’re told it’s good for a Drag Queen to hold a
children’s story hour, a biological man wearing panty hose and taking hormones
really is a woman, we’re wrong to insist on border laws, babies can be aborted
into the ninth month, parents should have no authority if their children want
to “transition” to another gender, and patriotism is a bad thing.
Politics has moved full-force into the realm of moral
and spiritual issues. When politics simply deals with policy prescriptions not
requiring a biblical moral judgment, the church as an organization is wise to
not make official statements. However, when politics seeks to prescribe,
influence, and control areas that clearly move into biblical moral and
spiritual judgments, the church – and Christians and pastors – are not being
faithful to our calling if we do not speak with clarity into the public square.
The German church in the 1930s kept silent in the face
of blatant evil. Bonhoeffer and a remnant of Christians, however, realized that
obedience meant standing up to cultural Marxism and opposing the Nazis.
In the 1800s, many churches in England and the USA
were reluctant to speak out publicly against slavery. They didn’t want to get
involved in politics! Some brave abolitionists arose, like William Wilberforce,
who spent decades in the British Parliament working to overturn the slave
industry. In the 1960s in the American South, many Christians and churches
refused to get their hands dirty and rock the boat by speaking out about Jim Crow
laws. A few faithful ones like Billy Graham and Martin Luther King, Jr., paved
the way for the Civil Rights movement.
May we learn the lesson from courageous believers like
Bonhoeffer, who said, “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. God will not
hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act."
Click here to find out more about the Bonhoeffer movie.
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