In their zeal to defeat liberalism and to bring a modicum of sanity back to America, Christian Right leaders joined forces with those who profess to know and serve God but who are in fact wolves in sheep’s clothing. As a result, the Christian Right is teaming with wolves.
By Marsha West (First published 3/24/15)
Religious Right, Christian Right, religious conservatives, “values voters” and evangelicals are a few of the titles given to the social and or political groups that wish to hang on to the “traditional family values” (TFV) that are passed on from one generation to the next. These values are defined as “the moral and ethical principles traditionally upheld and transmitted within a family, [such as] honesty, loyalty, industry, and faith.” How they go about this maintenance effort varies drastically. The most radical of these believe they have a mandate from God to occupy all secular institutions and dominate the political process until Christ returns. Unfortunately many evangelicals are participating in this seemingly godly effort, unaware of what’s going on behind the scenes. They’re blindly following Christian Right (CR) leaders down some very dangerous paths.
All In The Family
TFV has its roots in the Bible and is derived from the Ten Commandments. So for Christians there’s nothing wrong with having a desire to hang on to family values, especially when it comes to adopting ethical principles taught in Scripture. In our post-modern culture, however, a growing number of liberal Americans are moral relativists. For these folks there are no moral absolutes and culture, not the Bible, determines right from wrong.
The moral free fall America’s now in stems from the culture war of the 1960s. Expressions such as “anything goes” “if it feels good do it” “sex, drugs and rock and roll” describe the mind-set of the hippie generation. The counter culture movement grew legs in the 1960’s, sprinted into the 21st Century, and continues to gain momentum to this day. The 60’s revolution was actually America’s rebellion against the God of the Bible. Unfortunately much of what was generated then lives on today. I’ll touch on that in a moment.
The problem isn’t with the folks who care about TFV; it lies with some—not all–of the organizations that are fighting on the front lines of the culture war battlefield. In their zeal to defeat liberalism and to bring a modicum of sanity back to America, the CR joined forces with outright heretics, blurring the line that separates orthodoxy from heresy. At one time evangelical was used to differentiate Protestantism from Roman Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity.
In today’s culture evangelicals are identified with far right Republicans. It is true, this might be an accurate comparison for some, but by definition an evangelical is a believer who holds that Scripture is the infallible, inerrant, inspired Word of God and the authority by which they live their lives; likewise evangelicals believe in the Trinity, the deity of Christ, what the Bible says about sin, and of course salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. (Ephesians 2:8) In other words, evangelicals held to the fundamentals of the faith. They shared the Gospel of Christ with the lost as they were commanded to do. (Matthew 28:18–20; Acts 1:8, 1 Peter 3:15) They believed that people are dead in their sins and in need of a Savior. As I implied, for some self-professed evangelicals, these actions are no longer part of their mandate. I say self-professed, mainly because the name evangelical has been hijacked by liberals who say they’re Christians even though they reject many of the fundamentals of the faith. Liberals would never “push their religious views” on someone else. You might ask why they choose not to share the gospel. From their point of view, Christians don’t have a personal responsibility to share their faith because they believe it’s possible for the Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, etc., to remain in his/her religion and still be saved. My point is, when someone says they’re an evangelical in today’s world, it doesn’t really tell you anything.