“If this feels overwhelming and scary, well, it is. You’re being bombarded with progressive pastors and leftist think-tanks (the ERLC) that are daily working to subvert commonly held Christian ethos in order to invent a type of Christianity that is more palatable and culturally relevant. They’re using the subversion of the English language to do it.”
By Ian Franklin
No one ever believes they’re on the wrong side of a war – that they’re the devil’s minions. That’s kind of how the whole deception works. You’re always the hero of the war you wage.
In the famous Mitchell and Webb comedy skit that has been turned into multiple animated GIFs, it depicts two Nazi soldiers at base having a discussion about the skull emblems on their Nazi uniforms. Though they were fighting the Russian communists, who were well – communists, one Nazi asked his fellow Nazi, because of their choice of skulls as their war symbol, “Are we the baddies?”
Progressive Christians, are you the baddies?
Through a grandiose linguistic cat and mouse game, the Progressive Christians influence by sort-of communicating their position on an issue but in an intentionally cryptic way that’s wrapped in a moral-esque platitude. Then when the dreaded discernment blogger tries to decrypt that cipher, they’re accused of slander. Achievement unlocked.
A great showcase of the tactic described is a set of articles on Christianity Today.
Christianity Today, during Trump’s impeachment, showcased an article titled “Trump Should Be Removed from Office”. This incendiary article that created a likely beneficial division among evangelicalism, was released by a man named Mark Galli. Mark Galli served at CT for twenty years, seven of them as the editor-in-chief.
To sum up Galli’s article, he argued “That he [Trump] should be removed, we believe, is not a matter of partisan loyalties but loyalty to the Creator of the Ten Commandments”
If I told you that he had his own book coming out shortly after the release of that article, would you be surprised? Of course not.
So, Christianity Today, now capitalizing on the positive effect the article had on their bottom line, is currently showcasing a set of articles under the series name “The Table: On King and Country”
The premise of the series it to illuminate the political positions of seven writers – one of whom communicates that they’ll vote to re-elect Trump as an act of conscience (T. Ellio Gaiser) and the other six, either begrudgingly communicate they may vote for Trump or will opt out at the very least for sake of conscience so-called.
In the showcase, the infamous KSP has an article that we’ve previously deciphered here. (hyperlink)
In one article titled: “Breaking Out of the White Evangelical Echo Chamber” the writer John Inazu suggest white humans:
“…going to nonwhite spaces and institutions to learn and to experience the discomfort of a cultural baseline that is not your own.”
“Step outside of your comfort zones and partner in common-ground causes with progressive and mainline Christians”
“…Stand up against bullying of LGBT people.”
“Look for opportunities to seek counsel from and promote women rather than avoiding them because of the Billy Graham Rule or the Mike Pence Rule.”
(I guess it’s time for Mike Pence to schedule that candlelight dinner with Beth Moore)
In doing these Progressive Christian things, John suggests it will:
“ …move you closer toward the example of Jesus, who stepped into messy and uncertain spaces with people who were different from him.”
So just step right into those uncertain spaces (likely safe spaces). Seek counsel from women and spend time alone with them when no one is looking. To do otherwise is bigoted and insular. That’s what this writer’s form of Christianity requires. Show yourself approved after all.
Look at the virtue signaling terms you’ll get. Words like: “Echo Chamber, uncertain spaces, cultural baseline, progressive, LGBT (the Palladium of buzz words), promoting of women”. I’m feeling virtuous already.
In another article in the King and Country series titled “Politics Is Not a Test of Fellowship”, Andrew T. Walker proceeds to try to razzle dazzle you into accepting that what a person believes should not be considered a qualifier for the company they keep. Politically speaking, of course.
The writer equates the “judgment-casting” of conservative Christians against leftist Christians voting for Pete Buttigieg and his beloved party of infanticidal transgender day cares to one Christian judging another over being a vegetarian (His articles closes quoting Romans 14:1)
Think this is just exaggeration? Walker states “We need to honor freedom of conscience” when it comes to voting in this current political climate and then proceeds to invoke the concept of ethical triage, thereby relegating the unconscionable evils of the Democratic platform to the second and third tiers of the beloved triage.
On a Christian’s choosing of one political affiliation over another he writes that he “respect[s] both and refuse to see either as reasons to throw stones.”
He elaborates on his feelings on the impeachment “I don’t have strong opinions on whether impeachment was justified. Likewise, I did not have strong reactions to the position Christianity Today took on impeachment.”
To him, it all comes down to:
“Diverging political urgencies compel competing visions for Christian political witness.”
Through linguistic meandering and the Tetris like stacking of multi-syllabic words, the writer leaves you with the distinct impression that you’ve just read something profound, you just don’t know what exactly it was.
So you must respect those with “Diverging political urgencies” or else it’s considered “judgment-casting” (Is “judgment-casting” similar to “word violence?”)
The above are examples of the game of language that the Progressive Christians play in order to manipulate and create some kind of collective pseudo-conscience that you now must yield to. The political left, by using their acceptable lexicon of language to shift the Overton window, do the same.
Through the invention of new terminology with express intent to soften language, progressive Christianity is making its mark on Evangelicalism.
Don’t want to be unequally yoked with unbelievers? You’re sacrificing “relational beauty”.
Feel morally compromised when being asked to inform your cross-dressing Uncle Buck where “she” can find “her” straight razor in the ladies room? You’re not using “pronoun hospitality.”
Ever heard of “uni-heterosexuality”? Well, guess what, Christian? The Progressive Christians are now making a case that your heterosexuality is too a result of the fall. Now kindly scoot down in the pew a smidge and let The Mr. Buttigiegs’ have a seat.
If this feels overwhelming and scary, well, it is. You’re being bombarded with progressive pastors and leftist think-tanks (the ERLC) that are daily working to subvert commonly held Christian ethos in order to invent a type of Christianity that is more palatable and culturally relevant. They’re using the subversion of the English language to do it.
To achieve this great leap forward, your Christianity must be destroyed.
The bible college student of today that’s being fed a helping of cultural Marxist intersectionality with a dash of CRT and dollop of Social Justice by their Progressive Christian professor is the local church pastor of tomorrow – a pastor that for year upon year, was fed a diet of pseudo-moral concepts sprinkled with words designed to shift the Overton window. They’re taught to use word modifiers that can be tacked on to immutable biblical truths that have been indisputable since Paul appealed to Timothy to “contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.”
To all the little people in Christian fly over country, of which I am one, we must reject the word salad of Marxist Progressive Christianity that seek to refashion your mind and subvert your home.
Progressive Christianity is trying to gild the lily of God’s Words by the constant nuancing of spiritually discernible truths that God gives children the wisdom to understand. Through this Pharisaical piling on of nuanced complexity, they seek to make their ability to decode their own lexicon unexpendable.
“Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.
He said to the woman, “Did God actually say…?”
For the snakebite of Progressive Christianity, polemics is your antivenom.
Research
Progressive (Social Justice) “Christianity”
Republished with Pulpit & Pen‘s permission.