Diversity, equity, inclusion, safe space, gender identity, my truth, LGBTQ+, gender pronoun, BLM, woke, divesting from whiteness, critical race theory…if you’ve never heard of these words before, I’m not sure if I should be completely over the moon elated for you or be asking you where you parked your spaceship? For most in today’s society, these particular words, which carry the weight of a fast growing religion, have become a significant part of their cultural lexicon. So ubiquitous have these ideologies become, they now dominate nearly every social media platform, website, news site and political arena in, what appears to be, the entire globe. Additionally, these ideologies have quickly become the benchmark in dictating how we, as a society, should interact with one another and how we should behave. Over the past few years, these humanistic morals have been introduced into our sublunary culture with such ferocity, nearly every facet of known society has now been inculcated by their presence; evangelical churches notwithstanding. This is a problem.
The problem lies not just in the ideologies themselves, but in the fact that professing Christians have been lulled into a false sense of security when it comes to inviting these worldly ideologies into their lives, their businesses, their schools, and The Lord’s church. They are of the distinct delusion that this river of deception will stay within its banks. It seems to me we have forgotten God’s Word. Have we forgotten our brother Paul’s words to the Believers at Corinth when he warned them a little leaven of the world in the church will ultimately infect the entire body? As a Church holy and set apart, we must reject carnal ideologies at every turn and under no circumstances can we use them as supplemental tools to augment the Scriptures. This is by far the biggest deception of all when it comes to human ideologies such as Critical Theory and Social Justice. We ignorantly underestimate the subtlety and cunning of the Prince of this world in which we live; being led to believe worldly ideologies can somehow be our friend.
1 Samuel chapter 8 recounts the time when Israel told the prophet Samuel they wanted an earthly king to rule over them. They had come to a place in their walk with God where they were no longer interested in the economy of God with judges and prophets. They wanted an earthly king to lead them so that they “may be like all the nations” [1 Sam 8:20 – ESV]. As a reminder, this decision by the nation of Israel to have a worldly king rule over them, comes after God single-handedly obliterates the most powerful political and military establishment on the planet; freeing the entire nation from a 430 year stint as slaves, miraculously sustains them through a forty-year trek across the desert, leads them into and bestow on them a rich and bountiful land, gives them multiple decisive war victories under the leadership of Joshua, and then makes them the most materially blessed an feared nation on the planet. And now, after the unsurpassed faithfulness of God, Israel is demanding an earthly king. The most striking part of this account is that even after God lays out for them the exact policies their future king would use to rule them and exactly what the outcome of such a decision would be; they still chose a worldly king over God. Listen carefully to what God has to say about the future of their nation once their earthly king has established his throne.
[H]e will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen and to run before his chariots. And he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants. He will take the tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and to his servants. He will take your male servants and female servants and the best of your young men and your donkeys, and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves.
1 Samuel 8:11b-18 ESV
I would ask you to read carefully once again the above passage and count how many times the word “he”, “his” and “himself” are used, how many ways Israel will be servants to the king, how much they must give up, and how much will be forcibly taken from them in order to be like the other nations. The lesson here is clear; we should not fool ourselves into believing that we, as children of the true King, can employ worldly standards and walk away unscathed. The passage of Scripture from 1 Samuel depicts beautifully, and in great detail, how Israel’s desire to be like the world will lead them back into the slavery from which they were once free. Once their earthly king had been fully matriculated into their society, virtually no part of their life would remain untouched by his authority. He would ultimately exercise his overreach and control their every move. This my friends is no different than what we are experiencing today. We believe we can embrace the carnal ways of the world in small doses and it will stop there. We believe we can include philosophies from some parts of Critical Theory and some parts of Social Justice and some parts of the LGBTQ community into our church and yet hold back the remaining tributaries of the river we don’t want; and we would be mistaken in that approach. As Believers, it is imperative we understand; humanistic dogma will never respect the boundaries of God as set forth by Scripture. His boundaries will always chaff against their carnality and rebellious ways.
For the last few years now, the world has been making a concerted effort by way of the “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” movement to convince us all that (among many other things) sexuality is nothing more than a social construct; that your gender, your sexual orientation is merely a product of societal norms which have been imposed on you since birth. They have attempted to persuade us all that sexual boundaries, as defined by God, are harmful and damaging. If a man believes he is woman and decides to dress like, behave like and project himself in every way as a women; we are being told that, not only is this behavior not abnormal, but instead we are being told to celebrate him as human being and accept this as his “natural” orientation and to treat him as though he is fully woman. As bizarre and irrational as it may sound to affirm someone in this kind of behavior, many, many Evangelicals are not only entertaining this thesis, but are full-on embracing it in the name of kindness and love. I want to remind us again, we are fooling ourselves if we believe movements like these will be content with boundaries. They respect no boundaries and have no rules. The appetite of darkness will never be satisfied until it has done all it can to invade and extinguish every molecule of truth there is.
Case in point: There is a video making its way across social media these days. The video was made by an Associate Professor at Old Dominion University who (as it appears) is promoting his new book and answering questions from viewers. In the video someone is asking him about his use of the acronym “MAP”. He addresses the question by explaining, and defending, why he uses the acronym MAPs, “Minor Attracted Persons”, in his book versus the term pedophile. As he explains in the video, he is advocating for the use of this term because it is “less stigmatizing” than labeling someone a pedophile. He is unapologetic in his attempt to normalize adult sexual attractions to children; as though this too is just another sexual orientation that should be explained and accepted, not something that should be rejected at all costs. As egregious as it may sound that someone could find public support in advocating for a brand of pedophilia, we should not be surprised. Why? Because we understand how sin and deceitfulness work. We understand sin has an appetite that will never be satiated; which is why we, as a body of Believers, must understand fully that we are engaged in a battle for Truth. But so long as we continue to acquiesce to humanistic philosophies in the name of kindness, more souls will be lost and a greater falling away will continue.
Deception is like a slow moving river that looks calm on the surface, but below is ravenously eroding away the banks which hold it; until the day comes when the river will no longer be contained, and it engulfs everything in its path. This is the danger in following the precepts of the world; they are subtle and crafty and will play on our desire to be compassionate. As Paul told Timothy, we will find these isms “having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.” It is time for us to awaken from our slumber and admit the philosophies of this world being proffered today, are not simply innocuous tenants helpful to mankind. They have purpose and they have teeth and should be taken seriously as enemies to the Gospel. There is no precedent which has ever been set, in the entirety of Scripture, whereby God’s people embraced the world and her philosophies in any proportion and did not fall into utter bondage. It has simply never happened.
Sanctuary and Stone 