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Heresy of Evangelical Christians?
Most of my adult life I’ve been keenly aware of how the evangelical community has defended the Jews and Israel; I realize that this feeling is shared by many other Christian communities, but since the evangelical churches are under attack by their Progressive Christian brethren, I’m calling attention to them.
Signatories of the Boston Declaration covered in sackcloth and ashes. (Courtesy of Susan Thistlethwaite)
Recently I learned about one of the most blatant modern attacks on Christians by westerners that I’ve heard of, and I felt compelled to speak out.
Let me say first that I realize that every religion has had its internal conflicts; some of them have been deadly; others have simply been ugly; and still others have been encouraged by governments and politics. This latest struggle has been created by a group of Christian pastors and academics. They are attacking evangelicals as heretics, by distorting the beliefs and values of their co-religionists in a way that I believe is unconscionable and evil.
I heard about this organization when I was driving in the car, where I sometimes listen to NPR. The station was promoting a program called “The Three Wise Guys”—hosted by an imam, pastor, and a rabbi. Needless to say, they are all progressive. They were promoting an upcoming guest, the Reverend Doctor Sylvia Thistlethwaite, who would be on the program December 26. Since it has already aired, you can listen to the program here. She spoke about a major meeting, following the creation by two dozen people * of a document called The Boston Declaration; this is the opening of the declaration:
As followers of Jesus, the Jewish prophet for justice whose life reminds us to, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’ (Mark 12:31) we hear the cries of women and men speaking out about sexual abuse at the hands of leaders in power and we are outraged. We are outraged by the current trends in Evangelicalism and other expressions of Christianity driven by white supremacy, often enacted through white privilege and the normalizing of oppression. Confessing racism as the United States’ original and ongoing sin, we commit ourselves to following Jesus on the road of costly discipleship to seek shalom justice for the least, the lost, and the left out. We declare that following Jesus today means fighting poverty, economic exploitation, racism, sexism, and all forms of oppression from the deepest wells of our faith.
They formally introduced this document in Boston, MA:
The action by Christian theologians, who are grieving over the corruption of U.S. Christianity, took place outside a meeting in Boston, Mass., of the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature, the largest annual gathering of religious scholars and leaders in the U.S. In conjunction with the physical demonstration, the group of faith leaders and theologians launched The Boston Declaration at the Old South Church at 12:30 pm on Monday, November 20th. That church, established in 1669 and considered the “mother church” of Congregationalism in America, played a significant role in the American Revolution. From it, in 1773, Samuel Adams gave the signal that started the Boston Tea Party.
I was outraged by this statement. These Christians not only attacked evangelicals, but they tried to draw an association between their group and the American Revolution. They also tried to show a connection between the Barmen Declaration of 1934 when Christian theologians took a stand against Adolph Hitler’s control of the church. The inference was clearly intended to show a connection between today’s evangelicals and the Nazis.
They make no secret of the fact that their agenda is a political one:
‘We’re trying not to be dramatic,’ said Rev. Dr. Susan Thistlethwaite, teacher at the Chicago Theological Seminary and a spokesperson for the Declaration in an interview with People’s World, ‘but to bring some kind of repentance for conservative Christianity which has been hijacked by political hacks.’
Members of this group have committed to “interrogate” Democratic and Republican 2018 candidates regarding their concerns.
If you look at the Boston Declaration, you will find every Progressive issue listed, supposedly demonstrated by evangelicals: racism, sexism, empire building, homophobia, white supremacy and Islamaphobia, for starters. Ironically they criticize anti-Semitism while “standing with the plight for human rights with our Palestinian brothers and sisters.” Since they are essentially attacking any conservative Christian, whether the person considers himself or herself evangelical, all conservative Christians are targeted, and by extension, so are all conservatives.
I find this entire movement so detestable and hateful that I want my evangelical friends and Christians of any kind to know that this Jew cares about you, and I believe my statement applies to many others at Ricochet, whether they are religious or not.
What do you think of this group and the accusations they are making?
Published in Religion & Philosophy
Be kind to them. You and your wife met there, love blossomed, and a relationship grew. It proves God’s use of economy. Remember what makes the best fertilizer for roses? Well . . . a similar principle was at work there.
Seawriter
Isn’t this just a response to the https://cbmw.org/nashville-statement ?
They seem overly focused on race while Nashville is more about affirming God’s plan for biological sex and identity.
I would think they are more backlashing against evangelicals who would affirm the existence of separate and distinct nations and refuse to consider racism (as differentiated from white supremacy) as a heresy necessary for expulsion.
But I don’t know if there is any church that actually outright teaches that, so maybe I’m wrong on that, unless support for The Don is enough to trigger their reaction. Churches did do that.
Have you read any of Moore’s commentary on race? He is very theologically solid and espouses the idea that one’s politics should be subservient to one’s faith, which is the exact opposite of the Boston folks who will bend theology into any shape necessary to support their political ideology.
It would make more sense as a reaction to Roy Moore’s popularity, actually. Moore had difficulty dissociating himself from neo-Confederate and white supremacist groups, something which was noticed in purple prose such as the following:
Roy Moore did not become a folk hero among conservative Christians because of repugnant racial views or because he had ties to neo-Confederate organizations. No, Moore became the folk hero he became because he seemed like a brave everyman willing to stand up and say, aw shucks, he just loved the Ten Commandments so dang much, just like regular, America-loving Americans should!
That said, Roy Moore did have those ties to Southern fringe politics – for example, to the League of the South via longtime backer Michael Peroutka, and to the “Council of Conservative Citizens”, an innocuous-sounding name for a group that’s… well, this. (The news links are from 2015 sources, to take some heat off.)
Roy Moore’s supporters – if they knew of these ties to begin with – were of course eager to believe these ties didn’t really reflect what Moore stands for – certainly not what they stand for. Especially if you’re not an Alabaman, maybe you find it easy to believe such unsavory ties are simply the price of doing politics in a state with Alabama’s history. That is, if you know of the ties at all – which I bet most Christians who think of Moore as a good Christian don’t.
Still, those ties are there – and they’re ties that tend to confirm liberal Christians’ worst fears of conservative Christians. Heck, they’re ties that rightly make some conservative Christians nervous!
Fair point. However, I suspect the Boston Declaration group deliberately uses a broad brush to paint conservative evangelicals knowing full well most are simply guilty of holding less progressive views and not actual white supremacists.
Prophet for justice? Jesus plain flat said, “my father’s kingdom is not of this world”, “render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and unto God that which is God’s”, that in heaven “the last shall be first and the first shall be last”, and “the poor you will always have with you”. How could He have made it any plainer, that the world of man is inherently unjust, and always will be? Have these “Christians” never read the Bible? What a bunch of idiots!
As for this passel of rogues, “anyone who causes the least of these to stumble, it was better that he had a millstone around his neck.” What vermin!
Have you read books by Benjamin Berger and Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein? The former is a Messianic Jewish pastor in Jerusalem, the latter an Orthodox Rabbi and Founder of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. If you’ve not read their writings, I recommend them. We were grafted into Israel through Yeshuah- the root bears us, not the other way around.
@moleeye
This and groups with similar arguments amaze me in the same way. If Jesus himself never guided people to remold the government to take on redistribution, etc. then who are they to “improve” the original message? I realize Rome was not a democracy and that may help explain why Jesus did’t urge his followers throw themselves into mass rebellion and guaranteed persecution. Also “social” movements in the 17-1800s may have been ancestors to modern progressives and therefore the socially liberal mindset links itself with earlier marchers for workers’ rights, suffrage, etc. that seem clearly “righteous” in hindsight. They can even claim some positives like changes to child labor.
They just fail in never admitting that they have decided to “improve and expand” the original message with only a few clery as authority. And they never own the resulting loss of unity that comes from framing every good instinct as an excuse for religion to become political. They use religion to undermine the validity in their opponents. And they expand their position without restraint into a use of government at the first impulse for every problem, every time. So the sum total of state power grows without bounds since human problems always exist for them to use, while the foundations of religious understanding are diminished.
Some have forgotten, and many never knew that Jesus Himself said “My kingdom is not of this world.”
As with anything, a name can be subverted to serve nefarious ends. But true Christianity, real Christianity, is not and never has been, a political movement.
Yeah, thanks for drawing his name to our attention. I just read the piece on “interracial adoption” and it is right where we live and have lived since 2007. For that matter one paragraph, about making the church look more like the Kingdom of God than that of the world, has been a guiding part of our ministry in our marriage since it began.
This is an extremely important point. The word “politics” itself expresses a phenomena of external control, not internal enlightenment. If this external control reflects a democratic decision then it may be influenced by the Christianity extant in the people, but it is not Christianity. The Boston Declaration acts in support of Establishment of Religion. This is anti-constitutional and should be rejected by any clear thinking American.
I haven’t, but I shall add them to my Spring reading list (hopefully to get to around mid-May if all goes well…)
I read some of his stuff briefly when you linked it. What you linked still sounds like social justice.
I’ll give it a harder look. But with my gut reaction, I was hoping you’d provide some reasoning. I see I won’t get it.
I am very wary of anyone who conflates racism and white supremacy and, even, white nationalism and then claims racism is a heresy. I’ve heard that before. WS is heretical, racism is sinful, white nationalism is more complicated. Heresy should be removed from the church with prejudice. So claiming racism is a heresy carries implications I strongly disagree with, especially with the “modern” definition of racism.
The organizing meeting of the Society of Clear Thinking Americans will be held soon–but first we must locate a phonebooth.
SOCTA. I like it. Appropriately aggressive sounding.
I don’t know anything about this group, but we ran in to a lot of faux christian groups who were fronts for the communists during the cold war. I don’t know if our intelligence groups had information on them, but one had to assume they were working for the other side, because they seem to show up when the Cubans or Soviets were involved and quacked like the same ducks. Some of them were uncovered once we had access to Soviet archives. See George Weigel’s second biography of JPII. Too bad the archives were closed. All one needs to know is that they are not Christians, nor even a Christian heresy. They believe in historical materialism. It’s a funny thing about ex christians, perhaps even the Christian culture itself, they move more naturally and easily to marxism than regular folks. It fits the mind set. They have their own trinity– thesis, antithesis synthesis, their hierarchy of authority and historical narrative and a collective redemption. I’ve come to think that evil is a mirror image of the good.
There is so much that could be written about this subject. There is a contextual history that they are ignoring to the New Testament. Like the Zealots that were looking for a political messiah, they believe Jesus was a political messiah. This group is no different than most Liberation Theology proponents.
Liberation Theology has a long history, not just in Catholicism, but in Protestantism as well. The World Council of Churches brought Liberation Theology into the mainstream with a lot of help from the Russian Orthodox Church that was dominated by the KGB. Although the Catholic Church was not a member of the WCC, it became infected with LT as it spread throughout Latin and South America.
My first reaction upon reading this post were:
Yes, unfortunately, there are many.
That’s why this stuff is preached. It is the blind leading the blind.
Yes. Yes, there is.
I grew up in the same Episcopal Diocese that I currently am a member of. The Youth director of the diocese (when I was a youth) was my priest until somewhat recently. He ordained one of my peers. That peer buys the racial stuff that this group is pushing hook, line, and sinker.
I left that church because of it. I did what pushback I could while being respectful, but at a certain point, I needed to be taught, not do the correcting.
My diocese has been incredibly conservative, though I’m starting to think that has changed. We had an excellent bishop and I’m starting to think his retirement opened a door to this kind of teaching that puts me on edge.
Both sides accuse the other of bending theology to support their political ideology. Nothing new here….
I do not doubt your words/experiences, Stina. But still I am amazed. I just don’t understand how it’s possible to buy into this nonsense. I guess every society/organization has its fringe members but this one has nothing to do with true Christianity.
Two things, did not wikileaks provide emails involving Podesta about the need to infiltrate Christian organizations to, in the least, discredit them if they could not “convert” them? Does the Bible not warn of false servants/prophets that will use the Bible to sow seeds of evil? Ironically, one of the clues that the declaration was akin to satirical comedy, was the use of the word “prophetic” in the headline (see Ms. Quinn’s link in her post).
BTW, I also found the fact that the link provided by @susanquinn is to an admitted communist organization, laughable; it was the first clue and the best clue that the above is bogus “news” story. See the following from the peoplesworld.org own pages:
It’s all propaganda, nonsense. It matters not if the person spewing this nonsense puts on a hat, a cloak, a shawl, a collar or burlap. It matters not if persons spewing this nonsense labels themselves Christian, priest, sister, a member of a recognized religion or anything else that floats their boat. It simply isn’t, hasn’t, doesn’t and never will have anything to do with Christianity, except as an attempt to destroy it. And, the fact remains today as always, that nonsense is nonsense; evil is evil. By any and every name it remains the same.
In my opinion people need to stop bowing to the false gods and their propaganda. And stop giving legitimacy to false flag events; stop giving credibility to the purveyors of fakery.
This is an excellent point – liberal Christians really exist, they’re not merely a false flag operation, or virtue-signaling Progressives whose only mission is to put down conservatives and advance Progressive politics.
My own family and my in-laws are mostly conservative, but also mostly irreligious. So I find myself in the perhaps-unusual boat of having found it easiest to live most fully as a Christian when I was single and away from my family, especially at college, despite its being a mostly-liberal milieu. Students of high religiosity, whether liberal or conservative, worshiped together. Among teens and young adults, successfully delaying sex correlates pretty well with religiosity – and those who succeeded at my college weren’t politically (or denominationally) monolithic.
While I think I would have found marrying a liberal Christian (which I didn’t) more maddening than marrying a conservative agnostic (which I did), I cannot dismiss liberal Christianity as monolithically insincere – as utterly devoid of Christians genuinely interested in repentance and the traditional Christian virtues.
Not insincere, no. But lacking in rigorous, theological thought? Frequently. He went to seminary and still claims I know more about the Bible than he does, which I find really quite horrifying because I don’t know it as well as I should. Genuine liberal Christians are very sensitive to how they make people feel, which makes them highly susceptible to very shady rhetoric and faulty theology.
Religious colleges and seminaries have not been immune to more progressive instruction. Catholic and Protestant churches have some increasingly left-leaning ministers/priests whose politics informs their faith. For the left-leaning of genuine faith that translates to viewing government as a means of ‘helping’ the needy. Somewhere along the line they missed that God’s commands are to individuals exercising their free will, not governments in civil authority over them.
Wow. As if any more proof were necessary, this first sentence proves how deeply the SJW worms have penetrated the rotting corpse of mainline Protestantism, and how long and how well they have dined.
First, these clowns demote Jesus from Son of God to “prophet for justice.” Then they reduce His life to a “reminder” that “Love thy neighbor” should be taken (by woke folks like themselves) as a directive to be “outraged” at sex harassment by politicians.
Let’s make a movie and call it Invasion of the Church Snatchers.
In case you are not aware Mr. Gunner, Susan Quinn is not a SJW, nor is she a Christian Protestant. She is a Jew as am I and thus we cannot call their Jesus a “savior” and the son of “g-d.” so the best we can manage is to suggest he is their prophet. They do follow his teachings which by the way came from Jewish scripture, as he was a Jew.
Beautifully pressed, organic, handwoven, sackcloth with a slight whiff of the Klan underneath the lavender water laundry spray.
The ashes will be biochar of course..