Occasionally people ask my opinion on various personal or church issues. I recently received the following question which I have reprinted below, followed by my response.

QUESTION

Bob,

I read your blog post where you responded to the question, “Was the American Revolution in disobedience to what had been established by God?”  In that post you said that  evangelicals you know, who are involved in politics, do so because they are concerned about losing their rights.

In reality, there is no political or social movement trying to take away our rights. You and I and our families will always have the right to be pro-Life and practice Biblical marriage. The struggle is for “the others.” In other words, will we allow our neighbor to maintain their rights to abortion and same-sex marriage? While I am uncomfortable with it, I think it is wrong and ultimately an impediment to the Gospel to fight political battles over these issues. Christians should not judge the people who want these rights/freedoms as some unique group of evildoers. They are simple sinners, like you and me.

Suggesting they are servants or followers of the “one who comes to kill, steal, and destroy” is terrible for the ministry of Jesus. It suggests the Christian is somehow superior – and ultimately breeds an arrogance that is running rampant through American evangelicalism.  The magnitude of hypocrisy and the twisted amalgamation of patriotism, nationalism, and Christianity in the American church is repugnant. The church is becoming less and less credible as a place for seekers to find the truth.

You have an extremely high level of visibility and influence in the American church. I humbly ask you to use these gifts given to you by God as tools to teach and model unconditional love and acceptance of all people. Many of the Christians who look up to you need to know that you believe they should be spending their time loving people and letting God bring change in their lives when and how He sees fit; rather, than trying to legislate a Christian nation where people with differing views and different sins than ours are forced underground or out of town.

MY ANSWER

I responded to the above question by sharing a blog I wrote about this very subject on March 16, 2014.  My position remains the same, so I am sharing it again in its entirety below:

Should Christians Surrender the Cultural War?  *Originally published March 16, 2014.

God has entrusted us with the most outstanding nation in the history of the world.  The freedom, technology, and wealth of the United States of America have provided the opportunity for the gospel to be disseminated throughout the world.  For believers to have a cavalier attitude toward the moral freefall that threatens the future of our nation is not only spiritually naïve but is a terrible stewardship of the blessings that have been passed down to us.

Jesus warned His disciples that following Him would put them in conflict with the culture.  “If the world hates me, it will also hate you.”  “I did not come to bring peace but a sword.”  “I am sending you out as a sheep among wolves.”  “I will set father against son and… daughter-in-law against mother-in-law”.

That’s why our forefathers used to sing songs that were battle cries: “A Mighty Fortress is Our God;”  “Onward Christian soldiers marching as to war;”  “Stand up, stand up for Jesus you soldiers of the cross.” They understood that Jesus had not called them to a playground but a battlefield.  They took seriously the admonition of Paul to, “Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.”

In recent years, however, many churches have dropped all images of war in favor of a peace treaty with the world.  We speak of Jesus as the healer and leader but not Lord and King.  We shout grace and whisper repentance and make inordinate attempts to ingratiate our selves with those who oppose us.  We retreat into silence in the face of horrendous evil and hope it will all go away.

Do you suppose our children/grandchildren will one day ask us, “Where were you when America lost the cultural war?   What did you do when the world approved cohabitation, same-sex marriage, the proliferation of pornography, abortion on demand, and the teaching of evolution as the source of life in public schools?  Did you stand up and fight when the anti-God forces insisted on removing any reference to God and the Bible from the public arena?” How will we answer when those questions come?

Will we excuse our silence by saying, “We didn’t feel like it was our role to clean up the marketplace”? If that were God’s response in Jonah’s day, He would not have insisted that Jonah go to the pagan city of Ninevah and warn them to repent or be destroyed.  If Jeremiah had that philosophy, he would have been a popular prophet instead of winding up knee-deep in mud in a cistern.

Will we explain our failure to get involved by saying, “Our ultimate hope is to win people to Christ, so we focused on building up the church.” And,  “We didn’t want the church to have a negative image in the community, so we emphasized only what we’re for”?  If John the Baptist had that philosophy, he would never have confronted King Herod’s immorality and got himself beheaded.

Will we try to explain our passivity by saying, “I believed in the separation of church and state.  Christians should not get involved in political battles, so I remained neutral”? If that had been Jesus’ philosophy, he would never have said, “You are the salt of the earth,” or “blessed are you when men persecute you.”  If Dietrich Bonhoeffer had that philosophy, there would be no books haling him as a courageous Christian martyr for opposing Adolph Hitler.

Read the following passages of Scripture and ask yourself, “Am I standing for God’s truth with boldness, or am I cowering because I fear opposition?”

“Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”  (Deut. 31:6)

“Do not be afraid of what they say or terrified by them, though they are a rebellious house. You must speak my words to them, whether they listen or fail to listen, for they are rebellious. (Ezekiel 2:6-8)

“We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name,” he said. “Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us guilty of this man’s blood.”  Peter and the other apostles replied: “We must obey God rather than men!”  (Acts 5:28-29)

“Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.  (Ephesians 6:13)

Admittedly, it appears the cultural war is all but lost.  Unless the Lord intervenes through His return or the outpouring of His Holy Spirit in a dramatic revival, our civilization is heading for moral collapse.

However, our calling is not to surrender to the forces of darkness but to stand firm in the faith.  The rest is up to God – and with Him, all things are possible.  Besides, I’d like for my grandchildren to know that I had enough perception to see what was coming their way and enough love for them to courageously fight the good fight of faith.

“Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.”  (1 Cor. 4:2)

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