If we have our eyes open then we cannot help but notice what is going on around us. Fervent, religious passion. Secularism has shown that it can be quite puritanical. Zealots. I thought they said all that religious war stuff was bad for society?
We are discovering that religion is inescapable. Everyone has a god. And everyone has a law. And everyone has a way of determining who is just and who is unjust. Makes sense. You either bow to King Jesus or rage against Him.
“Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The king’s of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against his Anointed” (Psalm 2:1-2).
The question is a good one. Why do they rage? Well… because King Jesus kicks over their gods leaving them headless and prostrate in the dirt. Why do they rage? Because God Almighty does not take them seriously–“He who sits in the heavens laughs; the LORD holds them in derision” (Psalm 2:4).
When Christ is truly preached there is always a collision of kingdoms. So it was in Thessalonica as they ran Paul out of town. So it was in Ephesus where they rioted in reply to the gospel. So it was in Jerusalem when Paul simply would not sooth the Jewish mob and council with a little bit of compromise. These hostilities occurred because there were other gods in Thessalonica, Ephesus, and Jerusalem. There were laws contrary to the law of Christ. There was forgiveness of sin that came not through the blood of Christ. “How dare the apostles preach contrary to our beliefs, customs, laws, traditions, man-made religion? Who do they think they are?”
And so it is with us today. Nothing has changed and we are having the wool pulled over our eyes if we think things have. Where do we see these gods currently? Consider the raging of the nations:
Male wins gold in women’s cycling. And not only does he win, but the biological females who won silver and bronze must wave, happily so, showing no sign of confusion. Display no bewilderment, if you do, you will be taken off to sensitivity training never to show your face in public again. Pretend this is normal… totally normal. All those who do not bow the knee to sexual perversion will be thrown in the fiery furnace, heated extra hot.
In wake of school policy to permit boys to bathroom with girls and girls with boys, 5 year old girl assaulted in bathroom by boy. Should the school admit fault? Negligence? Responsibility? Absolutely not. How could they? To do so would be heresy. Let them rather send DCF to the mother’s house. Can the school make any guarantees of protection in the future to the parent of this abused girl? None. How could they? Such a guarantee would transgress no mere policy, but the divine law of the current false gods.
May Bono pressured into resigning for striking out Nike shoes. Bono transgressed a law. She sinned against a god. And sin has consequences. Secularisms rigidity will not permit such declarations when they run roughshod over its divine commandments.
So the nations rage. Religion is at a fever-pitch in 21st century America. We’ve got false gods. False commandments. And false ways of getting right with the false gods, the most certain avenue of atonement being the bloody sacrifice of a child down at Planned Parenthood.
Yet, the great problem is that many evangelicals don’t see the zeal of God’s enemies. They have neglected Psalm 2, Psalm 110 and many other passages. They think, “What’s the big deal. That’s just the way things are. Everyone knows the bathroom policy is not going to change. Take it easy, things aren’t as sexually sordid as they were in Corinth big guy. And come on, everyone knows you cannot black out Nike shoes in this climate.”
We have been made soft. We read Paul’s reply to the high priest who struck him, “God’s going to strike you, you whitewashed wall” (Acts 23:3)! Then we think, “He really should have turned the other cheek.”
Rather than speaking the truth to our nation and suffering like the apostles, “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way” (Psalm 2:12), we find ways to mix our religion with theirs under the guise of niceness.
Evidence? Ligonier’s recent State of Theology study found that 51% of evangelicals agree that “God accepts the worship of all religions.”
It is no surprise then that we see the mixing of Christianity with the false religions of our time. Like Beth More recently calling a man Christlike who was on his knees asking women for forgiveness… for wrongs done to them by other men. While Christians forgive because of Christ on the cross, these ladies are trained to forgive because a man is on his knees. A man mind you who has not wronged them personally yet asks for their forgiveness. That’s a #MeToo atonement.
But I repeat, many believers are not seeing the lay of the land and equate resistance to the false worship of our day with no drinking or dancing American fundamentalism. A fundamentalism that does not care for the oppressed.
Oh if our only problem were some Christians who did not care about the oppressed. What a glorious day that would be! We rather have a steady luke-warming of the church. We have a pruning of the church. We may even be seeing an attempt to syncretize the faith. But there is a remnant who “have not bowed the knee to Baal” (1 Kings 19:18).