Source: Wikipedia

Here’s How the New Christian Left is Twisting the Gospel

on March 9, 2015

Peek behind the curtain of some “progressive” or “hip” evangelical churches, past the savvy technology and secular music, and you will find more than just a contemporary worship service. You’ll find faith leaders encouraging young evangelicals to trade in their Christian convictions for a gospel filled with compromise. They’re slowly attempting to give evangelicalism an “update”—and the change is not for the good.

It’s painful for me to admit, but we can no longer rest carefree in our evangelical identity—because it is changing. No doubt you have seen the headlines declaring that evangelicalism is doomed because evangelical kids are leaving the faith. It is no secret that there is an expanding gulf between traditional Christian teachings and contemporary moral values. But the sad truth is that the ideological gulf between America’s evangelical grown-ups and their kids, aka the “millennials,” seems to be widening too.

Somehow the blame for this chasm is being heaped on traditional churches. They are accused of having too many rules as well as being homophobic and bigoted. Yes, we’ve heard those false claims from popular culture in its desperate attempt to keep Christianity imprisoned within the sanctuary walls. But now popular culture is being aided by Christ-professing bedfellows whose message to “coexist,” “tolerate” and “keep out of it” is more marketable to the rising generation of evangelicals.

The seasoned Christian soldiers are noticing these distortions of the gospel. But for young evangelicals, the spiritual haze is harder to wade through. Desperate for acceptance in a fallen world, many young evangelicals (and some older ones) choose not to take Christ out of the chapel, and so they are unwittingly killing the church’s public witness. In this uphill cultural battle, mired by scare tactics and fear, three types of evangelical Christians are emerging:

  • Couch-potato Christians: These Christians adapt to the culture by staying silent on the tough culture-and-faith discussions. Typically this group will downplay God’s absolute truths by promoting the illusion that neutrality was Jesus’ preferred method of evangelism.
  • Cafeteria-style Christians: This group picks and chooses which Scripture passages to live by, opting for the ones that best seem to jive with culture. Typically they focus solely on the “nice” parts of the gospel while simultaneously and intentionally minimizing sin, hell, repentance and transformation.
  • Convictional Christians: In the face of the culture’s harsh admonitions, these evangelicals refuse to be silent. Mimicking Jesus, they compassionately talk about love and grace while also sharing with their neighbors the need to recognize and turn from sin.

I know about these three types of Christians because at one time or another I have fallen into each of these three categories. My parents will tell you that even though I was raised in church, I morphed into a full-fledged feminist, told my parents they were ignorant for not endorsing homosexuality and bought into the distorted social justice rhetoric that confuses caring for the poor with advancing socialist or big government systems and demonizing the United States for its free market system.

I’m not ashamed to share my story because my experiences and those of my fellow bold evangelicals are a testimony of God’s awesome, transforming power. Being countercultural for Christ isn’t easy. What does the Great Commission say? Jesus commanded us to go, “teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:20).

Where Did We Go Wrong?

I see so many parents scratching their heads trying to figure out where they went wrong with young evangelicals. Following the instructions of Proverbs 22:6—”Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it”—many evangelical parents took their children to church and prayed with them every night before bed. Yet the values those children now hold dear do not reflect the traditional teachings of Jesus.

To be perfectly clear, I want to let you know upfront that this isn’t a parenting how-to guide that, if followed, will lead your loved ones to salvation. Instead, what I can offer you is a glimpse into the world of a twenty-something who sees thousands of young evangelicals being spiritually and emotionally targeted on Christian university campuses, in college ministries and at churches nationwide by a growing liberal movement cloaked in Christianity.

Research tells us that evangelicals are drifting further away from the orthodox truths their parents and grandparents held dear.

Our churches have rarely—if ever—faced the exodus we are seeing today. This will have a direct effect on the spiritual and moral values that will shape the nation in the coming years. That is why it is urgent that concerned Christians start acting now before the situation gets worse.

The Collision of Faith and Culture

Faith and culture will continue to collide in America. The culture wars, the growth of family, the success of missions, the prosperity of our great nation—the future rests on millennial evangelicals’ worldview. And that is cause for concern, because something has gone wrong with young evangelicals’ theology.

The millennial generation’s susceptibility to “feel-good” doctrine is playing a big part in America’s moral decline. Millennials’ religious practices depend largely on how the actions make us and others feel, whether the activities are biblical or not. For example, we only attend churches that leave us feeling good about our lifestyle choices, even if those choices conflict with God’s clear commandments. We dismiss old hymns that focus on God’s transforming salvation, love and mercy and opt for “Jesus is your boyfriend” songs. Or we contribute to nonprofits that exploit and misuse terms such as justice, oppressed and inequality because tweaking the language makes us feel more neutral, less confrontational.

Popular liberal evangelical writers and preachers tell young evangelicals that if they accept abortion and same-sex marriage, then the media, academia and Hollywood will finally accept Christians. Out of fear of being falsely dubbed “intolerant” or “uncompassionate,” many young Christians are buying into theological falsehoods. Instead of standing up as a voice for the innocent unborn or marriage as God intended, millennials are forgoing the authority of Scripture and embracing a couch potato, cafeteria-style Christianity all in the name of tolerance.

This contemporary mindset is what Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian whose Christian convictions put him at odds with the Nazis and cost him his life, called “cheap grace.” In his book The Cost of Discipleship Bonhoeffer wrote: “Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”

Right now cheap grace theology is proliferating around evangelical Bible colleges, seminaries and Christian ministries.

Christian Doctrine Hijacked

It is not that millennial evangelicals were not taken to church by their parents. It is that their training has been hijacked by ineffective and sometimes intentionally distorted doctrine.

As constant and pervasive as the attacks on Christianity are at public universities, it is important to remember that millennials’ worldviews do not start taking shape after they move out of their parents’ houses. Their understanding of Jesus’ teachings and cultural convictions begin to form while they are still at home and under the influence of their local church.

What I hope and pray evangelical parents and leaders come to realize is that the church has been too trusting. In our jampacked lifestyles, parents have treated Sunday school as they do softball or ballet class—drop off the kids for an hour then pick them up and hope they learned something.

Early on in my Sunday school teaching days, my co-teacher and I followed the curriculum pretty narrowly, the exception being that my co-teacher had an outstanding knowledge of biblical history that he imparted to the kids.

We taught all about Jesus’ birth, resurrection and saving grace. Thinking the fluffy kids ministry curriculum covered all of the necessary bases, I felt confident these kids had a firm grasp on their Christian worldview. Boy, was I wrong!

One day my co-teacher and I decided to play “True or False.” We casually went down a list of worldview questions with our class, sure that our little evangelicals would nail every question correctly.

No. 1: Jesus is God. “True.” Great job.

No. 2: Jesus sinned. “False.” Bingo!

No. 3: Jesus is one of many ways to heaven. “True.” What?!

Shocked is the only way to describe how I felt. Hadn’t they been listening to us? When I asked who taught them that, one girl said, “Coexist.” Yes, these young evangelicals had been listening to their Sunday school teachers and their parents, but they had also been listening to their public school teachers, TV celebrities and rock stars.

Youth ministers, volunteer leaders and pastors also have to start preparing these kids to deal with the very real hostility that faces young evangelicals.

If we never talk about abortion in church, how can we expect the rising evangelical girl to calmly explain the option of adoption to her frightened best friend who just admitted she is pregnant?

What will surprise you is how much young evangelicals actually crave honest discussions about abortion, sexuality, sexual exploitation, feminism and radical Islam. My friend and Evangelical Action adviser Richmond Trotter has two non-negotiable topics when addressing youth: creation and life. Having volunteered in church youth ministry since 1996, Richmond is not afraid to have serious discussions about what Scripture says about abortion, evolution and homosexuality. Make no mistake: The trend away from biblical truth is not concentrated in the hipster city limits. It is unfolding in the crevices of America’s plains, hills, mountains and swamplands. All across this nation, “old-fashioned” conservative evangelicalism is being traded in for a bright and shiny, mediocre Christianity.

If America’s evangelicals disengage from the public square and fail to engage the rising generation of Christian leaders, then we risk losing our public voice, then our religious liberty, then liberty altogether.

What Happened to the Religious Right?

The last several decades witnessed tremendous evangelical influence in the United States. Leaders such as Billy Graham, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Tim and Beverly LaHaye, Paige and Dorothy Patterson, James Dobson, and James and Betty Robison made a bold impact on America’s families, churches and government. Now that those few leaders are aging or retiring, or have died, there are very few traditional evangelical leaders left holding the torch and even fewer candidates to whom they can pass it.

But religious convictions in America are not on the verge of disappearance just yet. There is still hope. In the book God Is Alive and Well: The Future of Religion in America, Gallup Inc. Editor-in-Chief Frank Newport ensures: “Christianity will prevail in the U.S. America will remain very much a Christian nation in the decades ahead, albeit less so than in the past because of an increase in Americans who don’t have a religious identity.”

Heed the Warning Signs

Evangelicals and culture warriors in the U.S. do not have to look far to discover what happens when Christian denominations give up on their traditional convictions and teachings. All we have to do is look at the dwindling memberships of mainline Protestant denominations.

In order to safeguard the trajectory of young evangelicals, we must uphold the authoritative Word of God. It is imperative that those in a position to influence millennials have transparent and honest discussions about the culture wars evangelical youth are already engaging. Otherwise they will be silent and accepting in the face of persecution and false doctrine.

The importance of arming the next generation of evangelicals cannot be overstated. If we continue to follow the example of mainline Protestants, evangelicalism will have a gloomy future. We must offer sorely needed leadership, but before we can do that, we need to know exactly whom and what we are up against.

Editor’s note: The original version of this article was published by Charisma Magazine. You can view it here.

  1. Comment by John Thomson on March 9, 2015 at 6:49 pm

    The first Christian sermon, found in Acts 3, concludes with this punchline: “Save yourselves from this crooked generation” (2:40). That is what “preaching the gospel” means, in a nutshell. We weren’t called to go out and tell our friends “You’ll just LOVE our music program!” or “We put on a fabulous Christmas pageant!” Nothing wrong with good music or Christmas pagents or no-alcohol parties for our kids or sponsoring a clean-up on the local bike path. But as the article points out, many of the “evangelical” churches are taking the path of the mainlines, too embarrassed to say the word “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” If Christianity isn’t about getting rid of your sins and getting right with God and loving God more than you love the applause of your non-religious friends, then it’s a faux faith.

  2. Comment by yolo on March 9, 2015 at 10:05 pm

    Where does this leave reformation at 500? Gone in the Netherlands, Gone in Scandinavia, Gone in Switzerland, Gone in Germany, Gone in the UK, and in the near future Gone in the United States. It will be interesting to watch how reformation evolves in the non-European world. The most fascinating thing about what is happening in France right now is that young people there are actually turning back to the Catholic Church and rejecting the post-1960s cultural Marxism of their parents and grandparents. That was the first European country where legal recognition of homosexual marriage generated mass protest, with something like a million or two million people taking to the streets.

  3. Comment by dogged on March 10, 2015 at 1:10 pm

    Your post prods me to add my own testimony:
    Long before the hip leadership of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) took upon themselves to redefine orthodox sexual mores, I departed the ELCA, the church body that had baptized, confirmed and frankly imparted me with a catholic [small c] understanding of the Christian faith. Since the swinging 60s the once Christ-centered ELCA marketed itself as a prophetic sounding board for the leftist policies of the Democrat Party. Nuclear disarmaments & freezes, women’s “reproductive health” issues , racial & ethnic quotas, a zealous LGBT advocacy, open borders, redistribution of wealth, political correctness run amuck —-You name it and they were out there painting a pious veneer onto some very thorny secular movements. Jesus morphed into some sort of barefoot Marxist hawking “social justice”.
    But the membership of Liberal Protestant bodies is in a stampede—right out the door. Bad karma perhaps?

  4. Comment by yolo on March 10, 2015 at 5:17 pm

    My great great great grandparents were German Lutheran and Luxembourg Catholic. I was actually kind of amazed since that was the mid-1800’s. But it really isn’t all that surprising. If Luther was alive today, would he actually be Lutheran? Okay, there are the Missouri and Wisconsin synods.

  5. Comment by M Didaskalos on March 11, 2015 at 6:18 am

    A former ELCA pastor confirms your assessment of the Church of We Judge the Bible, the Bible Dare Not Judge Us:

    http://www.elcatoday.com/witness-stone-blog/the-elca-is-a-political-and-social-activist-group-with-a-specific-cultural-agenda

    And were Martin Luther alive today, he’d sue the ELCA for misappropriation of his name.

    “. . . Here then we have these two, the faith and the Gospel, that these and nothing else are to be preached throughout Christendom. Let us now see who are to be the preachers and who the learners. The preachers are to be angels, that is, God’s messengers, who are to lead a heavenly life, are to be constantly engaged with God’s Word that they under no circumstances preach the doctrines of men. It is a most incongruous thing thing to be God’s messenger and not to further God’s message. Angelus means a messenger, and Luke calls him God’s messenger (Angelus Domini). The message also is of more importance than the messenger’s life. If he leads a wicked life, he only injures himself, but if he brings a false message in the place of God’s message, he leads astray and injures every one that hears him, and causes idolatry among the people in that they accept lies for the truth, honor men instead of God, and pray to the devil instead of God.

    “There is no more terrible plague, misfortune or cause for distress upon earth than a preacher who does not preach God’s Word; of whom, alas, the world today is full, and yet they think they are pious and do good when indeed their whole work is nothing but murdering souls, blaspheming God and setting up idolatry, so that it would be much better for them if they were robbers, murderers, and the worst scoundrels, for then they would know that they are doing wickedly. But now they go along under spiritual names and show . . . and are at the same time ravening wolves in sheeps’ clothing, and it would be well if no one ever heard their preaching.”

    — Martin Luther, Christmas Day Sermon [Lenker, J. N., ed. Sermons of Martin Luther, Volume 1: Sermons on Gospel Texts for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany, Baker Books, pp. 153-4]

  6. Comment by Mark Brooks on March 22, 2015 at 1:58 pm

    They are turning to Islam in relatively greater numbers. In Germany, the Catholic churches are so desperate to fill the pews that they are wanting to change Catholic Social Teaching on divorce. Western Europe is either post-Christian or pre-Islam, depending on where you draw the line on trends, and what your definitions are.

  7. Comment by Andreas Kjernald on March 10, 2015 at 4:45 am

    I think you are both right and wrong.

    You wrote “If America’s evangelicals disengage from the public square and fail to engage the rising generation of Christian leaders, then we risk losing our public voice, then our religious liberty, then liberty altogether.”

    That is not the main problem but to see it as such is.

    It is irrelevant if the evangelical slice of America loses its public voice or religious liberty or liberty. There are greater things at stake here. The goal should never be for evangelicals to make sure they have a strong public voice (and Pat Robertson is a prime example where a public voice can be a liability) or religious liberty. It is not news that people prefer the cheap grace of “feel-good” religion or “cafeteria Christianity”. That has been the case for centuries. That if fallen human nature at play.

    The MAIN point of any church claiming Christ as Lord should be holiness of life and love. People need to see Christ in us, personally, and not our agenda. What does it matter if the evangelicals were to win the homosexual marriage battle but lose the souls of the people? I think evangelicals need to focus less on the sin and more on the holiness of God. People in general know what sin is and what sins they commit. The Holy Spirit makes sure of that. We need to contrast that sin with the great victory we have in Christ and his call to holy living.

    Who are you up against? Who is your enemy? It is not the liberals, the “Rob Bells”, the “Spongs” or the wishy-washy Christians or the cafeteria Christians or the feminists or whatever. Your, and my, enemy is the Devil and sin…and only Christ’s holiness indwelling and transforming us can stand against that.

  8. Comment by Jeff Schmidt on March 10, 2015 at 10:42 am

    You’re right and you’re wrong. The ‘liberal’ Christians are attempting to save Christianity from itself. I grew up in the Evangelical movement, and I am one of the millions who read the Bible, and came to reject it because it is logically inconsistent, and preaches an aweful, bronze-age religion.

    One where people would be tortured in hell for an eternity, for ‘sins’ that are temporary in nature. One where God would declare all generations guilty for the sin of the first generation. One where God has created all manner of horrific diseases and parasites that daily torture children and adults all over the world. One where slavery was condoned, and rape was punishable by a fine, while a young woman choosing to have sex with a man she wasn’t married to would result in her being stoned to death at the city gate. One where women are told to shut up and sit down (a teaching that Ms. Chelsen Vicari seems to be ‘picking and choosing’ to ignore, so I guess that makes her a “Cafeteria Christian” according to her own words). One where the vast majority of people who have ever lived are condemned to an eternity in hell because they weren’t born in a time and place where Christianity was taught. One where people are considered evil and abominations simply for loving each other. One that put the stamp of God’s Word on genocide, so that the people that the religion ‘favors’ may take the lands and cattle and wealth of the people who are ‘evil’ that already live in the “promised land”.

    One where “God is Love”, and yet dooms people to hell (it’s called pre-destination/election, and while most Christians choose to ignore it as the horrific doctrine it is, nonetheless, it’s absolutely scriptural). One where you are expected to believe nonsense like all the animals and bugs in the world today being descendants of animals that loaded upon a wooden Ark to survive a global flood, a mere 6000 or so years ago. One where you have to believe in a literal 7-day creation about 6000 years ago, despite the overwhelming physical evidence that the Earth, the Galaxy, and the solar system must be far, far, far older than that, and where there is a vast amount of evidence across multiple fields of scientific investigation that evolution HAS happened and is a historical fact.

    One where faith in something not in any way, shape, or form has been proved or at least generally substantiated is considered a virtue.

  9. Comment by Ray Bannister on March 10, 2015 at 5:37 pm

    Your anti-Christian rant is foolish and ignorant.

    No Christian creed has ever mandated that Christians believe in six literal days of creation, nor alluded to the dimensions of Noah’s ark, and no article of Christian faith hinges upon the age or size of the universe. We do know much more about the vast scope of the universe than our ancestors did, meaning that God’s handiwork is significantly grander than they ever knew.

    The only point in your post that is correct is the doctrine of hell. Why is that offensive? The reality of hell means that what we say and do in this life matters. The person who believes in universal salvation (all will go to heaven) or in no afterlife at all is stuck with a universe where evil, selfish people do horrible things to each other and get off scot-free. Who would want a religion or worldview that believed that monsters like Hitler or Stalin go to heaven, or receive no punishment at all?

    I’ve met lots of hysterical ex-Christians in my day, and one thing about them is consistent: Their rejection of Christianity is not intellectual, it’s moral. “I’m too smart to believe in Christianity” is a mere smoke screen for “I don’t like the Christian ethic, especially regarding sex.”

    If you reject Christian dogma (for ethical reasons), that’s fine, but you’re only fooling yourself if you think nonreligious people have no unprovable dogmas. After a bone-chilling winter we still hear the global warming nuts assuring us that we’re right at the melting point – that is their dogma, not science.

  10. Comment by yolo on March 11, 2015 at 3:15 pm

    “Healthy living” is another dogma. Their phobia about certain foods, things that they absolutely cannot eat, and vote against water fluoridation in Portland (big irony there). Then there are the “animal are people” people, the types that break into dairy farms and cut through fences.

  11. Comment by Jeff Schmidt on March 12, 2015 at 3:00 pm

    “The person who believes in universal salvation (all will go to heaven) or in no afterlife at all is stuck with a universe where evil, selfish people do horrible things to each other and get off scot-free. Who would want a religion or worldview that believed that monsters like
    Hitler or Stalin go to heaven, or receive no punishment at all?”

    I don’t believe that reality conforms to our wants or wishes. It is what it is. You get to the crux of the matter – people believe in religion not because there is any basis of evidence on which to believe it, but rather because they WANT the world to be that way.

    Regarding Hell, I in no way want to see people be tortured for eternity for believing the wrong thing, and for minor crimes. You jump to Hitler and Stalin, but what of the billions of people who Christians would be eager to point out are sinners, but whose sins are minor in impact to others, and who also have and do much good.

    In any case, I don’t disbelieve in Hell or God because I don’t want there to be a hell – again, hell could exist regardless of my wishes. I don’t believe in Hell because there is zero credible evidence (the Bible is not evidence for Hell or God anymore than the Harry Potter books are evidence of Hogwarts or magic) to suggest that it exists, nor is there any evidence of God.

  12. Comment by toknowHim on March 14, 2015 at 4:43 pm

    There is solid evidence for the existence of God based on science. The scientific law of cause and effect demands a cause for every effect, no exceptions, which also disproves the theory of evolution quite handily, as evolutionists cannot answer the question of what caused the effect of primordial soup which supposedly was the beginning of all matter. The law of causality leads us to a higher being, who is God. Because God is wholly other (than man) as well as perfectly holy and sovereign, He doesn’t have to answer human queries of any sort, such as why He would allow millions of people to die and so on. But what many forget or gloss over is the fact that we are all born with original sin, and therefore worthy of death. The only reason any human is alive to begin with is thanks to the compassion and love of the Almighty, as our covenant head Adam broke the covenant with a Holy God, a covenant that had death as a consequence of disobedience. So if God were to wipe out the entire human race and condemn them to hell, He would be entirely just in so doing. However he chose instead to send His beloved Son Jesus, who became sin in order that all who believe in Him would be justified by His righteousness and have eternal life in Him.

  13. Comment by Jeff Schmidt on March 16, 2015 at 1:38 pm

    What scientific law of cause and effect? There’s no such thing. You made that up. Human’s tend to observe cause and effects. Most things have a cause. But, look at quantum mechanics. There are a lot of things that can happen at the quantum level which we currently can’t explain the causes of.

    But, even if there needs to be a cause. . . your explanation of God is not conclusively the only possible explanation. There may be other explanations we have not yet discovered. It’s more honest to say “unknown cause” than to say “God”. In order to logically posit that God did something, you must first show that God exists. But, your evidence that God exists, according to your argument, is that “this thing happened, therefor God”. That is the logical fallacy of circular argumentation, aka “Begging the Question” – you assume your conclusion as part of your argument to prove your conclusion.

  14. Comment by toknowHim on March 21, 2015 at 10:50 am

    See Darwin’s own skepticism on the matter:
    “Darwin’s famous “horrid doubt” passage where he questions whether the human mind can be trustworthy if it is a product of evolution: “With me, the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy.”

    But, of course, Darwin’s theory itself was a “conviction of man’s mind.” So why should it be “at all trustworthy”?

    Surprisingly, however, Darwin never confronted this internal contradiction in this theory. Why not? Because he expressed his “horrid doubt” selectively — only when considering the case for a Creator.

    From time to time, Darwin admitted that he still found the idea of God persuasive. He once confessed his “inward conviction … that the Universe is not the result of chance.” It was in the next sentence that he expressed his “horrid doubt.” So the “conviction” he mistrusted was his lingering conviction that the universe is not the result of chance.

    In another passage Darwin admitted, “I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man.” Again, however, he immediately veered off into skepticism: “But then arises the doubt — can the mind of man, which has, as I fully believe, been developed from a mind as low as that possessed by the lowest animal, be trusted when it draws such grand conclusions?”

    That is, can it be trusted when it draws “grand conclusions” about a First Cause? Perhaps the concept of God is merely an instinct programmed into us by natural selection, Darwin added, like a monkey’s “instinctive fear and hatred of a snake.”

    In short, it was on occasions when Darwin’s mind led him to a theistic conclusion that he dismissed the mind as untrustworthy. He failed to recognize that, to be logically consistent, he needed to apply the same skepticism to his own theory.”

    If that isn’t faulty reasoning, I don’t know what is. And yet we choose to believe evolution or other substitutes for God on shaky grounds, simply because in our quest for autonomy we will not accept the sovereign authority of God because we don’t like what it implies: that we’re accountable for everything we do.

  15. Comment by Jeff Schmidt on March 23, 2015 at 3:20 pm

    “With me, the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of
    man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals,
    are of any value or at all trustworthy.”

    But, of course, Darwin’s theory itself was a “conviction of man’s mind.” So why should it be “at all trustworthy”?

    All religions are “convictions of men’s mind”. I, myself, have no doubt in mankind’s ability to reason. We’ve put men on the moon, built nuclear reactors, cured a number of diseases, have airplanes flying across the sky all the time, have modified the genes of bacteria and plants and animals to modify their traits, even adding new abilities.

    The results speak for themselves. The scientific method WORKS, and produces, eventually, correct results (it’s not always right at first, or not fully right – it takes time to tease out errors, and understand complex relationships), but science is always getting a BETTER understanding of the things it explores, using human reason.

    Human reason isn’t perfect, but it is good. Of that I have no doubt.

  16. Comment by Jeff Schmidt on March 12, 2015 at 3:02 pm

    Do you know that while it was bone-chilling cold in North America, it was hot in other parts of the world? Winter does not disprove global warming – but thanks for the great example of the sort of illogic that you apply when evaluating claims.

  17. Comment by Thelastdon on March 11, 2015 at 7:06 pm

    Your own words are proof that you have created your own religion, have chosen to believe in a religion and God of your own understanding and you reject God’s revelation to us, the Bible. That’s fine and that is your right. However, you do not have the right to call yourself a Christian when you reject His Word, the Bible.

    The Bible states that:

    “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,”

    Where else do you find Jesus Christ revealing himself to us? Where do you get your authority to contradict His own teaching to us? Why should Christians believe what you and your “church” have to say over Jesus himself?

    The question “did God really say?” is from the Devil himself.

    Evolution is just a theory and has not been proven that’s why its called the theory of evolution. Please study the facts and give sources for your new found discovery that it is anything but a theory. Thank You

  18. Comment by Mark Brooks on March 22, 2015 at 2:02 pm

    God does not need you to save Him, Jeff. Quite the opposite.

  19. Comment by Jeff Schmidt on March 23, 2015 at 3:45 pm

    I didn’t say I or anyone else was trying to save God. How can you save someone who doesn’t exist (at least from a physical standpoint, even the Bible itself goes out of it’s way to point out that God is not flesh and bone).

    I said liberals were trying to save Christianity (which is not God, but rather a religious system which asserts the existence of a god, in English referred to as God) from itself. The religious system invented by Iron Age men is what needs to be saved from itself.

  20. Comment by Brian on August 5, 2015 at 11:11 am

    2 Timothy Chapter 3

    1 This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.

    2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,

    3 Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,

    4 Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;

    5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.

    6 For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts,

    7 Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

    8 Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith.

    9 But they shall proceed no further: for their folly shall be manifest unto all men, as theirs also was.

    10 But thou hast fully known my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, charity, patience,

    11 Persecutions, afflictions, which came unto me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra; what persecutions I endured: but out of them all the Lord delivered me.

    12 Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.

    13 But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.

    14 But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them;

    15 And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.

    16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

    17 That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.

  21. Comment by Arkansas Toothpick on March 10, 2015 at 10:15 pm

    I enjoyed this article, though I am discouraged by the hostile responses at Charisma Magazine. It seems to me that most of them completely missed the point you were making. I am not beholden to the GOP as the party of salvation; only Jesus saves. But, if misguided believers think the political left is in-sync with Christ, they are woefully mistaken.

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