Christians must get serious if they hope to challenge the leftist culture

I was fortunate enough to see an early screening of a brand-new film based on Eric Metaxas’ best-selling book, “Letter to the American Church.” The hour-long film, which shares the book’s title, vividly lays out the case that it is high time Christians in this country get serious in the cultural and political arenas.

The author’s narration is accompanied by rapid-fire images that convey the urgency of the days in which we live. They force us to acknowledge things that, a mere dozen or so years ago, were unthinkable: kindergarten children at drag queen shows; males competing in girls’ sports because they are convinced they are females; free speech being silenced; getting fired for “misgendering” a coworker; and the government shutting down churches and keeping strip clubs open in the name of “science” and a mysterious virus. Those profound changes are now the norm.

Did the apostles just wander around the cities only preaching the gospel? Did they end up being beaten and thrown into prison because they “played it safe”?

Even “business as usual” is more “business as unusual” in a corporate world that mirrors the culture, hoping in that way to achieve the largest profit margins.

And what has the church these past many years been doing to slow the roll of this Looney Tunes juggernaut? Unfortunately, in many cases, it has jumped right on the merry-go-round, displaying rainbow and Black Lives Matter flags and welcoming gay pageantry right into the sanctuary.

For those churches at the forefront of welcoming the left, it is a sure bet they are not really “Christian” in any true sense (“By their fruit you will know them”). But what excuse does the true, professing church have for not giving these same leftist initiatives some heartfelt resistance?

Do we in the church believe that being “nice” is the way to “win the lost”? Or do we believe that compromise is the best way to deal with difficult, contentious situations, forgetting that we have been advised “not to give the devil a foothold”?

Up against the wall

As I point out in my new book, “Obvious: Seeing the Evil That’s in Plain Sight and Doing Something About It,” think about it this way when you consider why the faithful keep compromising with the left: The left is a wall. And that wall, standing for some nutty idea it wants to make mainstream, begins by saying to the people who stand in front of it, albeit at some distance, “Hey, meet me halfway.”

So you take a couple of steps closer. But the left, just like a wall, stays right where it is because it is immovable. Then, a little while later, the wall again says, “Hey, meet me halfway.” And again, you comply.

Pretty soon, it begins to dawn on you where this is going. That leftist wall has not moved an inch, but you are now standing right up against the wall.

In a well-meaning church, some might even begin to side with the wall. They are looking back at other people now and saying along with the wall, “Hey, meet us halfway!”

But the wall doesn’t move. It doesn’t even say, “Oops,” for small or great errors. Doing so could cause a dangerous shift in its foundation, and that’s not going to happen. Instead, in many instances, the left is silent, and in many wrong-move situations, it reinforces itself by doubling down.

Playing it safe

Why is the left so immovable about its wild, unnatural positions, and why is the church, which Jesus Christ built “upon this rock,” so wishy-washy? The church’s foundation for 2,000 years has been that the Bible contains the immortal, immutable truths of an almighty, loving God, and on these truths we stand. But lately, it’s more like, “Heaven knows, anything goes.”

Are we called to go along to get along so nobody thinks we’re weird? Should our attitude be, “Hey, things in life will swing to the left and then swing to the right and, at some point, settle in the middle. The church should be part of that pendulum so we can preach the gospel with high hopes that some of it sticks.”

That isn’t how it used to be.

Ask yourself these questions: Did the apostles just wander around the cities only preaching the gospel? Did they confront the culture and the politics of their day (whether in the public square or in the synagogue)? Did they end up being beaten and thrown into prison because they “played it safe”?

Did Jesus not upset a few bigwigs in the upper echelons of power by turning over money-changing tables in the synagogue, sending demons into a herd of pigs, and healing the child of a Roman centurion, a man responsible for enforcing the laws of an occupying government?

For anyone still convinced that Christians are only supposed to preach the gospel and let the chips fall where they may, consider the word “politics.” The definition involves “the affairs of the city.” Did Jesus not say that we were to go into the whole world, which is made up of cities, and preach the good news? And would that not compel us to become involved in what is happening in those cities and the affairs of the world around us?

If staying on the sidelines because the “I don’t get involved in politics” excuse is still your game, consider this: When the government demands that your children comply with new LGBTQ+ regulations at school, do you tell them, “My kids don’t have to. I’m not political”?

Will the woke awaken in time?

We have arrived at this place in our society and our government because we have not heeded the warning signs of the cantankerous 1960s.

Here is just one example of how that era, which fostered a culture from which we simply withdraw, planted acorns that have grown into sturdy but incredibly misshapen trees: Beginning in the 1960s, we heard the seemingly benign phrase, “If it feels good, do it.” A half-dozen decades later, we have children demanding, “You must alter my body with irreversible surgery because I don’t feel like I’m the right sex.”

“Letter to the American Church” reveals some stark and undeniable similarities between the German church of the 1930s and 1940s and the church here in America over the past several decades. And therein lies the ticking clock — or time bomb. Will a woke church wake up in time?

Let’s be encouraged. Scripture gives us our marching orders with many uplifting, bold reminders. I will close with two.

“For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control” (2 Timothy 1:7).

“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose" (Romans 8:28).

Will there be victory? If we do our part, we shall see. Ultimately, “the victory belongs to the Lord.”

Editor’s note: A version of this article appeared originally at American Thinker.