Institutions and individuals never drift anywhere worthwhile.
—adapted from Michael Hyatt—
Key point: Even nearly fifty years ago, astute observers realized the claim of open-mindedness on the part of liberals was a sham. This truth is even more apparent today—but we still need to expose it so others won’t be taken in by leftist rhetoric and misinformation.
In the March 21, 1973 issue of The Weekly Visitor, the newsletter for Calvary Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Pastor Mark Corts wrote,1
The most condemning thing about liberalism that it is not liberal.
Liberal is a word derived from the Latin, libertatis, meaning free. It implies that a liberal education is free to explore all views and all sides to an issue. Why is it then, that a liberal university such as say, Wake Forest, does not provide a truly liberal or free presentation of all sides of a critical issue such as the documentary hypothesis? If we are going to be truly liberal, does it not make sense that at least one Old Testament professor should subscribe to the idea that the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament, were written by Moses, and not by a group of redactors after Josiah’s time? But, lo and behold, the liberal institution is not very liberal….
Dr. Corts went on to lament as well news about a conference that was being organized and held under the umbrella the Southern Baptist Convention’s Christian Life Commission (CLC).2 The name of the conference was “A Future for the Family,” but not one of the speakers was known for upholding an unapologetically biblical viewpoint on family life, despite the fact that many conservative churches and individuals were involved in the SBC, as still is the case today. Someone like Dr. Howard Hendricks of Dallas Theological Seminary, wrote Dr. Corts, or Dr. Henry Brandt, a Christian psychologist and counselor with a strong biblical perspective, would have provided much needed balance at the conference—but again, no such person had been invited.
Dr. Corts asked rhetorically,
Have our leaders lived in such caves that they do not know that men like this exist? Or do they willfully choose not to expose themselves to the conservative, evangelical viewpoint on family life? If so, it is the worst kind of intellectual and spiritual provincialism. It is time institutional, denominational leaders come out of the 19th century and accept the fact that many churches insist and demand that the biblical point of view be recognized. Our modern 20th century revival movement is a biblical one that is still not recognized by many denominational leaders. It also is time that we recognize much of modern liberalism for precisely what it is—the worst kind of narrow-mindedness. It has become the very thing it fought.
It is time that we recognize much of modern liberalism for precisely what it is—the worst kind of narrow-mindedness. It has become the very thing it fought.
—Dr. Mark Corts—
Higher Education in 2018
Fast forward forty-five years, to 2018. With regard to higher education, the situation has grown worse—much worse. Dr. Corts rightly objected to a lack of theological diversity at school with a Baptist heritage but no willingness to acknowledge it. This narrow-mindedness foreshadowed the lack of diversity that now essentially exists in colleges and universities nationwide—especially at secular institutions, but also at many church-affiliated ones. Watch this Prager University video featuring Charlie Kirk, president and founder of Turning Point USA:
This would make a great motto for higher education today, if “educators” truly were honest:
In the name of diversity, uniform political correctness.
In the name of tolerance, indoctrination.
In all things, hatred for those with whom we disagree.
And Then, There’s the ERLC
In 1988, the Christian Life Commission became the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention (ERLC). Dr. Richard Land served as the agency’s president from 1988 to 2013. Since 2013, Dr. Russell Moore has held the ERLC’s top leadership post.
The Conservative Resurgence in the SBC, a movement that saw biblical conservatives wrest control of SBC institutions, agencies, and boards from the denomination’s progressive wing, began in earnest in 1979 and was largely successful. As it turns out, Dr. Corts’s concern regarding the Christian Life Commission was very much on target. Before being replaced by the ERLC, the CLC officially had become a pro-choice organization! In 1976 it released “a pamphlet stating that it is ‘impossible’ to determine ‘when in the life cycle the fetus assumes the characteristics of a person.'” You show me an organization that says no one can know when an unborn baby becomes a person, and I’ll show you one that has no business leading conferences on the family for churches and Christians!
You show me an organization that says no one can know when an unborn baby becomes a person, and I’ll show you one that has no business leading conferences on the family for churches and Christians!
Under Richard Land’s leadership, the public policy arm of the SBC became more conservative and biblical in its approach to a wide range of issues, and thus overall. However, since Dr. Moore took over, concern has been raised about his leadership, his politics, and his participation in a movement known as the social justice movement.
Alarmed that this movement is watering down and even replacing a strong emphasis on the gospel in and by the local church, a coalition of Christian leaders recently drafted and released a statement warning of the movement’s dangers. Dr. Moore has criticized it strongly. In addition to Dr. Moore; Timothy Keller, Al Mohler, and newly elected SBC president J. D. Greear have been cited as leaders, or at least advocates, of the social justice movement within evangelicalism. The Gospel Coalition also is heavily involved.
The Issue of Race
Russell Moore’s perspective on race has concerned many. Dr. Moore apparently loves to shame evangelical whites for “white supremacy” when race largely has become a non-issue. A non-issue? Really? someone asks. Yes, a non-issue! That’s certainly Loraine Spratt’s perspective. Ms. Spratt is executive assistant to the pastor at First Baptist Church, Bossier City, Louisiana. This church is a large, predominantly white church. Spratt, who is black, wrote an open letter to Dr. Moore calling him to task for making race an issue when it genuinely is not. “White churches are not advocating racism,” Spratt wrote, “but Dr. Moore is. He is fueling racial tensions. I view his comments as divisive and antagonistic. His words do not promote unity!”
This isn’t to say that the problem of racism doesn’t exist anywhere or that it shouldn’t be condemned wherever and whenever it rears its ugly head. It is to say that trying to make race an issue when it already isn’t is a racist action within itself.
My family and I are members of large, suburban, Southern Baptist Church in Tennessee. Most of our members are white; yet recently, we voted to hire a an African-American to serve full time on our church’s ministry staff. No one objected or voted no in the service I attended, and I would be shocked if anyone in any of our four Sunday morning worship services did. We also have a black organist. Race simply is a non-issue!
Shane Kastler, pastor of Heritage Baptist Church, an independent Baptist church in Lake Charles, Louisiana, is not blind to what is transpiring in the SBC or the ERLC. He writes,
The SBC is becoming more of a joke every year. Their numbers continue to dwindle, as leaders like Moore continue to steer the denomination leftward. It’s not that denouncing “white supremacy” is bad. In fact, 99.9999999 percent of the country would denounce it. It’s the fact that Moore and the SBC feel the CONSTANT need to bring the issue up, that is so annoying and distracting. Moore loves to manufacture problems that he can then “speak out against” thus making himself a hero to his fawning young supporters. And in so doing he also gets attention and ink from liberal media outlets such as the New York Times and the Huffington Post, which undoubtedly strokes his ego as well.
Additional Concerns
Of Dr. Moore, Janet Mefford of the American Family Association writes,
While it is true that Moore opposes abortion and same-sex marriage, while also advocating for religious liberty, focusing merely on those positions does not paint the entire picture. Moore, as many have noted, is a former aide to a Democrat, Rep. Gene Taylor of Mississippi, who was a Blue Dog nonetheless criticized for voting for Rep. Nancy Pelosi as House Speaker and voting with Pelosi 82 percent of the time. And Moore’s disdain for Republicans has been on display over and over again.
On a number of occasions, Moore has stressed that Christianity must stop thinking of itself as a “Moral Majority” (note another Falwell swipe) because it obscures the “strangeness” of the gospel necessary to have a prophetic voice to the culture. In his piece, “Why Politics Can’t Drive the Gospel,” he expounded on the point: “We are prophetically distant, in that we don’t become court chaplains for anybody’s political or economic faction. We’re prophetically engaged in that we see the connection between gospel and justice, just as our forebears in the abolitionist and civil rights and pro-life activist communities did. The priority of the gospel doesn’t mean that we shrug off injustice or unrighteousness, but it means we fight a different way.”
But let it be noted that even as Moore tsk-tsked the wisdom of conservatives putting too much faith in political activism, lest the gospel lose its “strangeness,” he has jetted off to the White House to advocate for both amnesty and prison reform (One wonders: Did Moore “prophetically engage” President Obama about supporting Planned Parenthood or backing the radical goals of the homosexual-activist movement? Did he “prophetically engage” the president for his apathy over the genocide of Christians in the Middle East?).
The concerns quoted above actually are just part of one of a total of eight Ms. Mefford cited.
Clearing Up Potential Misunderstandings
To be clear, we who are biblical conservatives do not believe that America’s ultimate hope rests in the Republican Party; nor do we believe it resides in President Trump. The fact remains, however, that given biblical truth, our core convictions, the current political and cultural landscape, and the alternative, it makes sense to support the Republicans and Trump. In fact, for many of us, this decision is a no-brainer!
Seeing what the Democrat Party has become, we are compelled to disavow it and its anti-God, anti-Christian, Socialist, and even Marxist positions. The Democrats’ obvious effort to slander Brett Kavanaugh with unproven accusations and lies in order to deny him a seat on the Supreme Court is just one manifestation of their willingness to do anything to gain power and to implement their oppressive agenda. Not that many years ago, advocating violence against those who hold an opinion different from yours would have been considered blatantly wrong. Today, it’s become mainstream Democrat thinking.
Warning: This video contains inappropriate language.
Additionally, we do not lack compassion for those who wish to immigrate to America—but we believe in legal immigration, not in granting citizenship to those who are violating the law when they enter. It cannot be just, fair, or compassionate to grant illegal aliens citizenship, even as others who are following the legal process are bypassed and ignored.
It cannot be just, fair, or compassionate to grant illegal aliens citizenship, even as others who are following the legal process are bypassed and ignored.
No country without borders can remain a country. Do advocates of amnesty lock their doors at night? If so, they’re being inconsistent. We don’t want strong borders because we hate those who are trying to get into our country; we want them because we are believe in protecting citizens who already are here.
In future posts, we will consider these issues more thoroughly. In the meantime, have your antenna up. Don’t be taken in by leftists’ talk of tolerance or by social justice, feel-good rhetoric.
They’re not what they appear to be at first.
Not by a long shot!
Copyright © 2018 by B. Nathaniel Sullivan. All rights reserved.
top image: Benson University Center on the Campus of Wake Forest University in Winston Salem, North Carolina
Notes:
1Extremely slight changes have been made in quotations from The Weekly Visitor for clarity and smoothness.
2now the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission