Why are conservative Christians failing to conserve anything? They’ve been talking about “family values” and the sanctity of life and the honorability of marriage since the eighties. Yet all the talk and political campaigning has done nothing as the world around us slides more and more rapidly over the cliff into the Inferno below.
Despite all the talk about “taking back the culture” and “winning the Culture War” Christians are losing more influence. Maybe we should reevaluate the techniques being used.
They are as follows:
Outvoting
Outclassing
Outbreeding
Outvoting the Lost. Use the Ballot Box to change the world for Jesus.
Christians who use this method are really into politics. This has been a thing since I was a child back in the eighties.
The idea is we can take back our nation’s culture by voting for candidates—nearly always at the federal level—who will impose Christian morality on the population. This will happen by getting Our Man into office. He will save our nation on behalf of the Christians who got him in. (We hope.)
Laws or no laws, people’s hearts will stay the same. Unchastity will flourish. Hard hearted women may have a harder time killing their unborn babies, but they won’t love them.
You cannot legislate love. The law cannot save or change people. Only condemn the guilty.
The funny thing is a lot of the same conservative Christians who yell the loudest about “salvation by faith alone” think this is a good plan for evangelizing the lost. I’ve seen YT podcasts—such as Wretched Radio—condemn books for Christian audiences simply because they encourage disciplines for holy living. Because justification BY FAITH—ALONE. Pursuing holiness is a sin according to this mentality.
Yet, while discouraging holiness at a personal level, they rant on and on about the social evils in the world around us. Fornication, abortion, homosexuality, drunkenness and all those other sins easy enough to avoid when surrounded by like-minded people.
Sometimes this leads to looking askance upon the chronically unemployed and singles because it’s quietly assumed that they’re guilty of sloth and fornication. Maybe abortion or homosexuality too. Disabilities play a role, but they dislike seeing or thinking about the disabled.
The unmarried single living in poverty upsets the (unbiblical) just world fallacy that underlies the notion that voting will keep America Christian. Because only just and honorable men ever succeed in getting elected. And once in office, our honest man is sure to follow through on evangelizing our culture for Jesus, just like they promised. Right?
This emphasis on salvation through ballots shows a lack of faith in God, a lack of the true hope we’re supposed to share (the kind that cannot disappoint), and a lack of love for those who vote differently.
I understand the issues we face with electing a candidate who supports killing people through abortion and euthanasia, mutilating children, rewarding unchastity and laziness with handouts, or refusing to follow through on the one function earthly governments have been assigned. To punish the guilty, thereby protecting the innocent. Romans 13:4
But there’s a lot of fighting within the GOP voters over Trump or DeSantis or whoever. If you dare mention writing in a candidate, voting Libertarian, or simply not voting at all wait for the sparks to fly.
Joel Webbon of Right Response YT fame has gone on record saying women shouldn’t be allowed to vote. Others like Andrew Torba, the owner of Gab, only want to deny the vote to childless single women.
Questions come to my mind when I hear their rants. For they are ranting, infuriated at demographics or large groups of unique individuals including their fellow Christians. Willing to condemn the just with the lawless and the innocent with the guilty. Why? Wrong group, regardless of personal behaviors, character or faith in God.
Collectivism is not just a leftist thing. A natural result of idolizing politics.
Should a wife refuse to vote if her husband orders her to? Do welfare queens (single but not childless) qualify for the right to vote? How do men like Torba and Webbon plan on pushing through these changes since their political messiahs continue to lose elections? Furthermore, if national elections can be rigged what does voting matter anyhow?
Outclassing the Lost. Curry favor with the World to win back the culture for Jesus.
This method is more popular with the Left-leaning churches than the Right. Nevertheless, many on the Right are trying their own variation of this. Due to the unpopularity of conservatism the Gospel Coalition, Saddleback, Hillsong and other mega churches are leaning further left.
We can win the culture (they argue) by being “win-some.” Taylor Swift, Sam Smith, Madonna, and Ellen DeGeneres hold great sway over the culture because they’re celebrities. Our decadent, shallow civilization idolizes minxes, morons and parasites. Forget fire fighters, ER workers, or those who save lives.
We have long venerated people who sing while dressed and moving around in bizarre ways. Or throw a ball around or fake emotions for a living. Ergo, our best bet for winning back the culture (to this mindset) is to ingratiate ourselves with Hollywood and professional sports.
This shallowness (obsession with the carnal things of this life) has permeated the western church. Instead of being transformed by the renewing of our minds—the way Christians are called to—we are conforming to this world. The same world Christ called His enemy, saying that friendship with this world is enmity with Him.
“But how are we to win the lost?” some may be asking. “Doesn’t the Bible say we are to be in this world though not of it?”
We are to love individual sinners and long for their salvation. But once a sinner is saved they are no more of this world than the rest of Christians.
Loving the world, does not mean loving the lost but the “good things” of this life. Money, fame/popularity, and power. Lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. All things of this world. All were offered to Christ when the prince of this world tempted him after His forty days of fasting alone in the wilderness.
I noticed people striving to “win some by being winsome” are obsessed with popularity. They will embrace theistic evolution—not to reconcile their intellect with the Bible—but to curry favor with the cool kids in academia.
A lot of women who want to be seen as loving, kind and considerate have publicly supported homosexuality. Loving someone crushed in bondage to this sin is very Christ-like and proper.
Publicly endorsing this behavior to avoid having mean things said about you on antisocial media (or maybe getting a guest spot on a celebrity show) is a desire for popularity and approval of this world’s celebrities. It has nothing whatsoever to do with loving human beings and caring about their well-being.
Now I realize that these churches tend to be liberal or left leaning rather than conservative. But many institutions—such as the Gospel Coalition—started out as conservative for all practical purposes.
And the lack of celebrity endorsements has not deterred conservatives from seeking it. If anything, they’re even more desperate. Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Kanye West…just about anyone rich and famous will do. Seems the approval and support of the LORD of creation is just not good enough.
Outbreeding the Lost. Encouraging early marriages in conservative Christian subcultures with lots of babies.
This has led to a great deal of cruelty to single Christians over a certain age. Why aren’t we fulfilling the Great Command by being fruitful and multiplying?
Single women must be whores. Single men must be immature bums or deviants. Such accusations get flung about when having babies is the only accepted means of church growth.
That command in Genesis 2 was given to a healthy married couple. And since there were only two of them, they needed to have babies. They were of the Old Covenant and Old Creation before Christ entered this world.
It has been wrongly associated with “white supremacy.” Insane and cult-like as the quiver-full movements have been it was more of an evangelism strategy than anything.
The problem with this method is that due to rapid social changes it is harder and harder for young people to find marriage partners. Due to increased disability from a number of factors—sedentary lives, dietary and iatrogenic—more are infertile. Rather than address or even acknowledge these problems, those calling for “outbreeding” the godless sinners, complain and yell about how singles are a threat to marriage somehow. (Not divorce.)
Despite higher birth rates than the worldly, church numbers are falling. Why? All the young people leaving the church. The failure to evangelize over the past three or four generations extended even to those born to church goers.
Notice what is missing? It’s all about winning the culture war. Not rescuing the lost.
For too long, we Christian conservatives have been focused on altering the world around us—the culture—while the lost continue to go to Hell. Which will last longer? A culture of this transient world or a human soul?
Despite the talk about the evils of collectivism and the beauties of individualism, this focus on The Culture as opposed to all the perishing human souls is collectivism on steroids.
Maybe we could evangelize better if we quit showing favoritism to the rich and those who resemble us in ethnicity, social status, etc. If we dropped utilitarianism and viewed human beings as intrinsically valuable by virtue of their humanity.
Truth and love are both necessary. They need each other to survive. Like justice and mercy. Like men and women.
If enough souls had been saved our culture would have automatically adopted values compatible with Christianity. Evangelism was the answer all along. Something to think about.
Excellent.