by Mike Ratliff
28 For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? Luke 14:28 (NASB)
I really struggled with the title for this post. In fact as I began typing here I have changed it twice more. I wrote my first post about pragmatism in the visible church back in 2008 while doing battle almost daily against the Purpose Driven paradigm and the Emergent Church. That post was titled Pragmatism. However, two years earlier I wrote a 6 part series titled The Compromised Church. I reposted it in 2008. It dealt with the very same issues, but in much greater detail of course. Back then the battles we fought were geared more toward the havoc Post-Modernism was taking on the theological solidity of our churches. I was most certainly not fighting that battle alone. Ken Silva actually gave me marching orders, but I also did research on my own as well. Chris Rosebrough a was huge contributor as well. What I never got used to were the Ad Hominem attacks from those who just didn’t like us being precise presenting Theology exegetically from God’s Word and relying solely on it as the arbiter for what is truth and what is not. This created a dividing line that those with discernment could see very easily who was walking in the light compared to those who only pretended to be.
Something really odd happened around 2011-2012 though. It was as if the “emergents” just dropped out of sight. All through their ugly attacks on all things Biblical and Doctrinally correct they played dirty. They tried to take us offline. They tried to get our internet providers to block us. They tried to get us banned from conferences. You name it. They tried it. Then when Rob Bell wrote his book Love Wins and it revealed to everyone what a heretic he really was, it was as if it just got quiet. One other thing. All during that “war” those of us who were in the trenches were by-and-large Reformed in our theology. There were some who were not, but most of us were. Those in non-Reformed Churches seemed to look at us as troublemakers.
Then the New Evangelism and The Young Restless and Reformed stuff started. Then we found that these professing Reformed guys were just as bad theologically as the emergents were. Why? They were post-modern philosophically. Why was their theology so wacky? That was when Dr. James White and others informed us that the problem lay with the elites in the Denominations and, therefore, in the seminaries. The seminaries were not teaching the Bible the way I would teach through it. They were looking at the Word of God based in the Higher Critical method rather viewing the Word of God as one message from God. Instead they viewed the Bible as a hodgepodge of books written by individuals not inspired by the Holy Spirit. Is it no wonder that young men go to seminary and come out with rock hard unbelief?
I got a comment on last night’s post, When you go woke, your theology gets broke, that was from an obvious unbeliever. He was not only an unbeliever, he was hostile and it was obvious that he had an axe to grind against Baptists. I don’t post comments like that. What would be the point? However, I started thinking about some of things he said. He was obviously ignorant of theology, but some of things he said about the atoning work of Christ echoed some of the ridiculous statements made by some of the theologians in high places in some of the SBC’s supposedly best seminaries. If these theologians who should know better, let their political views override correct theology then what does that say about them? Doesn’t that say they are compromisers? Doesn’t that say they are apostate?
Post-Modernism is the root cause while pragmatism is the method by which CRT or Woke-ism is being implemented in the SBC and other denominations while most of the believers within have no idea what is going on. I listened to an audio track today of a Black Activist who claims to be a Christian who is advocating that Black Christians should remove themselves from their Churches if they are not totally Black Churches, etc. CRT divides people. It does not unite anyone. Lastly, the call for White people to render apology and reparations to the Black people, etc. is never ending. There is never and end to this, but the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ tells us that all of us, all colors, all nationalities are welcome at the Cross. None of that stuff matters. Those in Christ have had all their sins paid for. They owe nothing to God for anything. They are His forevermore because they have been bought with the price of the blood of their Saviour.
Now, with that knowledge, where does CRT/Social Justice/Woke-ism sit? It is in the world. It is of the world. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. It only tries to make everyone believe they are either a victim or an oppressor. It is an evil Marxist teaching from Satan.
I’ll take Jesus and the Gospel.
Soli Deo Gloria!
Possessing the Treasure 