CULTURAL MARXISM IN THE CHURCH
From the Gospel of Jesus Christ to Sympathy for the Devil
“THE SOCIAL GOSPEL COALITION”
In October 2014, the Southern Baptists convened a national conference with LGBT activists and it was during this conference that Albert Mohler apologized for ‘being wrong about sexual orientation.’ In effect, he told homosexuals that, for 2,000 years the Christian Church has been wrong about homosexuality, and that that he has a more robust Biblical theology. To buttress his new theology, Mohler introduced a former lesbian, Rosaria Butterfield, and a gay celibate Anglican priest, Sam Allberry, as his two main LGBTQ apologists who would preach a new gospel for homosexuals — that a “new life in Christ” does not necessarily confer wholeness in one’s sexual proclivities. Sam Allberry is now an editor for The Gospel Coalition, a global speaker for Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, as well as a founder and editor of Living Out, a ministry for those struggling with same-sex attraction.
Allberry's All-Seeing Eye on TGC
The short video below features Rev. Allberry telling the Bishops of the Church of England how wrong they have been, that they made him feel bullied, as he dismisses the notion that a Christian can be set free from homosexual desires because they are inborn and do not change.
SAM ALLBERRY AT OXFORD UNIVERSITY
Allberry and Butterfield overdramatize how much “same-sex attracted” “Christians” suffer and how unbearable it is for them to go through life without marriage. (Do not all Christians have crosses, yet carry them quietly and never broadcast their troubles or demand special attention?) However, “same-sex attracted” “Christians” demand affirmation and “safe spaces” (churches) to remain celibate, a promise on which they often renege.
Pastor Shawn Mathis of the Providence Presbyterian Church has written as series of excellent articles on “LGBQTI in the Church.” The first article in the series begins with a stark question that many Christians may have never considered:
“Understanding the Heinousness of Sin from the Confession of Sam Allberry” 1.
“Multiple Choice: Which quote would you rather your pastor announce at church?
A. “I am same-sex attracted and have been my entire life. By that I mean that I have sexual, romantic and deep emotional attractions…”
B. “I am sexually attracted to other women besides my wife. By that I mean that I have sexual, romantic and deep emotional attractions…”
C. “I am sexually attracted to children and have been my entire life. By that I mean that I have sexual, romantic and deep emotional attractions…”
“Likely many readers would pick option ‘D,’ the ubiquitous ‘none of the above.’ But there are some who consider choice A as tolerable or acceptable or even laudable.
“Choice A is the opening words of pastor Sam Allberry’s two minute speech that was passed around on Facebook. Sam struggles with homosexuality, yet he is celibate.
“Sam is not an obscure pastor in a small town. He an editor at The Gospel Coalition (TGC).
“His two minute speech was hailed as ‘courageous’ and ‘brave.’ (And, no, listening to the entire clip does not change the meaning of the opening words.)
“But would people consider choice C as ‘courageous’ or ‘brave?’ Why not? Are not all sins sufficient to send us to hell? Are not all sins covered by the blood of Christ?
“Is not our identity in the Savior and not in our sin? Can we not accept non-practicing pedophiles into the ministry?
“All such reasoning offered for Allberry applies equally as well to the other options. Why is homosexuality somehow different?”
“Or put another way: why is pedophilia different than the other options? Because it is more heinous in the sight of God and man…
“Why is this significant?
“Because it highlights a question implicitly answered by those promoting Allberry: non-practicing homosexuality is not such a heinous sin that it should be kept private.
“A related assumption is that this sin is not such that a minister should step down from the ministry after publicly announcing it.
“But what if a pastor confessed to struggling with pedophilia? I’d like to think there would be a public outcry. I’d like to think there would be calls to have him step down as a minister.
“But is publicly confessing to intense, internal struggle with homosexuality a heinous sin in comparison to others we accept in the pastorate?...”
According to Sam Allberry, Albert Mohler, and Rosaria Butterfield, there is no hope of deliverance from the abnormal condition of same-sex attraction. Mohler, Moore and Butterfield strongly urge Christians to “engage the culture” but what is the point of cultural engagement if Christians do not share the good news that a homosexual can become a new creature in Christ and be set free from their bondage? The outcome of the watered down message of these false teachers will be a horde of false converts who are deceived that they are saved and en route to heaven. The failure of these religious leaders to preach the power of the blood of Christ to wash away and deliver from sin, including sinful thoughts and attractions, brings to mind 2 Timothy 3:5.
“Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.”
As we have seen there is another agenda. In 2013, Sam Allberry wrote a book titled Is God Anti-Gay?, which has been distributed in churches to teenagers as young as 14. Allberry believes this book is age appropriate for 14 year olds, even though he quotes the radical and profane homosexual, Dan Savage, who was a policy advisor to former President Obama and scripted much of the anti-bullying campaign—“It Gets Better”—which was designed to intimidate public school students who are “non-affirming” of LGBTQs. Here is Sam Allberry quoting Dan Savage as an authority on bigoted, abusive Christians:
“Denying someone’s sexuality is seen as denying who that person really is. It is telling them to repress something central to their identity, and consequently, to their ability to flourish. This is harmful to anyone, but especially to teenagers who are coming to terms with their sexuality while still at a formative stage of their lives. Christians, it is claimed, are to blame for gay teenagers growing up stunted and guilt-ridden, or killing themselves. This charge has perhaps been made most forcefully by Dan Savage:
“‘The dehumanizing bigotry set forth from the lips of faithful Christians give your straight children a license to verbally abuse, humiliate, and condemn the gay children they encounter at school. They fill your gay children with suicidal despair. And you have the nerve to ask me to be more careful with my words.’” [2] (Kindle 809-817).
[2. Quoted in Justin Lee, Torn: Rescuing The Gospel From The Gays-vs.-Christians Debate, Jericho Books, 2013, p.5]
Dan Savage’s condemnation of Bible-believing Christians is taken from Justin Lee, the homosexual founder of the Gay Christian Network.
Here is Dan Savage speaking at a national journalism conference where he bullies students with all manner of profanity. Savage exudes hatred of the Bible and Christians:
“Dan Savage Got Owned Kids Walked Out On Him!”
Dan Savage formed NALT (Not All Like That), for LGBT-affirming people who claim to be “Christians” but are “not all like that” referring to allegedly bigoted, non-affirming of LGBT type of Christians. Savage and his partners also formed “Faith in America,” the LGBT organization that has been in communication with and scheduling meetings with the Southern Baptist leadership to ‘dialogue’ with delegates at the annual convention in Phoenix, AZ June 13-14. Their message to the SBC was that LGBTs are “born that way.”
“The Clergy Advisory Committee will serve as media surrogates to speak on behalf of LGBT kids and teens. FIA will inform and encourage media to engage these ministers and provide a voice that is distinctly faith-based and can address the anti-LGBT voices from the religious right and other right wing groups who have preached hate on this topic over the years in the media.
“This also includes directly dialoguing with religious organizations and individuals. Five of the pastors on the FIA Clergy Advisory Committee will be part of the FIA delegation of doctors, a country music star, parents, local and national volunteers, bound for the Southern Baptist meeting in Phoenix beginning on June 13.
“‘Sin is about making wrong choices and actions,’ says Pastor Stan Mitchell. ‘So the more we can get religious people to the realization that sexual orientation is an innate part of a person, a natural part of a human’s being, not a choice, that dramatically undermines the basis for viewing homosexuality as behavior-driven immorality or some perverse proclivity. And it further undermines any justification a person might feel for their condemnation or proactive prejudice.’”
Thomas Littleton, “the Rev” who evangelized in New York City during the AIDS crisis, witnessed many homosexuals being saved and set free from their bondage through faith in Jesus Christ. Tom corresponded with Sam Allberry for a while, but to no avail. He has given me permission to share his testimony:
“I ministered in the NYC AIDS reality of the 80s and 90s. We worked in what amounted to death camps, old hotels filled with mostly dying young men the city housed there to get them off the streets. People called them ‘AIDS Hotels.’ The real picture behind homosexuality both culturally and Biblically is very sad. The CDC in the US tells a disturbing truth about the health risk – mental issues like depression and suicide, drug and alcohol use, STDs and HIV/AIDS.
“Monogamy is a bit of a myth especially among the gay male community. There is more need to expose the realities to keep youth away from exploration and temptation, yet just the opposite is taking place in the culture. Knowing your own struggles would it not be needful to help deter the wave promoting and popularizing the lifestyle than just working to engender compassion and understanding for those already in it?
“I came out of the drug culture and 38 years later I make every attempt to expose its dangers and deadly realities while the legalization debate is just getting traction in the US. The lifestyle will be just as deadly whether it is legal or not. The same is true of the LGBT lifestyle. It will still be plagued with these realities even if the culture normalizes it and the church affirms it (which IS the goal for activists).
“With so many well paid activist groups and well trained activists ‘in the room,’ so to speak, within the culture and the church on this topic, it is a danger to take all these narratives at face value. I am compassionate and understanding of the individual struggles of many, including yourself. However we are to be moving on to maturity escaping the lust of the flesh and renewed in our minds by the washing and regeneration of the word of God, not adding language to the gospel…
“I am an evangelist and have worked in the Arts Community, University Campuses and in cities like NY. The discussion on this topic has never been at this fever pitch and no doubt you would agree that there are pro homosexuality ‘Christians’ in the conversation within the church. Your book brings a different view of the struggle and your perspective but it also brings with it a very new terminology for many and with it the acceptance that a person who is a long time Christian and a minister is still unchanged in his sexual desire and must therefore ‘Bear a Cross’ of celibacy.
“The Gospel as the Lord and the Apostles preached (and we aspire to believe and proclaim it) is NOT so limited as to leave us unchanged. That is my perspective, and coming from a rather seedy life prior to salvation. We can be rid of the old and totally new on the matter of sin of every kind. If the Demoniac can be left ‘clothed and in his right mind’ salvation is none the less effectual for us. If that is NOT true let us all find something else to do with our lives.
“This is my honest concern on these new terms and perspective and the new narrative. Also is it (the book) suitable for a 14 year old?
“There is a FLOOD of LGBT activist efforts to force acceptance of the lifestyle on the Evangelical Church here in the U.S. Savage has formed NALT and Faith in America with some of his partners. He does not espouse faith in God yet intends to tell Christians how to believe.
“Mathew Vines is quoting Savage these days as well. Mathew says ‘respectfully’ the ‘Bible does NOT condemn homosexuality.’ Savage says ‘the Bible is Bull***t’! So which of those views is Vines actually supporting? Savage is married to a man yet mocks monogamy! ‘Savage Love’ – Dan’s erotic gay blog – well let’s just not go there. So among these mixed messages and confusing signals to young believers, is it really wise on your part to give ANY credibility to a single claim Dan Savage is making? I insist that it is not.
“Consider a less mixed message now that the conservative Christian camp in the US is promoting your books and articles. Teens are getting such overt messages in the media and entertainment industries and culture at large. The US culture is promoting the LGBT lifestyle as never before. The ancient landmarks are being removed and or repositioned. We do not need as ministers of Christ to be sending mixed signals or an uncertain sound.
“Again I have the question...Do you think your book ‘Is God Anti Gay?’ is appropriate for 14 year old teens? Mostly youth in church who have thankfully been kept from some of the LGBT debate are a significant part of your audience from what I have heard. That is the case in our church.
“True ministers are not wanting to confuse youth even more, correct? I have been in evangelistic ministry for 38 years. CLARITY is the Goal.
“CRYSTAL CLEAR GOSPEL CLARITY.
“To give voice to Dan’s accusations against the church is bad practice – very bad indeed. This looks like a classic thesis vs. anti thesis = consensus approach which is not really what is needed IF we want to help Christian youth. Let me know your thoughts about the age appropriateness question.
Allberry’s response was his last:
“I appreciate your email. I do think my book is appropriate to 14 year olds. I tried to keep the writing style and concepts accessible to such an age and hope the book will answer questions they’re asking and not unduly prompting ones they're not. I've had good feedback from parents and youth ministers from both sides of the Atlantic.
“I agree that Savage’s view are abhorrent. They are also very influential, which I why I want to take them on.”
Every blessing,
Sam
Sam Allberry is an editor for The Gospel Coalition. The president of The Gospel Coalition, D.A. Carson, is a Reformed theologian and professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Dr. Carson has a reputation for being conservative. As recently as April 2017, D.A. Carson warned Christians against believing they can affirm homosexuality:
“Inevitably, there have been some articulate voices that insist that adopting an “affirming” stance on homosexual marriage does not jeopardize one’s salvation and should not place such a person outside the evangelical camp. For example, in his essay “An Evangelical Approach to Sexual Ethics,” Stephen Holmes concludes, “Sola Fide. I have to stand on that. Because the Blood flowed where I walk and where we all walk. One perfect sacrifice complete, once for all offered for all the world, offering renewal to all who will put their faith in Him. And if that means me, in all my failures and confusions, then it also means my friends who affirm same-sex marriage, in all their failures and confusions. If my faithful and affirming friends have no hope of salvation, then nor do I.”4 But this is an abuse of the evangelical insistence on sola fide. I do not know any Christian who thinks that salvation is appropriated by means of faith plus an affirmation of heterosexuality. Faith alone is the means by which sola gratia is appropriated. Nevertheless, that grace is so powerful it transforms. Salvation by grace alone through faith alone issues in a new direction under the lordship of King Jesus. Those who are sold out to the “acts of the flesh ... will not inherit the kingdom of God” (Gal 5:19–21). The apostle Paul makes a similar assertion in 1 Corinthians 6:9–11:
“Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers not men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God (emphasis added).”Conservative Christians were therefore surprised when Sam Allberry was appointed an editor at TGC, and further stunned when D.A. Carson enthusiastically endorsed Gregory Coles’ book Single, Gay, Christian.
“To say this book is important is a painful understatement. It is the candid, moving, intensely personal story of a gay young man who wants to live his life under the authority of King Jesus and who refuses to accept the comforting answers proffered by different parts of the culture. Superbly written, this book stands athwart the shibboleths of our day and reminds us what submission to King Jesus looks like, what it feels like. This book needs to be thoughtfully read by straight people and by gay people, by unbelievers and by Christians. It is not to be read with a condescending smirk, but with humility.”
—D. A. Carson, president, The Gospel Coalition, research professor of New Testament, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
As a professor of New Testament, what did Dr. Carson think of Gregory Cole’s “submission to King Jesus” when he denied the inerrancy of Scripture, cast doubt on the Creation account, God’s character, and questioned Bible verses condemning sodomy as an abomination?
“How do we respond when the order of creation changes between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2? When kidnapping and enslaving people is condemned, but slaves are told to obey their masters? When Paul appears to forbid women from filling leadership roles in the church and then speaks highly of women who have taken on leadership roles? The logic of surface meaning forces us to read dismissively, to overlook or explain away whatever doesn’t seem to fit. We miss the opportunity to read holistically because we’re too busy regrouping, cutting our losses, trying to protect the Bible from itself...
“Paul says practicing homosexuals won’t inherit the kingdom of God. So gay sex is a sin. End of story. #insertdefinitivehashtaghere.’ If that had been the whole story, I could have accepted it and moved on. But as I learned once I started to read, it wasn’t the whole story.
“…The case against homosexual behavior wasn’t as clear-cut as I’d been trained to believe. Because language and translation are complicated things.
“I began my research with Paul’s famous lists prohibiting same-sex behavior in 1 Corinthians 6 and 1 Timothy 1. Since Paul had neither the luxury of English nor a twenty-first-century conception of sexual behavior, I realized, it was functionally impossible to offer a twenty-first-century English rendering of these passages that would mean precisely the same thing. The Greek word often rendered “homosexual offenders” or “practicing homosexuals” in English is arsenokoitai, a compound formed from the Greek words arsēn, male, and koitē, bed. A man-bedder.
“Obviously a homosexual, right? Probably. But no responsible language scholar would call it a slam dunk. The problem with assuming we understand this word is that Paul’s two uses are the first times the word appears anywhere in the Greek corpus we now have access to. And we can’t go assuming that the parts of a compound word point irrevocably to the whole, unless we’re ready to assert that the English poets who praised the butterfly were thrilled by winged dairy products.” (Single, Gay, Christian, p. 35)
A correction is in order to Coles’ assertion that “Since Paul had neither the luxury of English nor a twenty-first-century conception of sexual behavior, I realized, it was functionally impossible to offer a twenty-first-century English rendering of these passages [on homosexuality] that would mean precisely the same thing.” He is saying that Paul had no experiential knowledge of homosexuality of the type practiced in the 21st century. Gregory Coles is 26 years old; apparently he is neither a student of Scripture nor ancient history. Most likely, he is just pushing the gay agenda on other Biblical illiterates. Coles' education and expertise are in the rhetorics of marginality— how to use language “to organize and maintain social groups, construct meanings and identities, coordinate behavior, mediate power, produce change, and create knowledge.”
So, was the apostle Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, ignorant of the history of homosexuality? According to one theologian, David Johnson of Asia Pacific Theological Seminary, “Because of his background and education, Paul was bi-cultural, equally at home in both Greek and Jewish literature and cultures and fluent in Hebrew, Greek and Aramiac.” (“The Apostle Paul: Scholar and Student”) As a Roman citizen and student of Gamaliel, who was an avid student of Greek literature, Paul was very familiar with Greek and Roman cultures which not only practiced sodomy for centuries but even institutionalized pederasty. To say that Paul did not have “a twenty-first century conception of sexual behavior” is patently false. There is nothing new under the sun, including 21st century sexual behavior.
Greg Coles continues to mock the words in Scripture that homosexuals must discredit to advance their agenda in the Church :
“What about Leviticus 18 and 20, I wondered, where God declares that for men to lie together is an ‘abomination’ (toebah in Hebrew)? Wasn’t an abomination something so bad that it would always be forbidden, even under the new covenant of Christ? Again, a careful linguistic analysis made my life more complicated. Deuteronomy 14 used the same word, toebah, to describe unclean foods forbidden to the Hebrew people—foods Jesus would later declare clean to true God-followers.” (p.36)
Nice try, but God called some foods an abomination in the Old Testament for reasons that did not exist in the New Testament. God declared “unclean” foods that were a spiritual and health risk for the Israelites, but those prohibitions were not applicable in the new dispensation:
Leviticus 11
1 And the LORD spake unto Moses and to Aaron, saying unto them,
2 Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, These are the beasts which ye shall eat among all the beasts that are on the earth.
“1, 2. the Lord spake unto Moses and to Aaron – These laws, being addressed to both the civil and ecclesiastical rulers in Israel, may serve to indicate the twofold view that is to be taken of them. Undoubtedly the first and strongest reason for instituting a distinction among meats was to discourage the Israelites from spreading into other countries, and from general intercourse with the world—to prevent them acquiring familiarity with the inhabitants of the countries bordering on Canaan, so as to fall into their idolatries or be contaminated with their vices: in short, to keep them a distinct and peculiar people. To this purpose, no difference of creed, no system of polity, no diversity of language or manner, was so subservient as a distinction of meats founded on religion; and hence the Jews, who were taught by education to abhor many articles of food freely partaken of by other people, never, even during periods of great degeneracy, could amalgamate with the nations among which they were dispersed. But although this was the principal foundation of these laws, dietetic reasons also had weight; for there is no doubt that the flesh of many of the animals here ranked as unclean, is everywhere, but especially in warm climates, less wholesome and adapted for food than those which were allowed to be eaten. These laws, therefore, being subservient to sanitary as well as religious ends, were addressed both to Moses and Aaron.” (Jamie-Faussett-Brown Commentary)
Gregory Coles proceeds to dispute the sin of Genesis 19 and Romans 1 as “not sodomy.” Like Rosaria Butterfield, Coles is “queering the Bible” to mean something other than what it says.
“I read with burgeoning hopefulness, burgeoning enthusiasm. The story of Sodom in Genesis 19—perhaps it wasn’t about same-sex attraction but about gang rape. Indeed, the prophet Ezekiel’s later assessment of Sodom had nothing to do with homosexuality: ‘Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy’ (16:49). And Romans 1—it seemed Paul’s primary interest was in rebellion against God, not homosexuality. Perhaps he was simply referencing familiar practices of temple prostitution or the famous perversions of the Roman emperor Caligula for illustrative purposes. That was it: six biblical references to homosexuality. That was all I needed to explain away in order to hang on to my faith and still have everything I wanted.” (Single, Gay, Christian, Kindle 405).
D.A. Carson who enthusiastically endorsed Gregory Coles’ heretical book, recently signed the Nashville Statement along with other religious leaders who only pretend to uphold Bible doctrine while they secretly collaborate with the enemies of Christ:
“Article 10 says, ‘WE AFFIRM that it is sinful to approve of homosexual immorality or transgenderism and that such approval constitutes an essential departure from Christian faithfulness and witness. WE DENY that the approval of homosexual immorality or transgenderism is a matter of moral indifference about which otherwise faithful Christians should agree to disagree.’”
Albert Mohler, who also signed the Nashville Statement, is another pretender to Christian orthodoxy. Mohler was a liberal at Samford University and Southern Seminary, and he’s still a liberal. According to Mark Dever, Mohler was a liberal Baptist who denied the inerrancy of Scripture. Then suddenly Mohler turned into a conservative, and his liberal friends thought he turn coated for a position. (Reformation and the SBC)
“Dever describes the Mohler he knew at Southern for over a year and a half whose ‘biography has sort of changed over the years.’ Dever further says something to the effect ‘Al was inconsistent in his own thinking. He became editor of the Christian Index in Georgia and I was in England, reading those editorials and was surprised how conservative they were. He sort of nailed his colors to the door and those weren’t even his colors three years before. I could see where conservative people at Southern thought he had turn coated and was being trained for a position.’ Dever describes Al as an orthodox evangelical student who was dealing with the liberal influences at Samford in Birmingham and was in a tension, not having a category for what the was hearing at a Baptist University. ‘He gets to Southern and that is exacerbated.’ Then in his doctoral work with Timothy George he is ‘learning about Augustine and Calvin and that causes even more tension.’ Dever adds ‘when I met Al he was not an inerrantist. Also he was egalitarian. I don’t think he was comfortable’ with the tension. ‘Al’s liberal friends were right that he changed. They were wrong that he changed for power. He really did change.’ Is Dever saying Mohler left his liberal friends dazed and confused as well?” (Thomas Littleton, “Aging, Resourced, and Less (Historically) Reformed: The Gospel Coalition”)
The Gospel Coalition is not conservative but a progressive global movement promoting “Social Justice” and the “Common Good.” According to Thomas Littleton, “The Coalition seeks to motivate pastors and theologians to subscribe to a policy of social activism” in order to “create a movement that by long-term effort could renew and reform evangelical thought and practice.”
“Aging, Resourced, and (Less Historically) Reformed: The Gospel Coalition”
“The greater of Dr. Mohler’s show of influence is beyond the SBC with Dever to the larger reformed community through the PCA’s Tim Keller. All are key players in The Gospel Coalition. Because TGC is reformed it is almost universally assumed that it is also socially conservative. If you still make this assumption perhaps you have not followed the Coalition very closely. Colin Hansen (Young, Restless and Reformed) writes about TGC,
‘The vision of the Coalition is to create a movement that by long-term effort could renew and reform evangelical thought and practice, both in the USA and worldwide. The Coalition seeks to motivate pastors and theologians to subscribe to a policy of social activism. The theological vision for ministry urges Christians to become a counterculture for the common good. The ‘doing of justice and mercy’ is an important aspect of the Coalition’s gospel centered ministry. ‘The resurrection of Jesus shows that he is going to redeem both the spiritual and the material. Therefore God is concerned not only for the salvation of souls but also for the relief of poverty, hunger, and injustice.’ (Young, Restless and Reformed, p. 13)
“By admission of one of its primary early spokesmen TGC is a progressive global movement promoting Social Justice and the Common Good. This is the classic realm reserved for humanist ‘Christians’ and those adept at Bible twisting who tout Jesus as a non-divine homeless man crying out for the cause of the underserved.”
Tim Keller, who co-founded The Gospel Coalition with D.A. Carson, is a progressive pastor in the Presbyterian Church of America. Keller was admittedly influenced by the Marxist Frankfurt School and promotes the cultural Marxist social gospel and agenda.
“There is growing concern in the Presbyterian Church of America’s ranks and the smaller more traditional reformed circles about TGC, Tim Keller and friends. Keller, the cofounder of The Gospel Coalition, and Al Mohler are considered to be the new great thinkers of evangelicalism. Keller is even called the new C.S. Lewis. Keller began his soft shoe dance on homosexuality in 2013 saying ‘Christians can support gay marriage in the culture – just not in the church’ (a dangerously flawed misunderstanding of the realities of redefining marriage). By 2015, Keller was unable to clearly state that homosexuality is a sin in a Veritas Forum interview. Earlier that year he served to develop a major evangelical compromise with other leaders by promoting the Civilitas Group. The Civilitas Group Theory of Social Change was developed by the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at UVA. The IASC celebrates its intellectual roots in the Marxist Frankfurt School, which influenced TGC co-founder Keller and ‘like minded’ evangelicals to ‘change the tone in the church on race (like addressing white privilege and supremacy), Islam, homosexuality and incivility in general,’ while leaders in TGC are out to reform evangelical thought and practice worldwide. They are on the cutting edge of pushing a left of center social agenda on the rest of the church which largely takes them for conservative Biblical leaders with a Gospel driven vision.”
“According to many traditional reformed leaders outside The Gospel Coalition, Mohler, Keller, Dever, John Macarthur and others are not truly historically reformed but are a hodgepodge of theological diversions—some considered heretical by classically reformed standards—promoting a progressive social gospel wrapped in a new transforming theology. They are highly ecumenical as in the case of partnering with troubled Charismatic Mark Driscoll and the now defrocked PCA embarrassment, Tullian Tchividjian.” (Thomas Littleton)
Keller was pastor of the New York City Church but recently transitioned to “work full-time teaching in a partner program with Reformed Theological Seminary and working with Redeemer’s City to City church planting network…to teach seminary courses…and…to dedicate himself to teaching the next generation of pastors…
“‘Kathy and I are not going anywhere. New York is our home, and you are our people. We’re not leaving New York or the fellowship of Redeemer,’ he assured the church Sunday. ‘I’m becoming a teacher-trainer …. There’s going to have to be a dramatic increase in church leaders in this city if we’re going to start all these churches.”
Keller, Reformed Theological Seminary and CRU, formerly Campus Crusade, are partnering with cultural Marxists to recruit churches and ministries of all types to help struggling cities to thrive. However, sharing the Gospel is not permitted because the program depends on Faith Based Partnerships between government and corporations with the churches and ministries involved.
“How Evangelicals Lost the Culture War Before it Started: LGBTQ Infiltrators and Facilitators”
“Seeking the Welfare of the City – Is it possible to reach our cities with the Gospel while partnering with the ideologies destroying them?
“This collaboration began 2005 in Orlando with CRU and Lausanne Movement representative Vonette Bright, PCAs Reformed Theological Seminary (Orlando) and NY City pastor Tim Keller. The Polis Report here is worth the time to read. The Seeking the Welfare of the City movement partners with pro- Marxist, pro-gay Urban specialist, Richard Florida, whose ideology promotes the use of a Gay Index and Tolerance Index much like the HRC Equality Index. (Richard Florida is also promoted by Bob Buford, Leadership Network, many Ed Stetzer interviews, Tim Keller, and a host of other curiously confused conservatives.)
“Richard Florida measures and rates cities by his indexes. (The Gayest Cities in America) Florida’s work with Smart Cities, Atlantic Magazine, City Lab and other urban centralized planning is renowned as the gold standard in economic development, urban renewal, historic preservation and community transformation.
“Florida’s books, beginning with the Rise of the Creative Class, assert that such urban centers must attract the Creative Class in order to succeed. This Creative elite includes gays, lesbians. bohemians, artists and musicians whose absence from inclusion in your project would doom it to failure. In actuality, the reason for Florida’s success lies more in the fact that major private and government grant funding uses his indexes as a LITMUS test for who will receive funding. A Florida protégé helps run the UCLA based Williams Institute whose work includes tracking the location of LGBTQ population clusters in order to help aid in what radical activists call ‘Queering the Census’.
“So, the question begs – how can ministries like CRU, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Lausanne collaborate with such partners? Where is the common ground and the common good? How can Tim Keller, who has imported the Seek the Welfare of the City and Richard Florida’s Marxist ideology into his global church planting and City to City work, collaborate with such progressive pro homosexual policy while espousing Civility as the answer for the Church to a full-frontal assault?
“Is Ignorance Bliss or just Criminal?
“How can any of these church leaders named above ignore what is taking place in public schools with LGBTQ activists, the Human Rights Campaign and Planned Parenthood? How can conservative ministers jump on the collective band wagon of urban planning and think its pro Marxist and pro homosexual ideologies are compatible with or can be ‘Christianized’ by injecting few Bible verse justifications?”
The way this happens is that Tim Keller has admitted he is a cultural Marxist and that he is “calling for a “radical new arrangement for the Christian church.” By “a radical new arrangement” he really means “a radical new agenda,” that is, fulfilling the Social Justice Gospel instead of the Great Commission.
“Keller's Marxist sympathies - The New Calvinist”
“Timothy F Kauffman, writing in The Trinity Review in March 2014, has produced an article, in two parts, with the provocative title, ‘Workers of the Church, Unite!: The Radical Marxist Foundation of Tim Keller’s Social Gospel’. Part 1 reviews of Tim Keller’s book, Every Good Endeavour: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work (2012) and demonstrates that his view of work is deeply entrenched in Marxist ideology. Part 2 shows that Keller has been heavily influenced by several prominent socialists or Marxists economists and theologians, whom he cites regularly to support his theses.
“Kauffman’s analysis is entirely consistent with the sentiments that Keller expressed in The Reason for God (2008), where he writes about his emotional attachment to the ideas of the Frankfurt School of Neo-Marxism. He confesses that in college he was ‘heavily influenced by the neo-Marxist critical theory of the Frankfurt School’, and admits that he ‘was emotionally’ drawn to the social activism of the neo-Marxists. Keller closes The Reason for God hoping his readers will become ‘true revolutionaries’ and will ‘go from here’ into churches that are devoted to actions of social justice. He seeks to spawn the realization of the ‘desperate need’ he felt as a college student ‘to find a group of Christians who had a concern for justice in the world but who grounded it in the nature of God rather than in their own subjective feelings’.”
“The Reason for God is a religious socio-political manifesto calling for a radical ‘new arrangement’ for the Christian church.”
KELLER PREDICTS “END OF THE CHRISTIAN RIGHT”
In 2013, Tim Keller spoke at public / secular faith forum about the end of the Christian Right and the future of the church without it. Tim Keller is shrewd enough to hedge his prediction, but he is not merely surmising the end of the Christian right. He concludes his talk with the observation that there is among younger evangelicals “a kind of conservative Christian view that is okay with gay marriage.” In other words, a “new Christian conservative” view that is not terribly exercised about homosexuality and is therefore more tolerant of gay people and gay marriage than their parents and grandparents.
“Conservative Christianity After the Christian Right”
“The Faith Angle Forum is a semi-annual conference which brings together a select group of 20 nationally respected journalists with 3-5 distinguished scholars on areas of religion, politics & public life.”
“Conservative Christianity after the Christian right — I am used to speaking about things that I am absolutely certain of. I am used to speaking about things I would take a bullet for and things I would die for. I would like the record to show that I am not willing to die for my opinion on conservative Christianity after the Christian right…
“But…
“…the church that I pastor and have pastored for quite a while is full of what is known as the millennials. A high percentage of them are unaffiliated, the 18 to 29 year olds, and then the next generation, those are the people that are there in my church.
“32 is the median age of the people who attend Redeemer, which makes it about 80 percent under 42 or something like that. And so I live in that world that is totally allergic to institutional religion, and I live amongst what you have to call younger evangelicals. And so it’s just as well I do speak to this I guess, because I’m old enough and my church is young enough that maybe I can say something about it…
“What is changing is for the first time in history a growing group of people who think the Bible is bad, it’s dangerous, it’s regressive, it’s a bad cultural force, that was just never there. It was very tiny. And that’s because the middle ground has shifted, so it is more identified with the more secular, the less religious, and it’s less identified now with the more devout…
“Now, I am in a spot where I have seen, for reasons I will tell you under my second heading here, that I have seen a lot of disaffected, Anglo-type people who go off to college, decide that I can’t find a Christianity or a faith that really works for me, and then get recaptured by Redeemer and churches in Manhattan. I can see that, and I do see it — I don’t know how statistically significant it is. Maybe it’s not much. But I do know we can hold our own with that crowd. I just know it can be done…
“Here is what I mean. First of all, it is true that younger evangelicals are not wedded that much to the Christian right. To me, the Christian right was conservative politics, which would mean smaller government, lower taxes, strong national defense, a pretty high value on free market capitalism. To me the Christian right was that, along with traditional 2,000-year-old Christian values of anti-abortion, no easy divorce, homosexuality is wrong. And you put that together you had the Christian right.
“Now, there is no doubt that on the economic and political side that younger evangelicals just are not as wedded to the high value of the free market, super strong national defense, or small government. They are very sensitive to issues of what they would call justice and the needs of the poor. And if they see public policies that don’t seem to take that into account, they are not happy…
“Peter Berger, in one of your Faith Angle transcripts,…said if the evangelicals become assimilated then they will just become like everybody else, which they might. They might. There’s a lot of pressure out there. And if they’re triumphalistic, they will be just thrown out. In other words, if they just start to beat people over the head with a Bible, they just get thrown out. But it’s possible that it might have a big effect, and it might, and I do think there is something like that going on out there…
“I think younger evangelicals are not incredibly exercised. I think they realize that there are at least three positions you could have as a professing Christian. You could say, ‘I believe the Bible, but I think the Bible doesn’t really condemn homosexuality.’ I have argued why I think there are some deep inconsistencies in that…
“The second possibility is, ‘I believe homosexuality is wrong, but there is really no reason why to keep gay people out of the inherent conservatism of marriage.’ As some of you know, there are plenty of people who say marriage is an inherently conservative institution. David Blankenhorn’s whole point is, let’s just keep it where it is. And if gay people want to get into it, fine. What the country needs is strong marriages.
“And then, the third view is that it is bad for human flourishing, because it is not the way human beings are wired. It is not good for children — the French approach, which is every child has the right to a father and a mother. So you shouldn’t enshrine a particular form of marriage that permanently keeps a child from having one or the other.
“So those are three positions, and I would say younger evangelicals are just not incredibly strident about it. They just aren’t, because they know there is a liberal view, a liberal Christian view, there’s a kind of conservative Christian view that is okay with gay marriage…”
Tim Keller is not merely an observer of this Evangelical shift to liberalism but a key leader in the Marxist subversion of Christianity. A few excerpts from his book, The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith, reveal Keller’s deceptive strategy to distance younger evangelicals from the Word of God and the faith of their Christian parents, whom he calls “Pharisees,” and then claim that “those with liberal views on sex, politics, and culture…were kind, reasonable, and open-hearted.”
“Luke recounts that here were two groups of people who had come to listen to Jesus. First there were the ‘tax collectors and sinners.’ These men and women correspond to the younger brother. They observed neither the moral laws of the Bible nor the rules for ceremonial purity followed by religious Jews. They engaged in ‘wild living.’ Like the younger brother, they ‘left home’ by leaving the traditional morality of their families and of respectable society. The second group of listeners was the ‘Pharisees and the teachers of the law,’ who were represented by the elder brother. They held to the traditional morality of their upbringing. They studied and obeyed the Scripture. They worshipped faithfully and prayed constantly.
“With great economy Luke shows how different each group’s response was to Jesus. The progressive tense of the Greek verb translated ‘were gathering’ conveys that the attraction of younger brothers to Jesus was an ongoing pattern in his ministry. They continually flocked to him. This phenomenon puzzled and angered the moral and the religious. Luke summarizes their complaint: ‘This man welcomes sinners and [even] eats with them.’ To sit down and eat with someone in the ancient Near East was a token of acceptance. ‘How dare Jesus reach out to sinners like that?’ they were saying. ‘These people never come to our services! Why would they be drawn to Jesus’s teaching? He couldn’t be declaring the truth to them, as we do. He must be just telling them what they want to hear!’” (pp. 7-9)
“There are many people today who have abandoned any kind of religious faith because they see clearly that the major religions are simply full of elder brothers. They have come to the conclusion that religion is one of the greatest sources of misery and strife in the world. And guess what? Jesus says through this parable—they are right. The anger and superiority of elder brothers, all growing out of insecurity, fear, and inner emptiness, can create a huge body of guilt-ridden, fear-ridden, spiritually blind people, which is one of the great sources of social injustice, war, and violence.” (pp. 66-67)
“Our big cities are filled with younger brothers who fled from churches in the heartland that were dominated by elder brothers. When I moved to New York City in the late 1980s to begin a new church, I thought I would meet many secular people who had no familiarity with Christianity at all. I did, but to my surprise I met just as many people who had been raised in churches and in devout families and had come to New York City to get as far away from them as possible. After about a year of ministry we had two or three hundred people attending services. I was asked, ‘Who is coming to your church?’ Upon reflection, I answered that it was about one-third non-believers, one-third believers, and one-third ‘recovering’ believers—younger brothers. I had met so many younger brothers who had been hurt and offended by elder brothers that neither they nor I were sure whether they still believed the Christian faith or not.
“The most common examples of this I saw were the many young adults who had come from more conservative parts of the U.S. to take their undergraduate degrees at a New York City school. Here they met the kind of person they had been warned about for years, those with liberal views on sex, politics, and culture. Despite what they had been led to believe, those people were kind, reasonable, and open-hearted. When the students began to experience a change in their own views, they found that many people back home, especially in the churches, responded in a hostile and bigoted way. Soon they had rejected their former views along with their faith. The elder brothers had turned them into younger brothers.
“We discovered, however, that younger brothers were willing to come to our church because they saw that we made a clear distinction between the gospel and religious moralism, and that provided an opportunity in which they could explore Christianity from a new perspective.” (pp. 67-69)
The Prodigal God is basically a polemic against Christianity which likens those who uphold sound doctrine to “Pharisees” for the purpose of turning the younger generation against the Word of God. Tragically, many young Christians do not have or have rejected sound doctrine and, not knowing the truth will not discern the counterfeit— the cultural Marxist agenda to destroy Christianity. The final nail in the coffin of the apostate church will be driven by the White House Faith-Based Partnership legislation.
The fact is that The Gospel Coalition set the tone for the Christian Church to counter the “powers that be” for years while they were in bed with them. Now The Gospel Coalition is leading churches into “faith-based partnerships” with the government so they will not resist its social agenda. As predicted by Tom Littleton, “The entire homosexual agenda will be fully forced on the churches by virtue of Faith-Based Partnerships.”
“And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God; I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. Re 3:16 So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent. Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.” Revelation 3:14:22
