If our ethics are steering the wheel, we will lose our orthodoxy and the ethics will all loosen anyway. I care very much about social issues. But they come from my theological convictions. I’m concerned about how low or bad doctrine has been accepted and promoted for the sake of our social stances.

I received a preview of Ligonier Ministries’ State of Theology survey in my inbox last week, revealing what evangelical Americans think about God, Jesus Christ, sin, and eternity, and was afraid to click on it. I can already see the state of theology all around me. It’s easy to blame the secular culture around us or the denominations that don’t take theology seriously. But bad theology is perpetuated in our own circles.

Unfortunately, a trend I have noticed in the evangelical church, particularly in our parachurch groups and popular level so-called Christian books marketed to us, is that we care more about ethics than really knowing these primary doctrines. As long as everyone is on the same page with the sexuality, pro-life, and other social issues the church is up against, Christian authors and readers have been given a lot of leeway.

Brothers and sisters, we have our priorities out of place.  We should care about social issues and sexuality because of what we know about God and salvation.

I have written so much about how our own Christian books are conditioning us to have a low view of God and his word, a high view of man, and a distorted gospel.

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