What could be discarded from the local church operation that seems objectionable to the world but have the message remain the same? However, the changes created a worldly ethos that nullified the message that was proclaimed. Soon, as part of the friendly look of the local church, the meeting place was scrubbed of all religious symbols and replaced with symbols of entertainment—flat screens for example. Music followed much the same path and sermons became more theologically innocuous. Evangelicals began to parrot pet phrases of the Woke crowd to virtue signal to the culture and let the young people know they “got it”, they were “cool.”
In 1984, Francis Schaeffer, speaking of evangelical Christians, points out that “very few have taken a strong and courageous stand against the world spirit of this age as it destroys our culture and the Christian ethos that once shaped our country” (GED, 310). He goes on to claim that the primary battle is the “spiritual battle which is being fought in the heavenlies” (GED, 310). This he notes “is a life and death struggle over the minds and souls of men for all eternity, but it is equally a life and death struggle over life on this earth” (GED,310). In this spiritual battle many evangelicals have not only lacked the courage to stand for truth, but a good number have actually imbibed the spirit of this age in the name of being relevant.
Unfortunately, many evangelicals have ignored Schaeffer’s warning as they have become complicit either by remaining silent or actually accepting some ideas of groups such as the Social Justice Warrior, a movement owned by the spirit of the age. They seem oblivious to the redefinition of social justice, thinking they are virtuous for defending such a noble idea—Justice.
Of course, Justice is a noble idea but according to Isaiah 59:14 justice must be grounded in Truth, not lies. Every Christian ought to be a concerned defender of equal opportunity and equal protection under the law when those terms are defined in the normal use of the English language. It is not that there must be some evangelical crusade against all of this, but at least evangelicals should expose the anti-human, anti-Christian rhetoric of all forms of Wokeness so to protect the church against its insidious ideas.
Quite to the contrary, evangelicals try to walk a fine line where they give mouth support to the authority of Scripture while virtue signaling to the world that evangelicals are benign creatures and truth does not matter. It seems to me that evangelicals made a misstep earlier which has led to either an uncritical acceptance of Woke doctrine or simply remaining silent. As many young people turned away from the church, understandably evangelicals became worried.
