The Church doesn’t survive by being pleasant. It doesn’t grow by being inoffensive. It doesn’t faithfully represent Christ by avoiding controversy. Throughout church history, the moments of greatest faithfulness have been the moments of greatest testing: When courage was demanded, Christians stood firmly on Scripture at the exact time when culture demanded compromise or death. Third Wayism, by contrast, is the posturing for comfort absent of controversy. It’s the stance of leaders who have more to lose than to gain from taking clear positions.

What happens when we separate God’s law from His Gospel in the name of political neutrality?  If you’ve been paying attention to evangelical discourse recently, you’ve likely encountered what’s now called “Third Wayism” — a term for the modern evangelical approach to political and cultural engagement without the baggage of moral or political absolutism. 

The premise sounds reasonable enough on the surface: Occupy a middle ground between the left vs. right culture war, avoiding strong alignment with either major political party, platform, or group.

Proponents claim they’re simply being “winsome” and “balanced” — rising above tribalism and transcending versus trendsetting in order to proclaim a pure Gospel untainted by political entanglements.

Third Wayism often sounds like this: “Jesus is neither right nor left.” Or “Jesus wasn’t an elephant or a donkey. but the Lamb.” Or “Jesus would be too liberal for conservatives and too conservative for liberals.” 

That’s true enough but is that all that needs to be said about our cultural and political divide? What actually happening here? Third Wayism has become a Trojan horse for laundering progressive ideas into the evangelical churches under the guise of neutrality. 

It’s a form of bait-and-switch theological liberalism that prioritizes cultural accommodation over biblical faithfulness. And while Third Way advocates claim to critique extremes on both sides, their focus disproportionately critiques conservatives while blindly ignoring radical leftist policies like sexual indoctrination in schools, transing our youth, leftist political violence, mass illegal immigration, socialism and government theft, and a host of other issues.

Make no mistake: This isn’t just a problem of church leaders failing to exact the right prescription to our political problems. It’s a theological crisis. And it bears a striking resemblance to one of the earliest heresies the Church ever confronted: Gnosticism. 

How should Christians think about Third Wayism and its real dangers?

First, Theologically, Third Wayism Is a Form of a Neo-Marcion Heresy, a Gnostic Heresy That Attempts to Separate God’s Law from His Gospel.

In the second century, a heretic named Marcion taught that the God of the Old Testament — with His law, judgment, and wrath — was fundamentally different from the God of the New Testament, who offered only love, grace, and mercy. Marcion essentially wanted a Gospel without the law and grace without any sacrifice.

Marcion was the first to want to unhitch the church from the Old Testament. 

The early Church fathers rightly condemned this as heresy. Because you cannot separate the law from the Gospel. Yes, the law and the Gospel are two separate categories, but you cannot know the good news of Jesus Christ without first knowing what Christ is saving you from. You cannot understand grace apart from God’s justice or holiness.

Third Wayism makes the same fundamental error as applied to the cultural and political divide in America. It wants the comfort of the Gospel without the confrontation of God’s law.

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