The Kingdom of God Won’t Come through Big Government

By Jan Markell

www.olivetreeviews.org

Linda Harvey writes in World Net Daily that Christian churches should have caught on to the quasi-Christianity of Jim Wallis and Sojourners by now. Unfortunately, a "Social Justice Revival" came to her church recently. But sadly, the gospel was hard to find on the podium.

The election year faith posturing could not have been more transparent, yet many young attendees were misled to believe that this might be authentic "revived" Christianity.

She states, “What was on the menu? Perhaps how religion can prop up left-wing priorities like race divisiveness, perpetual poverty, and America-bashing as the important issues ‘real’ believers should care about, rather than fighting homosexual marriage and abortion.”

Wallis states in his new book The Great Awakening that the right is obsessed with fighting abortion laws and stopping "gay rights," for instance, which he supports as a justice issue (page 229). Both are way too divisive and not nearly as important as programs for the poor, climate change, and giving away American sovereignty, preferably to illegal immigrants. The Christian right does not care about the poor and many other social issues, according to Jim Wallis.

Wallis, his associate Tony Campolo, and many others who emphasize the social gospel are sadly now called “evangelicals” or “progressive evangelicals.” These advocates for social justice go beyond the antics of the religious left and suggest that the kingdom of God on earth will come about through big government. They stress the “red letters of the Bible,” and are often called “red letter Christians.”

They would advocate some of the following:

·        Christians are too war-like when we should love our enemies.

·        Universal health care should be provided by the government.

·        The U.S. should pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan and address the real problem of terrorism by creating a Palestinian state and addressing the root cause, poverty.

·        Christians should be offering sanctuary to all illegal aliens.

·        The U.S. should cut the military budget and expand wealth-redistribution programs.

In other words, since such concepts and issues are the red letters of Jesus brought into the 21^st century, “red letter Christians” have just about made Jesus a socialist. Jesus also said that we must be born again (John 3:7) but you likely won’t ever hear this crowd talk about that.

Apparently at Harvey’s church, money, guaranteed jobs, and worldly goods better be part of the package or else Jesus can just pack up and go right back to Israel – whoops, I mean "Palestine."  So the pastor of the church and Wallis suggest that the church today has “failed.” Harvey states, “Well, next time there's a Katrina or a tsunami, we conservative Christians might want to boycott the relief efforts, stay home from mission trips, and let's just see if the deficit is made up from the ‘social justice left’ or, perhaps, a coming Democratic administration's expanded social programs.” 

While Wallis gets standing ovations on college campuses including my alma mater, Bethel University in St. Paul, Minnesota, there are many who join me in saying that the religious left doesn’t frame my priorities, my gospel, or my vote.

Jesus’ perspective pervades the entire Bible, not just the red letters. There is nothing in the red letters that is at odds with the rest of the Bible. There is no contradiction between the red letters and the black letters – but not to “red letter Christians.”

When one of these men visits your church, would you ask them about spreading the good news of sacrifice, repentance, forgiveness of sins, spiritual renewal, and rebirth? Ask them to tone down the news of redistributing the wealth, faith in government, the gospel of global warming, and moral relativism. 

To better understand this, visit the “Spiritual Deception” category at my Web site.

By Jan Markell Click here for bio and archived articles