Christianity's real crisis isn't atheism — but a far more sinister deception



When Baylor University returned a $1.65 million LGBTQ+ grant last month — one tied to DEI efforts and LGBTQ initiatives — it sent a ripple through the Christian world.

On the surface, it looked like a victory: a Christian institution backing down in the face of public pressure from believers. But as Allie Beth Stuckey and others rightly pointed out, this wasn’t a win born from spiritual conviction. It was a calculated retreat, one that exposed a much deeper problem than any single grant.

God’s word doesn’t change. His standards don’t evolve with the culture.

It exposed the growing danger of progressive Christianity.

This movement isn’t just a theological shift. It’s a spiritual counterfeit — one that keeps the language of Christianity but trades the authority of scripture for the approval of culture. And in my heart, I believe it’s more dangerous than atheism. At least an atheist is clear about what he believes. Progressive Christianity, on the other hand, deceives from the inside. It misleads under the banner of Jesus, offering a form of godliness but denying its power (2 Timothy 3:5).

And it’s costing people their salvation.

What is progressive Christianity, really?

Progressive Christianity isn’t just a more “open-minded” version of the faith — it’s a total redefinition of it.

At its core, progressive theology tends to:

  • Reject the authority and inerrancy of the Bible.
  • Reinterpret sin through the lens of human experience.
  • Emphasize love and inclusion over holiness and repentance.
  • Downplay the exclusivity of Christ for salvation.

It often affirms the cultural moment over the eternal word. In this view, truth is flexible. God’s commands are negotiable. And Jesus becomes more of a moral teacher than a Savior who calls us to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Him (Luke 9:23).

That’s not Christianity. That’s deception.

For anyone unfamiliar with this movement, here’s a biblical breakdown of progressive Christianity that explains how it departs from the true gospel.

Why progressive Christianity is more dangerous than atheism

It might sound extreme, but I truly believe this: Progressive Christianity is a greater threat to the gospel than atheism ever was.

Here’s why: Atheists make no pretense about their disbelief. You know where they stand. But progressive Christians use Christian language, scripture, and emotion to validate teachings that directly contradict the Bible. They redefine sin, affirm lifestyles that scripture calls us to repent from, and reduce salvation to a vague message of self-love.

In doing so, they lead others down a path that feels spiritual — but is ultimately separated from Christ.

RELATED: How JD Vance exposed the convenient theology of progressive Christians

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Jesus warned about this kind of deception: “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves” (Matthew 7:15).

Progressive Christianity often wears that sheep’s clothing well. But it leaves people spiritually lost, thinking they’re saved while embracing a gospel that has no power to save.

Baylor is a symptom — not the disease

The Baylor grant controversy is just one example of a larger pattern. Christian institutions across America are slowly conforming to culture while keeping the appearance of faith.

Many churches and universities want the brand of Christianity without the cost of obedience.

Whether it’s "The Chosen" seemingly partnering with people that affirm sin, or seminaries quietly shifting their theological standards, the same compromise is at work: Affirming the feelings of man over the commands of God.

This isn’t about one issue. It’s about all of them. Whether it’s sexuality, gender, marriage, abortion, or even the exclusivity of the gospel, progressive Christianity molds faith to fit culture, rather than calling culture to repent and follow Christ.

A personal word on compassion and conviction

Let me say something from the heart: I have many friends who consider themselves Christians and also identify as gay. Some are even politically conservative. They love Jesus — or at least they think they do. But they’ve been taught, as I once believed, that God affirms their same-sex relationships as long as they’re “loving” and “monogamous.”

I understand the desire to reconcile faith and desire. I lived in that space for years, trying to convince myself that God was OK with what I wanted, as long as I was sincere.

But sincerity doesn’t save us. Jesus does. And He doesn’t just meet us where we are — He calls us to repentance, to holiness, to transformation. That’s not cruelty. That’s grace.

God always preserves a remnant. But it’s time to wake up.

So while I’m deeply compassionate toward those who are still working through these things, I cannot affirm a version of Christianity that leaves people where they are instead of leading them to the cross.

That’s what progressive Christianity does — and it’s why it’s so dangerous.

What the Bible really calls us to

True Christianity isn’t comfortable. It never has been.

Jesus said: “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it” (Matthew 7:13).

The road of progressive Christianity is wide. It’s attractive. It’s affirming. But it does not save.

God’s word doesn’t change. His standards don’t evolve with the culture. The call to repentance, faith, and obedience is still the same today as it was 2,000 years ago. And anything less than that isn’t good news at all — it’s a lie with eternal consequences.

A call to courage

If you’re a believer who sees what’s happening in the church and feels discouraged — don’t be. God always preserves a remnant. But it’s time to wake up.

We cannot keep pretending that agreement equals love or that silence equals peace. True love tells the truth. And true peace only comes through Christ — not cultural affirmation.

The danger of progressive Christianity is that it speaks peace where there is no peace. It offers comfort without conviction and affirmation without transformation. That is not the gospel.

And it’s time we say so — with boldness, clarity, and compassion.

This article is adapted from an essay originally published at Arch Kennedy's blog.

The hardest commandment for parents to follow



Whether it’s enforcing discipline or training our children up in the gospel, being a godly parent is incredibly difficult.

But there’s one commandment that most moms and dads would agree is harder than them all: keeping God above our children.

We love our kids so much that we desperately want to have strong relationships with them. And this is a good thing. But it quickly becomes sinful when our desire to be close with our children becomes more important than obeying God.

“The ideal, of course, is to maintain forever a loving and a close relationship with your kids and obey the Lord. … That's every Christian parent's hope,” says Allie Beth Stuckey.

But “if one has to give — either it's obey the Lord or get my child to like me … then you’ve got to go with obeying the Lord. That's the call for the Christian. That's part of the dying to self.”

Allie admits that one of the most challenging verses in scripture is Jesus’ words in Luke 14:26, where he says, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple."

Jesus isn’t mincing words here: True discipleship requires prioritizing devotion to Him above even the closest family relationships — not literally hating our family but elevating our commitment to following Him above all.

“I do believe in trying to maintain those relationships [with our children] as much as possible, but if something has to give … it has to be obeying the Lord, who is kinder and better and wiser than we are,” Allie reiterates.

She criticizes Georgia Pastor Andy Stanley and other progressive-leaning church leaders for encouraging parents to be LGBTQ+-affirming when it comes to their children. She condemns his decision to invite a gay married couple to speak at his church on several occasions, misleading his congregation to disagree with God on what is sinful.

This is equivalent to telling parents to “reject God's authority when it comes to sex, marriage, [and] gender,” Allie explains.

She points to the powerful testimony of Laura Perry, whom God redeemed from transgenderism, as an example of how godly parents should behave when their children stray. Laura’s parents “never compromised,” she says.

“And because of that, because they continued to tell her God's word … while also being kind to her … she was brought back to a place of repentance.”

She brings up Rosaria Butterfield as another powerful example. “She's the former queer theory professor, former lesbian, who tried every way she could 20-plus years ago to unite her homosexuality with her Christianity. But the Holy Spirit, because this is what he does, he wouldn't let her do it,” she says.

Parents need to be reminded that Jesus, once he enters a person’s heart, “kills sin,” which He alone gets to define.

“He is a king taking dominion over your heart and your mind and your soul and, yes, your sexuality,” says Allie, “and this is just as true in all of us as it is true with people who wrestle with same-sex attraction or gender confusion” — even if those people are your own children.

To hear more of Allie’s commentary, watch the episode above.

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Is progressive Christianity really Christian? The truth may challenge you



An oxymoron is the combination of two contradictory terms to create a new meaning. For example, the words "deafening" and “silence” are sometimes paired to capture the uncomfortable sensation of an environment so quiet the silence rings like a loud noise in one’s ears.

Allie Beth Stuckey, BlazeTV host of “Relatable,” says “progressive Christianity” is an oxymoron because the terms are antithetical.

What meaning do these two words make when paired together? The answer, despite what many argue, is not a branch of Christianity, but a branch of heresy rooted in left-wing political activism.

“A progressive Christian is not a Christian because Christianity is not progressive. It is static,” Allie explains. “It is defined by a central fixed truth. This truth does not change. It doesn't progress. It doesn't evolve.”

That central and fixed truth is, of course, the gospel message: Jesus Christ, fully God and fully man, atoned for the sins of mankind via his death, offering salvation for those who believe and follow Him.

Allie, citing multiple scriptures, says, “We read that Jesus is a savior from sin and death – spiritual death, which is separation from God in hell. That is the most fundamental defining belief of Christianity.”

However, “those who call themselves progressive Christians deny this central truth” because their definitions of savior, sin, and salvation oppose biblical definitions.

To the progressive Christian, Jesus is “a moral teacher,” “an activist,” “a justification for socialism,” and “a liberator from earthly systems of oppression.”

The Christian faith is seen as “a means by which we fight for the liberation of the oppressed and the marginalized.”

The oppressed and marginalized, as defined exclusively by modern Democrats, includes “the illegal immigrant, the non-white person, the LGBTQ person, and ... when it comes to abortion, the woman.” Essentially, anyone “not receiving taxpayer subsidized privileges” falls into this category, says Allie.

And so progressive “Christians” fight for these oppressed and marginalized people by “voting and advocating for a political system that prioritizes [their] needs and the desires ... above the needs of the privileged class of oppressors, which are made up of white people, straight men and the rich, and really anyone in any demographic who opposes progressive policies,” Allie explains.

“This is, to the so-called progressive Christian, salvation. This is the kingdom of heaven. This is the gospel in their world. Sin is collective, not personal. Salvation is political, not spiritual. The kingdom of heaven is earthly, not eternal. Jesus is a savior from conservatism, not condemnation," she adds.

But what does the Bible really teach?

“That there is a perfect holy God who created the world. Because He is holy, He cannot tolerate sin. That's bad news for us because all of us have sinned – every single one of us,” says Allie.

“But God, because He loves us, warts and all, sins and all, sent someone to reach His perfect standard on our behalf, and that was Jesus, His only son, who lived a perfectly sinless life and yet was executed like a brutal criminal.”

To hear more of Allie’s commentary, watch the episode above.

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'Progressive Christian' turns Bible into a Planned Parenthood parable — but truth fires back



Who knew the Christmas story was really about bodily autonomy?

That's exactly what Democrat James Talarico, a Texas state representative and progressive Christian, wants you to believe. Armed with the confidence of a seminarian with just enough theology to be dangerous, Talarico recently appeared on "The Joe Rogan Experience," where he claimed there is "no historical, theological, biblical basis" requiring Christians to oppose abortion.

Talarico wants to paint Mary as a modern feminist icon. But scripture tells a different story, one far more radical.

What's worse, Talarico argued that the Bible supports the "right" of a mother to kill her unborn child.

His argument goes like this: Because Genesis 2:7 says that Adam became a "living being" after God breathed life into him, that means life doesn't begin until birth. Therefore, an unborn child can be killed before he takes his first breath because the unborn aren't fully human.

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of the Bible. It's theological acrobatics dressed up as biblical scholarship — and it's a lie.

Adam wasn't conceived in a womb, according to Genesis. He was handcrafted by God from the dust of creation, then filled with God's life-giving spirit. The moment of breath is not about biology, as Talarico suggests, but theology. It declares that God alone is the giver of life. And to use this verse as a permission slip for abortion is not just a category error, it's a hermeneutical train wreck of the worst kind.

The implications of his logic are chilling.

Biblically, it means that King David's mother would have been morally justified to exercise "choice" and abort the future king — even while God weaved him together in his mother's womb (Psalm 139) — and that it would have been justified for Elizabeth and Mary to slaughter their unborn children, John the Baptist and Jesus, just as Herodian soldiers slaughtered the holy innocents who supposedly threatened King Herod's reign (Matthew 2:16-18).

RELATED: How liberals hijack the Bible to push their agenda on you

In fact, Talarico's logic does more than attack the unborn — it undermines the Incarnation.

His argument denies the hypostatic union, the historic Christian doctrine that Jesus is both fully God and fully human. If Jesus wasn't fully human until He took His first breath, then He was not the Incarnate Son during Mary's pregnancy. But Jesus didn't become the Son of God only when he took his first breath at birth. No, he was fully God and fully human from the moment of conception. To suggest otherwise is not a minor theological error. It's heresy.

In an effort to score progressive political points, Talarico doesn't just fumble elementary theology or misinterpret a Bible verse. He actually guts the gospel and rips out the beating heart of Christian orthodoxy.

But it gets worse.

Not content with butchering Genesis 2:7, Talarico also reinterprets the Annunciation — the moment when the angel Gabriel tells Mary she will bear the Son of God (Luke 1:26-38) — as proof that the Bible is pro-abortion.

"Before God comes over Mary and we have the Incarnation, God asks for Mary's consent, which is remarkable," Talarico told Joe Rogan. "The angel comes down and asks Mary if this is something that she wants to do, and she says, 'If it is God's will, let it be done.'"

In Talarico's telling, the Annunciation is not about God taking on human flesh to dwell with us but a story that teaches that "creation has to be done with consent." Therefore, his argument goes, abortion is compatible with Christianity because creation itself depends on a woman exercising bodily autonomy.

This pro-Planned Parenthood parable, of course, is pure fiction.

The Christian consensus has been clear-eyed about this issue for two millennia: Abortion is a grave sin. Full stop.

Neither God nor Gabriel asks Mary for her "consent." Instead, Gabriel tells Mary what she will do. "You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus" (Luke 1:31). And Mary's response? She doesn't assert her bodily autonomy, but she accepts God's will with obedience, even though she does not understand God's plan (Luke 1:34).

Talarico wants to paint Mary as a modern feminist icon. But scripture tells a different story, one far more radical: She is a confused teenage girl who trusts God with her body, future, and reputation.

It's the ultimate act of surrender. And, more importantly, it's a complete rebuke of pro-abortion ideology, which elevates a woman to giver and taker of life.

The truth is, Christianity has never endorsed abortion. The earliest Christian writings outside the New Testament — from the Didache to the church fathers and Councils — explicitly condemn abortion and equate it with murder. The Christian consensus has been clear-eyed about this issue for two millennia: Abortion is a grave sin. Full stop.

Only under the pressure of secularism, an ideology that erases God, have some Christians equivocated and, in the case of Talarico, tried to revise history. But this revision attempt is not biblical scholarship.

This is why Talarico's attempt to force the concept of "consent" into the Bible is as bewildering as it is absurd. He's not doing exegesis. He's bending his knee to the spirit of the age, using the Bible as a prop to recast the word of God into the image of progressive politics.

It's dangerous, not only because of its destructive theology, but because Talarico is not a fringe activist. He's a rising star in the Democratic Party. Rogan, in fact, urged Talarico to run for president, and Politico even believes Talarico could "turn Texas blue." That means his gobbledygook theology isn't just rhetorical — it could have real consequences.

And the cost will be measured in dead unborn babies.

Christians must not be deceived by Talarico's affable tone, seminary vocabulary, or theological sleight of hand. The Bible is not pro-abortion, and Christian theology does not treat abortion as a third-tier issue we can "agree to disagree" about. Christianity is unabashedly pro-life. From Genesis to Revelation, God reveals a radical vision of human life: It is sacred because it is human made in His image.

Mary didn't say, "My body, my choice." She said, "I am the Lord's servant. May it happen to me as you have said." That's not feminist consent. It's a rebuke of it.

Jesus was not ‘a feminist’: Debunking a ‘progressive’ Christian’s blasphemous sermon



Texas state Rep. James Talarico (D) has gone viral all over apps like TikTok for his "progressive Christian" views — and in one popular 2022 sermon, he makes the bold claim that Jesus was actually a feminist.

“The first way we can tell that Jesus was a feminist is through his actions. And throughout the Gospels, Jesus is constantly subverting first-century gender norms by talking with women, learning from women, healing women, trusting women. In fact, the only person to ever beat Jesus in a debate in the Bible was the Syrophoenician woman,” Talarico said in his sermon.

“Think about that. The only person to teach Jesus something was a woman. Even the Son of God had something to learn from one of God’s daughters. The church should start to listen to them again,” he added.


“Okay, so much blasphemy there,” BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey comments. “First of all, Jesus is God. Okay, so that’s pretty basic. Jesus is God. That means he’s all-knowing. That means he’s all-powerful. That means he is not limited by time and space.”

“And so it is not possible for Jesus to have learned something that he did not already know. It is not possible for him to have made an error. It is not possible for Jesus to have lost a debate because he is all-knowing,” she continues.

Rather, in the conversation with the Syrophoenician woman, Stuckey explains that he used the moment “as a learning opportunity” in order to “teach her and the people around him something about faith.”

“Progressives are always getting it wrong because they are reading their politics into the text, and they miss the true meaning and beauty of the text. They miss the gospel in the text because they are looking to justify their politics,” she says.

Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

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James Talarico Preached a False Gospel on Joe Rogan. Here's Why He's Wrong | Ep 1221
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James Talarico Preached a False Gospel on Joe Rogan. Here's Why He's Wrong | Ep 1221

No Matter How Hard Democrats Try, There Is No Such Thing As ‘Biblical Evidence’ For Abortion

[rebelmouse-proxy-image https://thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-21-at-9.25.08 AM-scaled-e1753108326153-1200x675.png crop_info="%7B%22image%22%3A%20%22https%3A//thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-21-at-9.25.08%5Cu202fAM-scaled-e1753108326153-1200x675.png%22%7D" expand=1]Just because Jesus didn’t specifically use the word ‘abortion’ in his short ministry on Earth doesn’t mean he endorses it.

‘The darkness hates the light’: Why Christians must persevere in the public sphere



While a majority of Americans identify as Christians, many of them have been misled to believe in a version of Christianity that is not biblical — for fear of how they’d be treated in the public square.

“We are told over and over again that if you, as not just a Christian, but a conservative Christian, bring your worldview into the public square, into politics, if you allow what you believe about the Bible to influence your politics, you are a fascist, you are a dictator, you’re trying to bring in ‘The Handmaid’s Tale,’ you are a Christian nationalist,” Allie Beth Stuckey tells author and apologist Natasha Crain on “Relatable.”

However, the opposite is true for progressives.


“If you’re a progressive that uses some decontextualized Bible verse to support your immigration policy or your abortion policy or your socialistic policy, that’s not Christian nationalism, that’s fine, that’s true, good Christianity,” Stuckey continues.

“It’s only when a Christian might say, ‘Well, you know, Psalm 139 makes it pretty clear that babies inside the womb are valuable or made by God, so I don’t think that it should be legal to murder them,’ all of a sudden that is prohibited in a form of tyranny,” she adds.

“I think Christians get very confused on this because we see that there’s so many different ideas out there of what is good. People start saying that what we believe is harmful and toxic and that we’re misogynous and we’re oppressors,” Crain says. “We have all these insults that are hurled at us because of our ideas about the common good.”

“What the world calls good may be evil, and what the world calls evil may be good,” she adds, noting that many Christians get dissuaded from preaching what they believe is good because others don’t like them for it.

“Jesus said, ‘If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own,’” Crain says. “So he was warning his disciples before they went out on mission. He didn’t give them warm and fuzzies and say, ‘Hey, this is going to be great.’”

“He actually gave an explanation for why they would be hated by saying, ‘If you were of the world,’ and to be ‘of the world’ literally means to be under the governing rule of Satan. Scripture is very clear that you are either of Satan or of God. You’re a child of Satan or a child of God,” she continues.

“Those who are children of Satan, they want to go their own way. It’s their own wills, their own desires. They are slaves to sin. And people who are slaves to sin are always going to hate those who are slaves to righteousness, who are children of God, because the darkness hates the light,” she adds.

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Ex-New Ager reveals cults’ secret invasion of the church



Melissa Dougherty was far into the New Age way of thinking before having her first child and having her deep-seated beliefs challenged — and ultimately debunked.

“Of all people, it was two Jehovah’s Witnesses that challenged me, and I’m researching them, and as I’m researching them I’m realizing, ‘Oh, what I believe is wrong, because if the Bible is true, then what they believe is wrong, but if the Bible is true, what I believe is wrong,’” she tells Allie Beth Stuckey of “Relatable.”

“So it was kind of a rug that got pulled out from underneath me, but after I got out of it I’m like, 'Yeah, I’m an ex-New Ager,'” she continues.


While the New Age movement often gets confused with New Thought, they are not the same — but both are infiltrating Christianity. New Thought places more of an emphasis on a divine power as the source.

“One of the problems that I see, personally, with specifically New Thought teachings,” she tells Stuckey, are practices like “affirmations.”

“What a lot of people don’t realize is what affirmations are is New Thought prayers. They were created by the New Thought movements to speak affirmative prayer in the now, in order for you to basically manifest what it is.”

“You don’t ask, in other words, you say it as if you had it and then your feelings are very, very important. Feelings are everything in New Thought. That’s where your power is,” she explains.

When Dougherty discusses these beliefs with Christians, she’s realized that the more progressive Christians have ideas that often align with the New Thought movement.

“New Thought as a movement is interwoven throughout America, but it’s also something that is adopted within many churches by many Christians, and it gives you this alternative Jesus, it gives you this alternative gospel that sounds a lot like the progressive gospel,” she explains.

“These are two different movements to be sure, but the fact that I can find so many New Thought beliefs among progressives is very interesting,” she continues, noting that phrases like “your true authentic self” are interwoven into both lines of thinking.

“And so much of what you said, we can see specifically in a variety of ways in progressivism, but gender is the first one that comes to mind,” Stuckey comments.

“When you serve the God of self,” she continues, adding, “You have the power of speech to declare a new reality that everyone else must then submit to.”

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Bible bait and switch: How churches hide unbiblical teaching with clever word games



For a while now, I’ve been paying attention to how Christian leaders play word games to obscure certain views on hot-button issues.

Vocabulary word: 'Sophistry'

My favorite word for this is “sophistry.” Sophistry is one of the devil’s go-to strategies of deception because it relies on an appearance of truth to smuggle in error.

Christians can learn to detect the use of sophistry by paying attention to the manipulation of words to obscure truth, especially regarding homosexuality. As a growing number of churches have begun affirming it, faithful Christians want to know up front what the church teaches about it.

Thus, a church’s beliefs and practice about homosexuality have become a “litmus test” for Christians considering a new church. Bible-believing Christians want assurance that they’ll be taught proper doctrine. But church leaders don’t always want to say openly what they believe.

At best, they sincerely want to reach people with the gospel. They don’t want to turn anyone off with a harsh stance on sexuality. At worst, they are more interested in growing a church than in being faithful to God’s word. All too often, it's hard to tell because they send mixed messages.

A convoluted Facebook message

A friend recently sent me a screenshot of a Facebook message from another church about that church's teaching on sexuality. This message was a self-contradictory, double-tongued word salad that needed some skillful discernment to untangle. After reading this message, I was struck by how vulnerable so many Christians are to slick messaging that tricks people into thinking a church is doctrinally solid when it isn’t.

I care about these things because in this age of confusion, God’s people need clear truth, not evasion.

That’s why I wrote this post. I wrote this to show the subtleties of the sophistry deployed to lure Christians into doctrinally compromised churches.

Here’s the message:

Hi... Our church holds to the historic position — one man, one woman, in marriage, for life. However, love and welcome EVERY person regardless of race, age socio-economic class, or sexual orientation. We believe that God has a plan and purpose for every person. In fact, our mission as a church is that we exist to reach and teach ALL people to have a relationship with God that gets better and better. We do not exclude any person attended our church, attending our groups, or even attending our church. Our goal is that our church is a safe space for people to ask hard questions and that we prioritize love for Jesus over theological agreement.

The first sentence is 'Bible bait'

The message begins with Bible bait: “Our church holds to the historic position of sexuality — one man, one woman, in marriage, for life.”

Sounds solid, right? Well, it isn’t. It’s bait that is meant to build trust. It offers reassurance that this church is trustworthy because they uphold the “historic position on sexuality.”

There’s two problems with this. First, the historic position described here is too narrow. Biblical sexuality is not limited to a definition of marriage. Their narrow definition leaves the door open for lots of theological novelties in areas that aren’t directly related to marriage, such as accepting “sexual orientation” as legitimate (More on that in a moment).

Second, the rest of the message negates the first sentence. Their actual practice is the opposite of the “historic position.”

How do we know?

One of these is not like the others

Just look at the second sentence. It says, “However, we love and welcome EVERY person regardless of race, age, socioeconomic class, or sexual orientation.”

The “however” at the beginning of that sentence is massive. It signals a pivot from their supposedly historical position to an unbiblical practice. The way they actually do things as a church sounds more like a DEI training than scripture. Notice how they mix together four different categories of personhood: race, age, class, and sexual orientation.

What do you notice about them?

One of them is not like the others. Race, age, and class are not moral categories. There is nothing moral about one’s ethnicity, age, or class. “Sexual orientation,” however, is a moral category (although the Bible does not speak that way about homosexuality).

“Sexual orientation” is a modern invention to justify immoral behavior. It is certainly not the “historic position” of the Christian faith.

We 'love' and 'welcome' every person

That sentence also says the church is eager to “love and welcome” all the people mentioned above. What does that mean?

It means someone’s gayness will not matter any more than someone’s ethnicity, age, or class. Even though the Bible condemns sexual immorality, this church gives “sexual orientation” protected status. Hello, my name is “Gay Christian.”

This is standard DEI language used by HR departments all the time. By listing moral categories of personhood along with non-moral categories, all of them now appear morally neutral. Thus, calling someone to repent of their homosexuality would be like calling someone to repent of their ethnicity.

As a result, the church makes contradictory statements. On the one hand, it claims to believe the historic position on sexuality. On the other hand, it promises never to act like it believes it. No one will be called to repent of homosexuality.

As the message continues, this fact becomes even more explicit.

'Safe space'

The last sentence says, “Our goal is that our church is a safe space for people to ask hard questions and that we prioritize love for Jesus over theological agreement.”

“Safe space” is a euphemism for “no repentance needed.” In all likelihood, this commitment to providing safe spaces indicates people will receive special treatment and attain victim status for homosexual sin. In fact, those who confront homosexual sin are making their church less “safe,” so they are more likely to be corrected for doing so.

Theology is not the enemy of love

Further, notice that "love for Jesus" is set against "theological agreement," as if theology is the enemy of love. Modern Christians too often reduce “love” to nothing more than sentimental well-wishing, devoid of any real obligation to seek the highest good of others.

But how do we know what it means to love people apart from what God’s word says? And how can we know what God’s word says without reading it and studying it? That’s theology. If we do not define love biblically and theologically, pop culture and Disney movies will define it for us.

In other words, theology is necessary to define love. According to Jesus, we love him by obeying him. Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15).

Asking 'hard questions'

That last sentence also says the message authors want their church to be safe for people to “ask hard questions.” Church leaders use this “ask hard questions” language all the time, and it doesn’t mean what it sounds like it means.

If I didn’t know better, I’d think “ask hard questions” means they have people who can provide biblical, theological guidance through deep questions of our faith, like the problem of evil or the Trinity.

I assure you, that’s not what that means here.

In this context, “hard questions” means grievances against God and the church. It’s a mindset of seeing God and his church as mean and judgy and seeing ourselves as victims. In other words, unrepentant people get to slander and judge the bride of Christ. The church, of course, will not ask any hard questions. After all, the church has now become a “safe space.” The church’s job is to just “love” and send out the good vibes.

Conclusion

When you see churches or pastors speak this way, we need to realize that this is a marketing schtick to pander to unbelievers while convincing solid Christians they're just a faithful church “on mission.”

Don't fall for it.

This essay was adapted from an article originally published at Michael Clary's Substack.