A Last Great Awakening II: Breaking Bad Theology

{continued from Part I}

Due to all the suffering and losses of centuries of religious warfare the entire world leaned towards justice and equality for all.  It was egalitarianism at a global scale brought on by an unbiblical view of forced equality that wished to avoid more wars and death and technology that would allow its globalization. A noble albeit misguided idea. In truth had the world just obeyed Scripture there would've never been 'religious' wars that need avoiding...

So, we enter the Third Great Awakening. It begins around the turn of the 20th century and lasting until 1980 is probably best characterized by the "Social Gospel". It is a philosophy that began to form out of the Second Great Awakening that man can, through works, gain salvation through their own efforts. There is a shift away from the emphasis on personal sin to that of communal or social sin. An idea that went away with the civil law of the Jews when Jesus abrogated it in His sacrifice at the cross. This gives rise to a belief that a thing like poverty is not a personal failure but somehow someone else’s fault or a sin that should be shared and therefore should be addressed by the society/state. The individual needs to take little or no responsibility. This causes a further liberal shift towards a secularization of Christianity.

During the time period of approximately 1920-1970 after WWI there is an attack on corruption of big businesses. There are activists for labor reforms and the strengthening of labor unions. There are civil rights, women's rights, gay rights and now gender neutral movements. There has been a belief in equality of condition or the principle that equality is to be achieved or imposed primarily by government programs aimed at raising wages, transferring income from rich to poor through taxation or finance welfare programs. There are also judicial rulings to redefine what constitutes normal sexual behavior or what defines a family unit (nuclear family). These events are no longer left to the direct sovereignty and providence of God. 

Mankind believes they can somehow redeem themselves via the governmental or social activism due to the propagation of the 'Social Gospel' as purely secular force in legislation and the courts. There is an inherent belief that poverty, racism and discrimination are not a personal sins or failures but a societal failures and that they can be legislated or ruled away.  Therefore there have been expansion of godless secondary and higher educations; attack on religious and racial barriers to equal opportunity (leading to later attacks on sexual and gender-based assumptions of behavior and discrimination based on sexual orientation).

This put responsibility for the success of members of society not on the individuals but on society itself. The theory was that people could be born into circumstances that they did not have the individual strength to overcome. This was a philosophy behind the welfare state introduced by Franklin Delano Roosevelt and later exacerbated by Lyndon Baines Johnson and modern Progressives, Liberals. Please note that this is also the Marxist / Socialist / Communist philosophy – people could not do it on their own, they needed a government to look out for their interests. The enemies of this time were the powerful trusts and corporations the same as they are today. Then was the oil rich ad is now the tech rich. All during this time as well we’ve seen the mainstream churches atrophy as government takes over more of the social burdens, reforms and welfare – that had occupied the mainstream Protestant churches in the prior great awakenings. In so doing we see the State has slowly taken over the role of God by becoming a god to the godless. The churches have slowly abdicated their role as salt and light in the world in direct proportion to their decline in orthodox Christianity. The effect on society was and continues to be morally devastating.

In approximately the 1970 to 2010 timeframe we see a gradual shift back again to more orthodox belief in what I believe to be a Fourth Great Awakening that began in the late 1960s and early 70s. We saw the start of it in the West Coast Jesus movement, Jesus freaks and the likes of Chuck Smith, Keith Green and those of their kind. We see a push back on the rebellion and radical changes wrought by theologies such as Liberation Theology and radical Marxist / Socialist philosophies in American universities of the 1960s. This awakening has presented itself in a return to robust relational belief in a living relational God and reassertion of experiential content of the Bible. It has also been a reassertion of the concept of personal sin and in some cases even a return to puritanical Christianity and the Inerrancy of Scripture.

Unfortunately, as with prior awakenings it as also manifested in a further liberalization in the unbiblical church in the form of Liberation Theology, Social Gospel Theology, Queer Theology, Vatican II, Ecumenicalism and a myriad of other unorthodox theologies devoid of sound Biblical teaching. I believe this is directly fueling the societal division we currently see. The division is not just political. It is also a division directly fuel by competing theologies or 'spirits' right within our churches. Society's current division is not just political, it is spiritual at its core. Bad theology as led to bad society.

It didn’t take long for me to realize that making any absolute biblical truth statement that was construed as politically incorrect would cause enormous amounts of division not only right in my church but also here on this blog. It was apparent to me that a false spirit and unbiblical teaching was manifesting itself in an unwillingness by quasi-feminists in the evangelical church to submit to biblical male headship. In fact, some within local conservative congregations outwardly fought it. This anti-Christian spirit also revealed itself in overt resistances to renounce adultery and homosexuality right within conservative denominations such as Presbyterians and Baptists. Instead they've chosen to embrace the recent surge in Social Gospel theology in light of the BLM protests and move towards non-binary gender identification. These are the exact reasons  why I’ve chosen to write politically incorrect and lengthy posts about these issues. To expose these truths, show how insidious and deep these heresies run and show how the Church got to where its at...on the edge of a spiritual precipice. 

While religiously and politically we are seeing a deliberate resistance to materialistic corruption, and a rise of pro-life, pro-family, and media reform movements. We are simultaneously seeing vicious attacks on these very principles by the liberalized versions of Christian theology embraced by the Progressive elements in society. This isn’t just a politicization of the Church. It is a fundamental departure in doctrine. A large part of the Democratic Party aligns itself with what is essentially unbiblical liberal theology which at its core…is not Biblical or Christian. It is demonic and heretical. Similarly, Republicans are aligned with what amounts to neo-orthodoxy. Although a small percentage or remnant of Christians remain obedient to orthodox Christianity in both parties most are corrupt. As the entire political spectrum shifts further left the entire political spectrum becomes more unbiblical and demonic.

Instead of the orthodox evangelicalism, other powers, most notably the neoconservatives, have taken control of the supposedly conservative Republican Party and shifted the entire religio-political system leftward towards liberalism. This shift has resulted in a amassing of an enormous national debt, deep societal division and a move to completely undermine the American democratic society in favor of a Social Gospel style change. A change that is the Marxist/Socialist underpinnings that drive that ideologies that include BLM, Antifa and other radical progressive groups.

The highwater mark of the Fourth Great Awakenings seems to have been about the 2010 timeframe. Things have since begun an extraordinarily quick downward plunge. A drop dramatically faster than the awakenings of the past. I believe this trend has been accelerated by a technology and mediums unknown in prior generations: The internet and social media. If history is an accurate indicator…we’re again heading towards massive discord that will culminate in conflict or an outright war. Due to our new technology…we’ll get to the flashpoint faster than ever before. I fear we are already seeing the opening offensives. We need to pray that the spiritual aspects of this are held at bay by God because it is clear we’re in head-to-head conflict with the Devil. The gates of Hell are wide open in our society right now. I believe only God is capable of shutting these gates now and turning the horde of destruction that is currently descending on our shores. He is the only way to right this chaos. We're just too far gone morally as a people to do it ourselves.