A Gospel Contrary to the One We Preached to You
A Gospel Contrary to the One We Preached to You
This is the eighth chapter of a book in progress, with the working title “Be Not Afraid of Their Terror.” The first chapter is here:
Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them.
—Acts 20:28-30I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.
—Galatians 1:6-9
I was brought into the faith in my early twenties by friends whose parents had been members of the Jesus Movement in 1960s Southern California. They were the first people to ever communicate the true gospel to me, and, though I had spent my life in a decidedly secular environment, I felt an immediate draw to the good news (a factor in why I believe in the Reformed doctrine of Irresistible Grace). Though the Jesus Movement’s understanding of the gospel was highly orthodox, other aspects of their theology were not, especially around concepts like spiritual warfare, and it remains that way in their descendant groups. There was an over-sized emphasis placed on emotional experience and, because I didn’t know where to look, I never bothered to build a strong theological undergirding. Consequently, I spent years floundering in and out of Christianity.
At one point, in the mid 2000s, I had once again rededicated my life to Christ and was going to a Four Square church with a group of musician friends. I had determined this time to seriously read my Bible, a paper-bound King James Version that I had bought for a few bucks, and quickly completed the New Testament and Pentateuch (Genesis through Deuteronomy). That was when I began to pick up on aspects of my new church that didn’t make sense. The pastor drove a Mercedes and lived in a very nice house, while much of the congregation lived in poverty. At least one sermon a month was about tithing and, as the pastor began plans to build an overflow sanctuary even larger than the main one and to expand his TV presence, it became the message nearly every week. Lastly, I was peer-pressured into standing below the altar and proving my salvation by speaking in tongues. Under the pressure, I made random noises, with full knowledge that it wasn’t from the Spirit, while the elders of the church loudly praised God as they laid hands on me, completely unaware that I was bluffing. From reading Scripture, I knew that the congregation should limit tongues to one person at a time, and only allow it if there was someone to interpret, in the first place (1 Corinthians 14:27-28). I had been studiously reading what I called “the manual” and my church wasn’t following it, on multiple fronts. As had happened before, I had no understanding of denominations and didn’t know that there were other doctrinal options. This was the only “Christianity” I knew. The day I stood on stage to be confirmed as a member I felt a conviction to leave. It was the last time I would step in a church for over a decade.
One of the key takeaways from Acts and the Epistles is that, from the beginning, the church has had to deal with wolves trying to entice the elect away from sound doctrine into whatever worldly pursuits the false teacher is obsessed with. From Hymenaeus and Philetus claiming the resurrection had already occurred (2 Timothy 2:16-18) to the Nicolaitans (Revelation 2:15-16) who, according to church history, practiced Gnosticism and pagan idolatry, there has never been a point in the last two millennia where the enemy has not attempted to inject the spirit of the age into the church. This includes our time and place, and no idol is being Christianized more fervently than secular political philosophy. As I’ve shown, for conservative orthodox Protestants the assault is coming in the form of a far-right theory advocating for proactively defining political enemies and “punishing” them, which may sound plausible until you actually open your Bible and read it.
Advocates for this secular philosophy posing as political theology claim that, when Christians warn others of destructive ideas (up to and including out-in-the-open white nationalism1) and refuse to engage with those who push them, they are themselves punishing their enemies. This is a false representation of church discipline, as it is clearly laid out in Scripture. As John wrote:
Watch yourselves, so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward. Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works.
—2 John 1:8-11
Belligerents often claim that anyone who will not take an aggressive stance with non-Christians are themselves failing to “abide in the teaching of Christ,” but John was quite clear when he wrote, “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love” (1 John 4:8). In response to this truth, these false teachers continue to misrepresent Scripture and speak “twisted things” (Acts 20:30), claiming that true Christian love is to constantly confront the world with the truth of its sin. An objective look at their methodology shows there is far more hate than love in their hearts. This begs the question of how we can rebuke these men for their idolatry without falling into the same trap.
Firstly, we have to openly acknowledge that what is being taught by these men is not simply unwise, but false. False teachers rarely have totally broken theology. Most often there are one or two false premises that slyly permeate and distort all other theological concepts, which would otherwise be orthodox. For example, “health and wealth” preachers may give a generally truthful sermon, but will always bring the conversation back to the need to “sow your seed,” by which they mean that you should send them money. Likewise, political idolaters give themselves away by making practically everything about politics; in their worldview, even the gospel itself requires human political action to spread. This constitutes a gross Third Commandment violation, and should be dealt with by the church in the same way it deals with the Seventh Commandment violation of adultery. Interestingly, you would be hard pressed to find a politically idolatrous, theologically conservative Christian media personality who would disagree with this conclusion, when applied to the Prosperity Gospel, though both they and and the prosperity preacher engage in the same type of ignoring and twisting of Scripture to justify their conclusions and behavior. Blatantly false teaching, especially political idolatry, is often overlooked in conservative Christian spaces, because an “us versus the world” attitude has become prevalent over the last few decades, mostly thanks to the marketing of the moral majority. Yet, the gate is still narrow (Matthew 7:13-14), and we are called to acknowledge when those claiming to be teachers are drawing people away from sound doctrine. We are required to confront sin within the visible church, and this includes anyone attempting to turn the church into a primarily political organization.
Secondly, we have to be willing to disfellowship with individuals who persist in false teaching. Few conservative Christians would abide a Sunday School teacher in their church advocating for the Seventh Commandment violations of polyamory and bigamy. Why then do so many in public Christianity allow leeway for the heretical teaching that different ethnic groups possess better or worse immutable traits, as has become increasingly popular among the political far-right, many of whom are professing Christians?2 To make matters worse, these aren’t simply hypothetical philosophical musings. These men often claim that this is a metric by which society should organize itself, and that the church should be at the center of such action. Make no bones about it, this is anathema (Galatians 3:28).
As a justification for their near-perpetual hostility towards anyone who disagrees with them on these fronts, political idolaters like to mention how Jesus and the prophets used harsh language too. This is true, but, as with most false teachers, they ignore a key factor of the Scriptural narrative: Jesus reserved his harsh words for religious leaders who were using their perceived authority to violate the Third Commandment. The “whitewashed tombs” and “blind guides” were the scribes and Pharisees (Matthew 23:23-31), who were also told “You are of your father the devil” only after they claimed God incarnate was “a Samaritan and [had] a demon” and were attempting to kill Him (John 8:44, 48). Whom you never find Jesus speaking to in this way are average people in sin, such as the Samaritan woman who had been divorced five times and lived with a man she wasn’t married to—exactly whom the Pharisees would have berated! Whom are we to emulate?
Lastly, we have to be willing to admit when we have fallen into the same over-aggression common among political idolaters and not be afraid to repent. To be conspicuously gentle with those who don’t know Christ, while standing firm and forcefully rebuking false teaching within the church, like the Third Commandment violation of gross political idolatry, is to be an imitator of Paul as he was of Christ (1 Corinthians 11:1). That being said, I’m reminded of a meme that begins with a high-resolution picture of a majestic lion with the caption, “Jesus,” followed by a cartoon of Simba, from The Lion King, with the caption, “Paul.” Finally, a goofy child’s drawing of a lion has the caption, “me.” I have failed, on a few occasions, to tame my tongue when issuing such rebukes. Yet, I would rather be convicted of that sin and feel the need apologize to men who promote the evil false teaching of ethnic partiality within the body than to have never issued a rebuke for fear of social consequences, which seems to be the predominant behavior among these men’s peers. Exactly what these politically idolatrous belligerents fail to offer is a recognition of their own sinfulness and a willingness to repent when they have wronged others, no matter how sinful they perceive the other to be—ill-treatment of others is a feature of their social engagement, not a bug.
We must reject this mindset, built from an obsession with maintaining a middle-class, and sometimes explicitly white, personal peace and affluence. We must do so with a confidence that only comes from a deep trust in the sovereignty and providence of our God, a trust that takes at face value the commandment from our Lord:
“It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
—Matthew 20:26-28
“White Boy Summer” (WBS) is a popular meme among what has been termed the Dissident Christian Right. Like most far-right memes, it’s meant to have enough plausible deniability to allow the relentless mockery of anyone who takes issue with it. On occasion, advocates go too far with the meme and are caught pushing full white nationalism, such as when Samuel Holden, a popular WBS poster, integrated stock footage of the Hitler Youth into one of his videos: https://x.com/samuelholden_/status/1805421178112327867
“Inequality in bodily stature, beauty, knowledge, virtue, domestic authority, and civil authority were regularly affirmed as good and not due to the fall… Aquinas states… that differences in food sources, climate, and other factors would make some “more robust… and also greater and more beautiful, and all ways better disposed.” Here, he has in mind not only individual difference but also differences in groups.”
Stephen Wolfe, The Case for Christian Nationalism (Moscow, Idaho: Canon Press, 2022), 67.
“Steve Sailer has spent a lifetime observing human behavior and coming to obvious, sensible conclusions.”
Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, on Twitter: https://x.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1805648013362188518
Steve Sailer has spent the last two decades promoting that group-level IQ variance should be used as a metric for societal organization, including the statement that black people, “tend to possess poorer native judgment than members of better educated groups,” which he wrote for the white nationalist website, VDARE, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
“It is as clear as day that certain races have superior traits to others. Individuals are equal in value but there are clear differences in capacities across all races.”
Wesley Todd, a member of Christian Nationalist pastor Joel Webbon’s church and regular guest on his podcast, on Twitter: https://x.com/1689er/status/1790745327487606800