Here is a way too long thread on cultural / nominal christianity, negative / positive world, and why cultural christianity is not a good in itself, but is better than the only alternative, paganism. 🧵 1/12 I don't think anyone thinks nominal christianity is a "good" in itself. Thinking you're a Christian when you're not is a terrible place to be; you're lost.

The question is whether a cultural christianity is unavoidable if real Christian truth gains dominance in a culture? 2/12

Why we are defunding @NAMB_SBC. 🧵

Our church, planted by the SBC 14 years ago, has decided to fully defund NAMB in our CP giving and designate our funds away from NAMB. Over the last year, we’ve directly funded $150,000+ in church plant and international missions efforts. 1/11 This is not going to be exhaustive, but I did want to highlight some of the reasons. We want to see change, and that won't happen unless people know the reasons we are defunding.

1) Audit

NAMB needs an audit. We do not trust where all the money is going. 2/11

On polarization, the big sort, and the evangelical Church 🧵:
Our country continues to sort and balkanize. You can feel it in the air; plenty of reporting has been on this. Red states are getting redder / blue states are getting bluer. But it's much more granular than this. 1/12 Within states, there are left/right pockets. Conservative churches are getting more conservative, while churches that once were in the squishy middle are racing towards progressive deconstruction. All this is fueled by irreconcilable worldviews. We don't want to share space. 2/12

To affirm "transgenderism" in a child is to affirm a demonic lie. Christians can't participate in that. Across the country, Christians are working in educational environments where they are convincing themselves to do just this to "get along." 1/5 wng.org/opinions/are-e… Christians are also facing challenges in work environments regarding trans issues, but children in schools is an even bigger deal. There is an innocence with children that must be protected.
This is happening in every school nationwide now; no one can avoid it. 2/5

There was a lot of bad teaching on homosexuality in evangelicalism over the last decade. I have a lot of grace for guys, because we were facing a rapidly changing culture and following the lead of high-profile teachers.
However, it's time to grow up and get this stuff right. 1/12 In hindsight, the major error was directing the teaching of the church at apologetics toward a confused world, rather than apologetics toward the next generation in the church. We too often soft-peddled truth to gain a hearing, while leaving our kids confused. Bad trade. 2/12

This is nothing profound, but something I've observed all my adult life in evangelicalism is people long for a "quick fix" that will solve their spiritual problems and make everything fall into place. This manifests itself both in doctrine and practice, and in every tribe. 🧵 1/9 For some, it was, "If we just get better music, we can keep the kids." Maybe you should play better music, but no.

For many churches, it has been, "This small group system will fix our discipleship." Groups can be great, but definitely, it won't fix your discipleship. 2/9

Why the 3rd Way is a meaningless category that functionally ends up being about avoiding political entanglements and not loving our neighbors - 🧵 thread:
1/14 First, I'll try to accurately represent 3rd Way thinking. It is not proposing that the truth is found in the middle between two positions. Rather, the 3rd Way idea is that Jesus and Scripture represent truth and the Christian way is distinct from any alternative. 2/14

The fundamental problem with the 3rd Way is if either the 1st or 2nd Way is Truth, the 3rd Way will be false. Always looking for on insisting on a 3rd Way will inevitably lead to error.

I've been reminded by several online discussions over the last week about how important it is that we keep our audience in mind when confronting bad ideas and false teaching.

I think where many people get messed up is they forget our most important audience is our kids. 1/8 This is why having kids really changed my thoughts on cultural engagement. I'm sure it didn't hurt that I started thinking more about this as my first son was getting old enough to talk, which was around the transition to Negative World. 2/8

"I made my church as sterile and lifeless as a hospital for 2 years, and people left because of politics!"

"I ignored the most pressing issues in people's lives for the last 5 years, unless it was to scold for caring about that stuff. Now they've left because of politics!"

https://twitter.com/TimAlberta/status/1524208601417588738

"I have a church full of conservatives, and I spent the last 5 years telling them they were stupid and wrong for demonstrating their values in public. Now my people left because of politics!"

You start to see that 3rd-way, anti-political Christians are actually projecting their own insecurity w/ living as whole persons in the world. They know their faith has political implications, but these conflict w/ their mission strategy of "get people to like me, + Jesus." 1/9 This is a tragic and disorienting way to live for these people. Imagine even in your home church community, you can't say many things you believe to be true because of 'unity.' This is not some ideal of 'laying down preferences,' but core truths. It's fundamentally fake. 2/9

When I look at the discourse coming from BigEva / Regime Evangelicals, etc - I think about my sons. If I was expected to believe this effeminate, naive parroting of spirit of the age talking points was "real" Christianity, I don't think I would want to be a Christian. 1/ A famous pastor once said he didn't want his sons growing up to be "neat Christian men." I doubt he would say that anymore, but man that still resonates with me. I don't want my sons thinking French/Moore/Keller/Ortlundism represents faithfulness. So neat and vapid. /2

The Democrat Party has a major follower problem right now. The leadership knows that to have any electoral hope in the future, they have to get out of Covidstan/lockdown policies. But half their base LOVES Covidstan. Guess what, Evangelical squishes have the same problem. 1/10 There are plenty of smart Evangelical leaders who know that the culture has shifted fundamentally in the last 10 years, but they have a follower problem. We are well into negative world now. It is no longer possible to cozy up to culture and maintain orthodoxy long-term. 2/10

One of the most fundamental problems with Evangelical leadership in our day is the inability to admit mistakes and own them.

Major mistakes in judgment are swept under the rug as if they never happened. Wokeness and Covid have put a bright light on this issue. 1/4

https://twitter.com/megbasham/status/1488536790587875337

Most evangelicals would be eager to forgive and move on. But two things happen when major mistakes are ignored. 1) We wonder if they agree it was a mistake, and 2) We wonder if they will make the mistake again in the future.

And this goes beyond the individuals involved. 2/4

I'm grateful for this, and it's what I suspected. I know many people at the IMB, and I don't think they or Paul Chitwood want to take the organization woke. I'm sorry if that doesn't appease those who just want to tear everything down. Still, these issues must be addressed. 1/

https://twitter.com/tomascol/status/1328411353246281732

If the IMB says they are no longer using this flawed language, then that is a concession that the criticism was *fair*. So let's be men about it and say that was good to point out, let's fix it. This wasn't an issue found far in the past, this was recent. Language matters. 2/

This comment from the Veggie Tales guy is representative of how most Evangelicals view Scripture and civil society. The truth is, we don’t have much to offer the world if we think Scripture is so impotent that it has no solutions. But God's Word does have solutions. 1/5 How does Scripture address systematic discrimination in housing or education?

Deut 19:4 recognizes property rights, which would have never allowed housing discrimination in the first place. The law of God has plenty to say against the corruption of government officials. 2/5

One of the reasons I started Twitter this year was to offer a response to #BigEva takes such as this. I aim to be measured, but a response is needed because as I will demonstrate, this kind of callous slander hurts the people I pastor and they deserve a defense. Thread: 1/8

https://twitter.com/rayortlund/status/1144383799779704833

It’s one thing to voice disagreement. I understand and respect the non-participant position when it comes to two-party politics. That respect should be reciprocal. To go to the liberal, God-hating media (Time, really?) and slander fellow Christians like this is inexcusable. 2/8

This Russell Moore article in JETS from 2006 deserves a thread. This is fascinating, you're not going to believe what you find here. Who is this guy? We NEED this guy right now. I'm just going to quote. Every one of these is a Russell Moore quote:

etsjets.org/files/JETS-PDF… "Unless evangelical churches are willing to be counter-cultural against not just the secular culture but also the evangelical establishment itself, the future of complementarian Christianity is bleak."

Thinking about this tweet thread tonight, and I think it's a very significant development. I don't want to tag it because honestly, I'm not interested in dialoguing with any pro-reparations people and I'll explain why. 1/6 Only a year ago we were told talk of reparations is fringe and we're silly for confronting it, because no one is calling for that. Fast forward to the last few months and then this.

I take Leeman seriously. His book on the offense of God's love is one of my all-time favs. 2/6

It's not just one article on Living Out, the whole site is garbage. Here's another one. livingout.org/resources/beco…
Speaking of kids having parents of both sexes, "Other patterns need not be second best." That's not how words work, anything else is literally second best or worse. "Part of what we want to do through Living Out is challenge the idea that everyone has to be married in an opposite-sex marriage, have children and so on."

Yeah, I think the world is challenging that enough, let's hold up God's design as glorious and set that as our aim.