Why Conservatives Are Leaving Churches | Doug Wilson

so welcome to another reaction uh video i'm going to be responding today to j.d greer who is commenting on a shift in his ministry from having historically gotten criticism from the left and how in the last little bit he's been catching fire from the right i'll tell you that having been what 20 years now i celebrate our 20 my 20th year at the summit church this year it used to be that most of the criticism i got from the religious community came from so-called christians on the left who criticized our naive commitment to inerrancy or our supposed clinging to outdated sexual ethics but what has been more surprising and hurt even more has been the criticism that started to come from our friends on the right so i i do appreciate the fact that he talked about our friends on the right and so-called christians on the left i think that's um perhaps not an accident so-called christians on the left friends on the right i would suggest a strategy that i've employed to avoid this very problem that he's talking about um and that is to have no room on your right if if you operate all the way over on the right nobody nobody can attack you from the right those whose belief systems i share so much in common with who could not bear to have their own political idols challenged now this is a good example i want you to um i want you to watch carefully coming up is there is not a political idol being challenged and over against that is a a political point of challenge everything in all of this everything is political so it's not politics on one side and free uh freedom from liberty from politics on the other side no we god didn't create the world that way um and you'll see in the examples he uh in the example he gives what i'm talking about 2020 was a difficult year for for many many reasons but maybe for me as pastor and as sbc president the most difficult was that 2020 revealed that for a lot of people in our churches their primary identity was political it wasn't that it wasn't also christian they were also christian but the primary identity was political we know that because a lot of church people left their churches not just some at church but a lot of them because of some disagreement over a relatively small political disagreement at least small in light of the gospel and in light of eternity but it's not small in light of the gospel and of eternity that's one one of the differences that we have about political uh disagreements is how significant the disagreement is we don't just um we don't just differ over whether we should do this or do that we disagree over how important this is that's one that's the nature of the that's the nature of many of these disagreements so for pro-choice uh leftist pro-choice christian uh we're talking about a cluster of cells and on the uh on the right for conservatives we're talking about um an a human being created in the image of god who will live forever and whose life was cut short well you didn't say enough about this particular cultural issue so i'm leaving you said too much so i'm leaving and i would say to these people some of whom have been at our church for years for a decade and i would say we agree on every point of gospel doctrine we believe in the gospel we believe in the authority and inerrancy of the bible we believe in the sanctity of life and marriage i married your children i walked with you through the tragedy of a death of a loved one and now you are leaving because you disagreed because we said too much one too many things about george floyd it's not how many things you said about george floyd it's what you said about george floyd it's not it's not the topic it's the reaction is this response grounded in scripture it makes just a minute ago just a few seconds ago he said we agree on the authority of scripture but the authority of scripture is measured not by an affirmation i believe in the authority of scripture your commitment to the authority of scripture is demonstrated by your submission to and your obedience to scripture you demonstrate your view of authority by obedience and so consequently if you if if you rush to judgment in the george floyd case if you rush to judgment and you say things in the day following floyd's death that would disqualify you from serving on any jury and you're just out there passing judgment then you are demonstrating your lack of commitment to the authority of scripture you say i believe in the authority of scripture but you don't do what scripture says to do or we said not enough about him or because we asked you to wear a mask for a season or because we did not keep the mass mandate in place long enough um the churches of many of the churches that did this didn't ask people to wear a mask they told them to wear a mask and they said you couldn't you cannot come and worship god with the people you've been worshiping god together with for years for decades unless you wear a mask the way caesar has required as as and we are now discovering that and and and which many of us knew all along the wearing of which mask does no good at all we christians say that we hate cancel culture but it was amazing to me how so many of us canceled our church a lot of people canceled their church because their pastors tried to cancel their face you can't come to church unless you cancel your face if you cancel your face you can come and mumble hymns through the cloth it's not like what these elders these pastors can't tell people what we asked of you was trivial and what you asked of us was not trivial it was momentous you're canceling church no it was the leaders who canceled church it's elders who shut down church services it's how many churches have folded it and and they didn't fold because the parishioners fled because they didn't like was what was being preached they folded because the leadership folded that they folded because the leadership said um we're not gonna we're not gonna worship we're we're going to obey the lockdown order so you have to understand basically this is a good example of a this is what i would call a blind spot he's saying what we asked of you our are canceling your face was not a big deal why are you acting like it's a big deal you canceling us well that's clearly a big deal because it's our oxns being gored over a relatively small disagreement and i kind of look at that and i say no wonder because we pastors get to disciple our people about one hour a week and tucker carlson and sean hannity and rachel maddow get him for three hours a night why why do pastors just get one hour a week why aren't why aren't we teaching our people more why aren't we applying the bible the authority of which we say we believe in why aren't we applying the bible to everything so that people the the starving sheep don't have to go to tucker carlson to get uh insight or or some sort of reaction what am i supposed to think about this every absolutely everybody in this country was blindsided by the events of the last couple of years and many of the sheep wanted instruction grounded in the word of god the people who were in a position to to give them instruction grounded in the word of god did not do so and so they sought out facsimiles they sought out um they sought out authoritative voices and those authoritative voices online or on cable uh cable television um had varying degrees of accuracy and and helpfulness right we all agree with that but i would say that the the problem here was one caused by the vacuum that christian leaders like jd greer uh helped create you know when the church gets in bed with politics the church gets pregnant that's a good line that's a really good line that's true but there's more than one kind of politics that you can get in bed with and it's not it's not that uh nervousness about black lives matter is political and the broad evangelical leadership um buying into the concerns of blm is not political that's just as political and evangelical leadership is just as pregnant because they were just as much in bed with someone they shouldn't have been in bed with and the offspring does not look like our heavenly father it looks like the synagogue of satan i know the slander of those who say they are jews and they are not they're actually from the synagogue i say they don't have satanic worship rituals they don't put satan on the roof they don't sacrifice kittens but they're from the synagogue of satan i wonder why they left they could leave for two reasons they could leave because they're of the synagogues they could leave because they're of the synagogue of satan or maybe they left because they discovered that their pastor thought that they were of the synagogue of satan when all they wanted was a clear word from god you

Channel: Canon Press

Views: 179,258

Keywords: canon press, canon, doug wilson, doug, wilson, douglas wilsn, douglas wilson, christian response, christianity, advice for christians, advice for christians in the coming decade, blog, reformed theology, christian apologetics, christian dating advice, doug wilson postmillennialism, biblical worldview, christian politics, conservative, leaving churches, conservatives

Id: h8ZtzcHFjFo

Length: 10min 30sec (630 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 17 2022