Christianity & Culture with Kierstyn St. John

Christians are making an idol out of politics

• Kierstyn St. John of Zoetic • Season 1 • Episode 4

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American Christianity has never been more divided. This episode explores the main reason why: an idolization of politics over faith. This is happening on both the left and the right, on the progressive and the conservative side. We’ve lost what it truly means to be a Christian and have inextricably tied our politics to our faith. 

In this episode, I discuss three major problematic factions that are rising up in Christianity right now: the false teachers, the manipulative/misguided Christians, and the overzealous Christians. 

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Kierstyn St. John:

Over the last 10 years, there has been a radical and troubling shift in the American Christian church. People have used the Bible to push their political agendas. This has been the church's biggest problem and it needs to stop. I'm sure many of you guys have noticed that there is a conservative side and a more progressive side within Christianity. Okay, and people on the conservative side of Christianity have been talking a lot about Big Eva. So what is Big Eva? It's a term that was coined by Carl Truman in 2018. And basically, big Eva is made up of large Christian organizations with a lot of money and power who have often accepted funding by left-wing sources and tried to push progressive perspectives on things like race, immigration, climate change, gun control, things like that, into the church. You know examples, some examples of big Eva Christianity Today, the Gospel Coalition, I think there's something called Revoice Conference, campus Crusade for Christ, and this is really happening.

Kierstyn St. John:

Like think that we are sounding the alarm correctly about this, but I don't think we should look at what is going on like the schism in the church and just have one villainized group called Big Eva. Problems can be laid at the feet of this one group. I think they are problematic, but I think it is more complicated than that. Okay, um, and let me say from the outset, there definitely are progressive Christian organizations that are dangerous and are taking money from secular left-wing sources and and this is scary, I agree, uh, we should call that out, and I, uh, I praised Megan Basham for doing so in her book Shepherds for Sale. But that is not the only problem right now in American Christianity. It is a problem, it is not the only problem, and I want to make a disclaimer, because I think people may accuse me of being more progressive. I am conservative politically, like very conservative. I am not on the left, but I also know that not all of my political opinions are found directly in scripture. Some of them are, but most of them aren't, and my Christianity, my faith, is infinitely more important to me than my political conservatism. I think that we should, instead of just saying big Eva and then everybody else, okay, I actually think that there are three problematic factions or groups that have risen up in American Christianity and I'm going to talk about each of them today. The false teacher group is the first group. The manipulative group okay, is the second group and the overzealous group. So the first group is the true false teacher group, like the group of true wolves in sheep's clothing, the apostate group you can call them. Maybe the vast majority, though not all of these people are on the political left. I think it is safe to say that their faith is in question. They are likely not Christians. They are wolves in sheep's clothing, or at least they are in significant error.

Kierstyn St. John:

Okay, and so what are examples of this? The first example of a false teacher is any pastor or Christian leader in any denomination who is pro-LGBTQ or pro-choice. I'm going to pick those political issues. And the reason that I say that is that scripture is so clear on these things that you cannot seriously call yourself a pastor and go directly against scripture on these points. Okay, you aren't some new Christian who may not know yet what scripture says. That's a different situation. You are a pastor or a Christian leader with a platform, so you don't have the same excuse that a new Christian would have.

Kierstyn St. John:

And if you are directly and knowingly contradicting scripture, you arguably do not love Jesus, because Jesus says if you love me, you will obey my commands, and if you believe that Jesus is God and that God inspired scripture, you would not hold or preach on these clearly unbiblical topics, okay. So, again to be clear, these are people who are endorsing sinful lifestyles, knowingly. Okay, doesn't mean that you can't love the LGBTQ people who come into your church or the women who have had abortions, that you can't have compassion on them. But the sin cannot be endorsed in and of itself, and I do want to read this verse 2, peter 2,. But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction, and many will follow their sensuality this is the important part and because of them, the way of truth will be blasphemed. Many will follow their sensuality. I think that that is pretty clear.

Kierstyn St. John:

The second example of like a false teacher, you know someone who is truly a false teacher is any pastor or public figure, christian public figure, who says you have to agree with me on, you know, know, a topic that is not clear in scripture. So climate change, race, immigration, you have to agree with me on this thing or you aren't a Christian. Okay, and this could be on either side, but I do see it commonly on the progressive side of things. This is a false gospel If you tell people that they have to agree with you on certain political topics that are unclear in scripture or they aren't a Christian, that's a false gospel, okay, so Galatians 1, 6 through 9 has stuff to say about that. I'm astonished I believe this is Paul speaking 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 preach to you, let him be accursed. So that's pretty clear. You can't say that your political opinions are gospel. That's a false gospel, okay?

Kierstyn St. John:

Um, another example of false or corrupt teachers or wolves in sheep's clothing are people who have knowingly taken money from corrupt sources. I believe this. Or if they have had massive, pervasive, unrepentant sexual scandals, like Ravi Zacharias or something like that. I don't mean someone who makes a mistake and is repentant right Like David in the Bible. I mean someone who's had a massive, unrepentant life of of scandal or accepting money from corrupt sources. Matthew seven says beware of false prophets who come to you and sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. So that's, that's clear. So so I've just given some very clear examples of people in this first group false teachers, wolves in sheep's clothing. But then there's a second group and this group is a little bit tougher, and I'm going to call them the manipulative subgroup.

Kierstyn St. John:

Okay, so I want to give these people the benefit of the doubt and say that most of these people truly are Christians or would profess the Christian faith. But they usually are progressive on more minor, less clear scriptural issues, maybe on climate change or immigration. It can even happen with critical race theory and again, I am not progressive on any of these things. But these people can make other Christians feel bad for not holding their views. Okay, so they're not saying if you don't hold my views, you aren't a Christian. But on the more minor end, it can be like Gavin Ortland, who said that Christians should care about climate change, right. Like telling Christians what they should care about. Or saying that you know America should want to take in a bunch of refugees because America is a Christian nation and Christians should love their neighbor, right, these misguided policy prescriptions, and I don't like this. This is gross. This mostly happens on the left as well, but I have seen it happen on the right.

Kierstyn St. John:

Okay, I used to go to a church with a very politically conservative pastor and one time during a sermon, he tried to convince us that he thought climate change was a hoax. Now he didn't say that you have to think that climate change is a hoax to be a Christian right, because that would put him in the first group. But it was still manipulative and inappropriate for him to say that during a sermon. He would be in that second subgroup. So I find this language manipulative. I don't like it. I do think it is using scripture in service of your politics. Okay, so like, don't tell other Christians what they should care about unless it's directly in scripture. But it doesn't mean that these people are not Christians or that they are wolves in sheep's clothing.

Kierstyn St. John:

Again, if they are not saying, my political opinions on these less clear issues are gospels or you have to agree with me in order to be a Christian. They aren't false teachers. I disagree with Gavin Ortlund on climate change. Okay, I disagree with my own current pastor on immigration. He he leans much more to the left than I do, but they aren't trying to force me to have their exact view, okay, and so this is the second group of people. I think they are misguided, I do think they idolize their politics a little bit, but I don't think they are false teachers.

Kierstyn St. John:

But because there have been many false teachers that have risen up in that first group, okay, there has been a third group rising up, mostly as a reaction, and I'm going to call this group the overzealous group, and this is where I'm going to step on a few toes, but I think this is important. Okay, these people are almost exclusively politically conservative and I do think most of them are truly Christians, but they are whether they are not, they realize it intermingling their politics with their faith, like people in the second group are doing. Some of them are actually political pundits, okay, so that's like their job. Others, I think, want to be political pundits because they see how lucrative that can be and they have become so reactionary to the true false teachers, like the people in the first group, that their alarm systems are going a little haywire and they are lumping the manipulative Christians who are in the second group in with the actual false teachers in the first group, okay, and they also lump in Christians who aren't manipulative at all but just hold a more progressive opinion than them on non-essential issues. They are lumping all of these things together, all these types of people together, together, and not making distinctions between them, you know, kind of just calling them all dangerous.

Kierstyn St. John:

Again, this is what Megan Basham did in her book Shepherds for Sale. She did say in her introduction that some of these people are more dangerous than others, but she didn't make it clear who that was. She left that up for you to do. Well, we can't do that. And so they often end up calling anyone who is more centrist or progressive than them on less clear biblical topics. So again, climate change, immigration, gun control, capitalism they call them like maybe a dangerous person or a person to watch or, you know, potentially even a false teacher. They don't tolerate a variety of opinions on these subjects within Christianity, a variety of opinions on these subjects within Christianity, and so they end up making Christianity just sound like it's republicanism in disguise, right, and those two things are different.

Kierstyn St. John:

I say that as a Christian and as a conservative republican. Okay, it's very divisive. It is a spirit of divisiveness disguised as a spirit of truth. And, as here's the thing, as a conservative, you might be right on immigration Again, I tend to lean that way. You might be right on climate change, but on these non-essential issues, we shouldn't always be trying to make them, you know, more spiritually important than they are. There's just a lack of triage or ranking of importance here, and there is a cost to this. You inadvertently make Christianity tougher for people because they feel that they have to agree with you on everything or that it's important that they accept the Republican Party line.

Kierstyn St. John:

A lot of talk about sides, you know, in Christianity. Or, for example, this person is on my side, this person is not on my side, and so I have a question who is more as Christians, who is more on our side, so to speak? A conservative who agrees with us completely politically but doesn't agree that Jesus is Lord? So so they're completely conservative, but they're not a Christian. Or a Christian who agrees with you that Jesus is Lord, who agrees with the apostles creed, who agrees with you on the, on the core cultural issues that are clear in scripture, but who disagrees with you on political issues that are less clear in scripture? Um, who, who, who might even choose not to vote right, and I don't agree with that, by the way, I think people should vote, but which one of these people is more on our side? Okay, the Christian is the non-Christian who's politically conservative needs to be evangelized. That is what truly matters, and if you can't say that clearly or if that's hard for you to accept, I fear that you are in this third, overzealous group. Okay, and let me say, of course we should hold the line on clear scriptural topics like like life, unborn life or marriage or gender. I think these are clear, but there needs to be room for disagreement on less clear issues within Christianity, and I've noticed that even when people in this third group say that there's room for different political opinions on these other things, their actions suggest otherwise. This is again what happened when Megan Basham put Gavin Ortlund in her book Shepherds for Sale. She was threatened by his opinion on climate change.

Kierstyn St. John:

There is something in common between all three of these groups the false teacher group, the manipulative Christian group and the overzealous group and here's the thing in common They've lost what it truly means to be a Christian, to be saved. Okay, I'm not saying they are not saved. The people in the first group are not, probably not saved. But I'm not saying they are not saved, but I'm saying maybe they've lost, they're a little unclear, they've intertwined their politics too much with their faith. They've added things on.

Kierstyn St. John:

Okay, when you don't have a firm grasp on on on exactly what a Christian is and what a Christian is not, when you don't know any sort of triage or ranking doctrines by importance, no-transcript. And I will say, the root of this problem, in my opinion, is that American Christianity is just not rooted anymore. It's not rooted in the early church. We've moved away from the creeds, for instance. You know the church believed for years that the creeds were ecumenical, that the creeds were what made you Orthodox, an Orthodox Christian. So the Apostles' Creed, for instance. The dead he ascended to heaven and is seated at the right hand of God, the father almighty. From there he will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy spirit, the Holy Catholic. Lower C Catholic church, just United church, communion communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting, amen. Okay, that is what makes a Christian a Christian Christian.

Kierstyn St. John:

And now you might say, okay, well, that doesn't say anything about gay marriage or abortion. Didn't you say that Christians have to agree on that? You're right, it doesn't, but scripture does. And so, again, if you are a pastor or a Christian leader with a large platform, the standard for you is higher than someone who isn't a pastor or Christian leader. Who's someone who's a new Christian? Okay. You, as or Christian leader. Who's someone who's a new Christian? Okay. You, as a Christian leader, know what the Bible says on those things, and if you deliberately go against them, you don't believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God. And if you don't believe that, how do you know? The creeds are true, like you don't, which is why most pastors who compromise on marriage, for example, biblical marriage, end up compromising on the central tenets of the faith eventually.

Kierstyn St. John:

So what is my main overall point? I'm speaking directly to Christians right now, on both sides of the aisle, progressive and conservative. We should care more about sharing the gospel than we do who we get elected into office. We should care more about converting someone to Christianity than we do about converting someone to conservatism, or progressivism, for that matter. We should care more about proclaiming that Jesus is Lord than we should about racial equity I'm speaking to people on the left with that and we should care more about unity within the church around core central tenets than we should about being right on every peripheral political issue. Okay, that's my main point and, as American Christians, that's what I believe we've lost. This, overall, is the biggest problem today in American Christianity. That's going to be it for me. Thank you, guys. God bless.