Silent Pulpits = Preaching Politicians

The clearest warnings about the deadliest ideology of the last one hundred years are not coming from pulpits, but from political podiums. This is a direct indictment of the American Church. President Donald Trump recently delivered a speech in which he denounced Marxism. The Church should respond, not by applauding his position, but by looking deeply at itself and lamenting the moment. There are few things more shameful, and terrifying for our congregations, than having to rely on politicians to warn about the wolf.

Belief has consequences, and so does lack of belief. As Chesterton warned us, those who stop believing in God do not begin believing in nothing; instead, they become capable of belief in anything. History bears the bloody wounds of that reality in the trail of suffering left by Marxism. Christian ministers must reject the illusion that this is merely a political or economic conversation; anyone touting such a line is either misinformed or malevolent. This is not a matter of taxation, healthcare, labor, and production. It is the foundation of a totalitarian, materialist belief that has no room for belief in God, replacing God with the State, the sin nature with class struggle, and redemption with revolution.

Neither Marxism (communism) nor its baby brother, socialism, is capable of existing alongside Christian thought. C.S. Lewis warned that the abolition of man occurs when humans are stripped of transcendent value, reduced to being organisms, and measured as economic and labor units. Marxism directly refutes the Imago Dei, because it recognizes no value higher than the collective, and it rejects God by deeming the collective to be the highest authority. It has led to over 100 million deaths and the eradication of the Christian faiths in nations where the regimes embraced its ideology. It is evil, and it is coming to America. In fact, it is already here.

So why are pulpits silent, leaving the watchman role to secular politicians?

For decades, a growing percentage of evangelical ministers have embraced a pragmatic cowardice. In fear that they would be labeled “divisive,” “unkind,” or worst of all, “political” by secular society, especially its elites, they have reduced the radically transforming, sin-confronting, absolute truth-telling Gospel to being little more than the lukewarm weak tea of self-help. Thus, we have a large number of pulpits that believe their job is to manage the emotional health of their congregations, rather than equipping them for spiritual war. Some will say they merely “preach the Gospel,” but how can a person who claims the Gospel as their highest priority fail to warn of an encroaching ideology that will ban their ability to share the Gospel?

Pastors cannot remain “neutral” while an insidious, anti-Christ worldview is dismantling families, rejecting natural law, and capturing the foundational institutions of Western civilization. There is no neutrality when combating a demonic predator that seeks the eradication of the Church. When shepherds fail to point out predators, they become accessories to the massacre.

We absolutely should applaud the fact that Mr. Trump publicly named and condemned a wicked ideology that has imprisoned, starved to death, and slaughtered tens of millions. As a civil magistrate, he has a duty to do so. Nonetheless, the Church ought to weep that politicians are being forced to do the preacher’s job. The State is not our savior, and political rhetoric is a weak substitute for the Church’s prophetic voice.

Christian ministers must recoup their courage, stop apologizing for applying a Christian worldview to every area of life, and boldly point out the demonic reality lurking in materialist ideologies like Marxism and Communism. Thankfully, when pulpits have been silent on ontological evil, God has used the stones—politicians—to cry out in our place. But it is our job, not theirs. Let us embrace it as our calling demands and our people deserve.

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