Atlantic Magazine has just published a very thought-provoking article that articulates some of the themes of this blog. I’m going to take a few days to look at some of the highlights of The Evangelical Church Is Breaking Apart by Peter Wehner. It’s long, and I encourage you to read the article in its entirety – each link in this paragraph goes there: one on Atlantic Magazine’s site and the other a copy on my site.

Why does the author – an Evangelical Christian himself – say the church is breaking apart? Because people’s politics is trumping (no pun intended!) their Christianity. The article leads with controversy over David Platt’s leadership at McLean Bible Church in Virginia:

Platt, who is theologically conservative, had been accused…by a small but zealous group within his church of “wokeness” and being “left of center,” of pushing a “social justice” agenda and promoting critical race theory, and of attempting to “purge conservative members.”

I like David Platt, who has made an honest attempt to make church something more, in his words, than “a performance at a place with programs run by professionals.” He has also, apparently, attempted to make the members aware of God’s concern for the poor. For example, Isaiah quotes God as saying:

Is such the fast that I choose, a day for a person to humble himself? Is it to bow down his head like a reed, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Will you call this a fast, and a day acceptable to the LORD? “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh? (Isaiah 58.5 – 7, ESV)

David Platt wrote (long before he became pastor at McLean Bible Church):

Every Sunday we gather in a multimillion-dollar building with millions of dollars in vehicles parked outside. We leave worship to spend thousands of dollars on lunch before returning to hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of homes. We live in luxury. Meanwhile the poor man is outside our gate. And he is hungry. In the time we gather for worship on a Sunday morning almost a thousand children elsewhere die because they have no food. If it were our kids starving, they would all be gone by the time we said our closing prayer. We certainly wouldn’t ignore our kids while we sang songs and entertained ourselves, but we are content with ignoring other parents’ kids. Many of them are our spiritual brothers and sisters in developing nations. They are suffering from malnutrition, deformed bodies and brains, and preventable diseases. At most, we are throwing our scraps to them while we indulge in our pleasures here.”
― David Platt, Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream

But to preach too much of this at his church is to get himself accused of being “left of center” and “pushing a left-wing agenda.” And being perceived “left of center” is a bad thing…why? Because it violates some people’s conviction that “real Christians are right-wing.” I’ve written about this issue before and explained that no party has ALL the elements of early Christianity.

David Platt’s church’s story is just the beginning of the article. Stay tuned.

If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. (James 2.15 – 17, ESV)

But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. (1 John 3.17, 18, ESV)