A Pastor’s Job Description
[Jude 1:3 ESV] “3 Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.”
One of the key parts of the job description of a pastor is to protect the people of God from false teachings. Paul makes this clear in 1 Timothy as he opens his letter with a charge that he would prevent false teaching in the church, and the command to resist false teaching only continues from there in the letter.
This means that a pastor that fails to address false teaching is not doing his job. At best, he is incompetent. But what really scares me is that, at worst, he might not actually love the sheep. He might love his own life more than the lives of the people that he is leading and flee from the controversy that politics brings. [John 10:12-13 ESV] “12 He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. 13 He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.”
A pastor can do everything right; they can build good fences, feed and water the sheep daily. But if they fail to stand in front of the wolf, they fail completely. A pastor can give great sermons, be upright in his morals, and faithfully love his family, but if he fails to stand against whatever false teaching that is threatening the church at that moment, it will all be for naught.
To make the point even more powerfully, the prophet Ezekiel condemns the Israelite pastors for failing in this duty with sharp words:
[Eze 34:2-6 ESV] 2 “Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy, and say to them, even to the shepherds, Thus says the Lord GOD: Ah, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? 3 You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat ones, but you do not feed the sheep. 4 The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the injured you have not bound up, the strayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought, and with force and harshness you have ruled them. 5 So they were scattered, because there was no shepherd, and they became food for all the wild beasts. My sheep were scattered; 6 they wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill. My sheep were scattered over all the face of the earth, with none to search or seek for them.”
The playbook for American pastors has long been: don’t address politics, and if you do, make sure that you denounce both sides. This will make people feel more comfortable in your churches, and afford you an opportunity to share the gospel with them. And while I do believe that Sunday morning is primarily about proclaiming the gospel and teaching the word, I am growing in my conviction that the wolf coming after today’s sheep is dressed up in political clothing. And because of that clothing, and the playbook given to pastors, many pastors have failed to stand up to the wolf for the sake of the sheep.
My Background in This Area
Raised in the public school system and discipled in large part by the Gospel Coalition (by men like Tim Keller and John Piper), I was totally unaware of the danger of leftist ideologies. In fact, I was a proponent of them. You might even be able to find some woke sermons that I gave online, echoing talking points from the two men listed above.
One memory sticks out vividly to me as a reminder of where my head was at in my college years and shortly after:
I can remember a woman asking me if Bekah and I would ever photograph a gay “wedding”. My response was something along the lines of: Jesus tells us to love everyone, so, yes, I would go and photograph that wedding in order to love the couple and demonstrate Christ’s love. I can’t demonstrate that if I’m not there. So I would go, and make it clear that I disapproved of homosexuality. She was deeply disappointed in my answer. Looking back, I am also disappointed in my response.
The reason why this is the wrong response for Christians is because going to a gay wedding – and especially photographing it – celebrates the liberalism that is destroying our churches and nation. Going to the wedding demonstrates either a lack of courage or a bad worldview. A worldview that says we should do everything possible to be nice to all people so that we can love them and share the gospel with them. It begins with good intentions: to make the gospel available to all (this especially Keller embodied so powerfully) was the same sentiment that ultimately led to the massive inroads of liberalism in the church. Churches that are flying pride flags and that no longer believe in the finished work of the cross, or the inerrancy of Scripture, have been devoured by the wolf, and the pastors of those churches failed to protect them because they wanted to make the gospel palatable to the modern man. They wanted the chance to share the gospel with people, so they didn’t fight the wolf – they fed it and hoped that it would turn into a sheep.
Paul certainly did have a concern to “become all things to all men, so that he might win some”. But embracing woke ideology goes far beyond what Paul meant in 1 Corinthians 10:32-33. It actually affirms and celebrates the thing that is tearing down the faith itself. Paul was willing to eat with the idolaters, and to eat their meat even if offered to idols (1 Cor. 8&10, Rom 14) but the second that those things were damaging to a fellow believer he was adamant that he would “never eat meat again” (1 Cor. 8:13) for the sake of his brother.
How Dangerous is Wokeism?
This begs the question: How bad is woke ideology? How dangerous is this worldview? Can a Christian take the good and leave the bad? Can a pastor afford to not say anything on this topic to try and win people’s ear to the gospel and still be considered a faithful shepherd?
In short, I believe the answers to the above questions are: really bad, really dangerous, not without great danger, and no.
These claims deserve some explanation, because I am essentially claiming that pastors that fail to address these “political” issues are not being faithful as pastors, and that is a weighty claim.
First, a definition: What do I mean by wokeism? I mean the dominant liberal worldview that sees every academic sphere, history, economics, philosophy, literature, etc… through the lens of oppressed and oppressor groups, and then seeks to bring social justice through diversity, equity, and inclusion based on their own perception of who is oppressed and who are the oppressors. But most of you have an intuitive sense of what I mean when I say woke, or wokeism. and it is probably accurate.
Here’s four reasons why wokeism is about more than politics, and is actually deadly for Christians:
- Christians are considered to be in the oppressor class. Wokeism, if taken to its logical conclusion, will lead to apostasy, because it claims that Christianity is an oppressor class. Christians are therefore one of the groups of “bad guys”, and to be fully welcomed into the woke circles, your christianity will have to be repented of and even apologized for. This is apostasy. If we believe that Christ is the head of his church, then any worldview that is opposed to the church is opposed to Christ Himself. To be allied with an enemy of Christ is treasonous and foolish.
- Wokeism is another religion. Consider how wokeism answers the following questions differently from Christianity:
What is wrong with the world? Wokeism says that sin is not found originally in Adam, and therefore the problem for all men, regardless of ancestry. Instead, it says that original sin is found in whether or not your ancestors persecuted and enslaved anyone. This means that original sin is only found in some people groups (although all people groups have been enslaved and enslavers at some point in history).
What is the chief end of man? In wokeism, the chief end of man is not to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, but to produce “equity” in every area of life. Good guys are defined by how oppressed they are, and bad guys are defined by how oppressive in history they have been. And the goal of every sphere of society, church, government, and family ought to be to bring equity between these two groups.
What is beauty? Wokeism says that beauty is subjective and dependent on each person’s taste. This inevitably leads to the argument that morality too is subjective and dependent on each person’s taste. Whereas Christianity says that beauty and morality are defined and known by God through His word and creation.
Where is all of the world going? Wokeism has an eschatology that is based in communism. Karl Marx believed that the world’s economic systems were continuous to evolve and that perfection would be a communist state that ruled over the entire world. He didn’t just think that this would be best, he prophetically believed that this would inevitably happen. When it failed to materialize, Marx followers turned to a different kind of equality that is based more on social power (or social justice) than economics, but the end is still the same. Christianity, on the other hand, sees Christ reigning over all the world in the end. (see Carl Trueman’s book “Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self” for a more in-depth explanation of this point) or this video by Neil Shenvi. - Woke ideology is a cancer. It spreads and grows. Your commitment level is never enough. Saying that you can chew up the meat and spit out the bones of woke ideology is like saying that you can just have a little bit of metastatic cancer and be fine.
If you dip your toe into the water of caring about what people think of you, then you have bit the hook and they might reel you further into wokeness than you care to go. They do this by trying to get you to feel guilty through a phrase like: “silence is violence.” Suddenly there is pressure on you to prove how faithful to the cause you are by not just silently holding your own sentiments, but actually speaking up against oppressors. We saw this in the black lives matter movements of 2019 and 2020. People that held woke sentiments felt compelled to put signs in their yards and to stop their friends from using certain terms, or making what were deemed “racist” jokes.
But, from my own experience, I have seen that your level of commitment is never high enough. After putting the sign in the yard, you have to go on the protest march, and after going on the march you have to also stand up for trans rights and put your pronouns in your bio. And after doing that you have to be willing to date people of the same gender if they call themselves a different gender…and the demands never stop. They quickly conflict with Christian morals, and you will have to choose the woke mob’s scorn, or Christ’s scorn. I advise all Christians to gladly choose the former.
- Wokeism produces bitterness and guilt and never thanksgiving or forgiveness. If the hook that liberals set into the mouth of well-meaning people is guilt and self loathing, then wokeism cannot ever let you off the hook through forgiveness or true reconciliation. The moment that there is genuine forgiveness between “oppressed” and “oppressors”, the entire system crumbles to the ground. There is no longer anything to protest. A person that buys into woke ideology, especially if he is male, Christian, straight, able-bodied, or wealthy is signing up for a life of continual guilt and contrition. They will have to crawl over and kiss the muddy boots of the oppressed class every time that they come calling, or else be labeled as a “racist” or a “homophobe”. This indwelling guilt is the literal antithesis of the wonderful gospel of grace offered by Christ, and will ruin Christians from living in the peace and joy of full forgiveness of sins. Notice that people are not even calling for “racial reconciliation” anymore. That buzz-phrase sounded nice, but the goal was always to actually get oppressors to repent of their sins and continually live in shame and guilt. Reconciliation has happened at the cross, and if that truth was ever embraced by the whole nation, then wokeism would wonderfully and gloriously die.
If the above points are true, (and obviously I believe that they are, or I wouldn’t be writing them), then this means that being a faithful pastor means that I will speak into these things, even if it costs us a good “witness”. Even if it means being labeled with mean names. Because to fail to speak up about these topics is to fail to shepherd well.
Thanksgiving
When I woke up to these truths I felt like I had been delivered from some great lies that would have had disastrous effects on my family and on my walk with the Lord. And I am particularly grateful to a faithful brother, Russell Zimmerman, for a timely phone call that I won’t forget, and for pointing me towards good books from men like Voddie Baucham and Carl Trueman. He was deeply pastoral in those early Covid and BLM years, by courageously pointing me towards the truth when the whole world was yelling lies about these doctrines. And because he stepped in and spoke reason into my life, I am able to pastor more effectively today.
I can only apologize to our church for not waking up and speaking out sooner.
Boots on the Ground Application
What does this mean for us as a church? This coming year is going to bring renewed confusion, chaos, and uncertainty, as there will be political forces that are seeking to sway your opinion on what to think about the world, how to vote, and, most importantly, trying to get you to fall in line and be an obedient pawn in their agenda.
My plan to pastor well through this time is to be asking the question: What is true? And what does Christ tell us to do, think, feel, or say, in light of what is true?
This will take courage. It might mean doing something that is costly and countercultural. When I look back at the lockdowns and the masks and the social distancing, there was incredible pressure to conform and it would have taken incredible courage not to conform. I now see that the right thing to do in those times was to keep the church open, sing loudly and joyfully without masks, and hug each other often. Those normal things that ordinarily required no courage at all required great courage at the time. A person cannot be courageous if he has any doubts about what is true and good. Uncertainty and doubt is the great courage-sapper. It is when a person is fully convinced of what is right and pleasing to God that he is able to stand against ten thousand. So, my deep distrust of liberalism and government mandates (from either party) will play a role in decision-making at Vintage Faith Church in this upcoming year (and beyond).
To be clear, I am not asking us to put our trust in men or in political parties. Men shift like water; they are totally corruptible, and to put your hope in them is to put your hope on a shifting sands. But God is our rock and fortress that does not move, though everything else gives way; He will not change, and so we trust in Him.
The assassination attempt on Trump and the chaos of Biden dropping out of the race is a harbinger of what is to come: this year will not be “normal”. Big boy decisions are going to have to be made by all of us in the coming year. As your pastor, I am settled that wokeism is dangerous, and I will give no ground or quarter to it in the life of our church, even if it is costly. This is basic to my job description: Pastor.