Thoughts on Eric Metaxas’ Book and Sermon,
“Letter to the American Church”
by Karen Burgess
(December 4, 2022)
Why are pastors shrinking from speaking God’s Word in all its truth? A prime reason I’ve heard been given is because they are afraid of turning people off to the Christian faith. To this I would say that it’s not the pastor’s responsibility to change people’s hearts. They are charged with communicating all of God’s truth. They aren’t responsible for the outcome. They need to release the responsibility of the outcome to God. But those who don’t do this continue to water down the gospel to make it more palatable. Jesus never watered down his teaching, but it appears that the majority of pastors in the Christian Church aren’t looking to him as an example. This dilution of the Gospel of course infects the faith of those who hear it. So where will these people hear the truth? If the Church isn’t teaching God’s Word in all its truth, where are people ever going to hear it? Who else has more moral authority than the Church? Who else will be the conscience of America? Like C.S. Lewis, Dennis Prager often states that the quality most lacking in people is courage.
Several months ago, I was in a Bible study in which almost every woman in the group spoke out against me when I said yes, as Christians we need to be loving and full of grace, but we must also speak the truth. I presented this scenario: What if someone was engaging in behavior that you knew was contrary to God’s Word, yet you didn’t say anything, and eventually this person made a decision that resulted in great heartache and profoundly affected the rest of her life? Then one day she realizes that she had not been following God’s Word and comes to you and asks, “Why didn’t you tell me that I was walking a path away from God?” Would you not have trouble looking her in the eye? What would be your response? No one gave an answer.
An example of Jesus speaking the truth is found in John 4:1-42, where he encounters the woman at the well. At one point Jesus tells her to go call her husband. He knew, of course, that she was currently living with a man who wasn’t her husband, and that before she could be saved she must acknowledge herself as a sinner. Though he did so indirectly, he did point this out to her. He did not keep his mouth shut for fear of offending her. Of course, we don’t just blurt out the truth indiscriminately—we need to use discernment as to whom we speak it to and when we do so.
Many pastors believe they should not infuse culture-related topics into their sermons, as that would be getting too “political.” But Jesus certainly spoke out about issues that existed culture at the time. For example, in Mark 10, in a culture that permitted divorce, Jesus proclaimed that marriage should be permanent. (By the way, he also stated in that passage that “God made them male and female,” which of course confirms the fact that these are the only two genders he created.) In Matthew 21:12-13, Jesus overturns the money changers’ tables in the Temple. In Mark 12, he told the Pharisees and Herodians that although they had to pay their Roman taxes, they were not to do anything that would violate their higher authority to God, even if this meant disobeying the Roman authorities. Although they brought this issue up to Jesus, he didn’t remain silent—he spoke out. I think it’s appalling that very few pastors and church leaders today have the courage to speak out against horrific practices such as abortion and the mutilation of teenagers’ bodies (for the reason of supposedly “transitioning” from one gender to the other). This is truly reprehensible.
In his day, William Wilberforce was told to keep his faith private, that he had no business asserting his “religious” view that slavery was wrong. Do we really believe God would say he was wrong to do so, and that instead he should stand by and not try to stop the evil he saw being acted out in his country? Should Dietrich Bonhoeffer have listened to those who told him not to be “political,” not to speak out and do everything in his power to stop the persecution of German Jews? Should American pastors not have spoken out about Jim Crow laws? What about Ronald Reagan when he spoke these now famous words, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” Incidentally, when Reagan had told his advisors what he intended to say, they expressed serious disapproval, claiming it would be unpresidential and too extreme, and would further inflame tensions between the East and the West. Does this sound familiar? We can substitute the words “judgmental,” “unloving,” and “oppressive,” and we are now in the 21st century fighting our current culture war.
Eric Metaxas states in his book that what Reagan did paved the way for the Berlin Wall to topple two years later, and two years after that for the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Yet so many people don’t see that in the safe approach, or the approach that doesn’t rock the boat, they are enabling evil to flourish. I don’t understand how anyone can think it unreasonable or inappropriate for a pastor in a Christian church to encourage their congregation to support and vote for leaders who follow God’s moral precepts, and to then educate and/or remind the congregation as to what those precepts are.
Why are Christians caving to the culture around them and not speaking out?
Reason #1: Human beings want to be accepted; we want to belong. This is one of our basic psychological needs as human beings. Because of this, many people just try to get along and not be seen as troublemakers. I’m sure every one of us have at one time or another, particularly in childhood, felt like we didn’t belong or that we weren’t part of the cool crowd. Such feelings can hurt deeply. This is why, ultimately, we need to care only what God thinks of us—if he approves of our behavior and attitudes, and whether or not our life is glorifying him. If we allow ourselves to be defined by how well we are accepted by other people, then we cannot be counted on to stand for God’s truth. But speaking truth to others and living out these truths are how we love our neighbor. We must have the courage to be uncomfortable, to be maligned, to not be a part of the group, if we are to love like God calls us to love.
Reason #2: People don’t realize just how serious our present condition is. Could what’s happening in China happen here someday—people being locked inside their home due to the spike in Covid? The thought may sound implausible, but is it really so far-fetched? Maybe not in the next few years, but someday down the road? I think it’s certainly possible, especially considering what public officials did here during the last few years due to the Covid outbreak. As Metaxas points out in his book, are we going to be like the people in Germany who couldn’t imagine Hitler would ever direct such depraved and wicked acts against humanity? I have read that this is the case because in our country we have not really experienced any of the atrocities that have taken place in recent human history, and therefore people think that the United States is immune to those kinds of horrors. But such a view is not only somewhat arrogant, it is also quite naïve.
Reason #3: Another reason why Christians aren’t speaking out against the evil in our culture is simply because we have become so comfortable here in America. We have so much in the way of material luxuries, entertainment options, and extra-curricular activities that people are too wrapped up in their everyday lives to really give much thought as to what’s going on in our culture. They might also be using their many fun distractions as a way to intentionally escape from reality. They don’t want to have to think about the great challenges that confront us. Let me insert here that if pastors were teaching what they should, these issues would probably be more at the forefront of their thoughts.
Reason #4: One more reason I’ve pondered: If Christians start denouncing all the immorality and injustices that occur around us, they then have to face their own lives and come to terms with whatever they are doing that is not in accordance to God’s Word—something they would rather avoid. It also means they have to come to terms with the fact that God is not only a God of love and grace, but he is also a God of truth and justice. It appears that a lot of Christians don’t like that truth, nor do they want to think about it.
As Jesus taught in Matthew 5:13-16, we are directed to affect the culture we live in and be a source of “salt and light.” If we begin to blend in, we are no longer salt or light, and so are of little value to God or anyone else. Jesus compared Christians to a city on a hill that cannot be hidden, because kingdom people are meant to be a beacon in the night, providing spiritual light to a lost and dying world. In other words, we don’t keep our faith separated from those around us and the culture in which we live. As long as we live on this earth, we are meant to have an influence on the people around us. Jesus doesn’t want us to have only head knowledge of him. He wants us to live out our faith as well, and in all circumstances. Both orthodoxy AND orthopraxy are vital.
I’ll conclude with these verses from 2 Timothy 4:2-5, which are eerily reflective of what is currently happening in our culture, though maybe it has always been true for the last two thousand years: “Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage with great patient and careful instruction. For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.”
As we read in James 1:22, let us not only be “hearers” of the Word of God, but also “doers.”
Karen Burgess lives in the Atlanta area and works in the cyber security industry as a technical writer. She has been involved in the ministry of the Areopagus for several years, and among her primary interests are Christianity and contemporary social and cultural issues, particularly as they affect children.