A couple of good articles at the Centers for Baptist Leadership website discuss the issue. I will heavily excerpt:
Woke Religion is here to stay—and fight. Far from being put away, this competing system clearly still means to assert itself in the American public square over our traditional forms of religion.
The Woke Religion—with all of its dogmas, its categories of sin, its priestly class, and its path to salvation (scapegoating)—is an attempt to fill the religious void left by Christianity’s removal from the public square…
Mere reminders of the old order are an affront to the new order, and the new order solidifies its own legitimacy by demonstrating its ability to crush the old. Ancient rights and usages are often swept aside to make way for the new…
Until recently, the Woke Religion has generally not presented as directly hostile to traditional Christianity. It has at times even adopted language and concepts that, from a distance, appear compatible with Christianity, if one squints a little…
Even though the absurdities should have been obvious to all from the start, in the early days, some Southern Baptist Convention leaders bought into the idea that the Woke Religion and Christianity could be reconciled…
If the days of American Christians attempting to appease the Woke Religion are finally coming to a close, stories like what happened at Cities Church will be a big part of the reason why.
But if the Woke Religion wins, no amount of winsomeness or political neutrality (no matter how well-intentioned) will shield your church from the mob...
The disruption of a church service would never have been permitted under the old common law; at the very least, it is a trespass. In addition to the common law of any state, a number of federal statutes, such as the FACE Act and the KKK Act, criminalize targeted harassment of religious groups.
So, the illegality of the protest is clear under black-letter law at both the state and federal levels. Or is it? Rights on paper don’t mean a whole lot if there isn’t someone willing to enforce them…
In the short term, the Cities Church incident will prompt a lot of good and rigorous thinking about church security, emergency response plans, legal strategies, etc., all of which are necessary and salutary. But the deeper question is how American Christianity will contend with the increasingly direct hostility of the Woke Religion and its willingness to sweep aside ancient constitutional protections.
This is not a fight that most Christians picked, or ever wanted, but it is coming. This reality will have far-reaching implications that we are just beginning to consider.
Make no mistake, they were attacked because they were Christians.
It wasn’t random; it was intentional and planned with malice aforethought…
“This was a conspiracy streamed live to gloat about how untouchable leftist political violence is.”
Nothing about Cities Church screams “cultural warrior” or “right wing.” Their crime in the eyes of the Left was simply that one of their elders is a federal law enforcement officer. Oh, and that they are “White.” And Christian.
As horrible as this event was, let this be a warning to all normal churches and “everyday revolutionaries” out there, especially those who decry the culture war. The Left sees no difference between you and the charismatic megachurch that hosts political rallies for Donald Trump. You are their enemy. You may not wish it were so. You may nuance every jot and tittle of your pristine doctrine all you want. But they do not care. They will storm your church in order to strike fear into your children. This is who the Left is. They do not discriminate between the Kellerites and the MAGA Baptists.
For many years now, evangelical elites in think tanks, publications, and podcasts have lectured Christians on how to use the appropriate tone when speaking publicly. They have advocated for a faithful presence that does not ruffle feathers. They hold up an ideal of the pastor as never taking sides. Above all, do not upset anyone (unless those people are conservatives). How long will you continue to listen to them preen from their platforms about their principles? Those principles did nothing to protect Cities Church this week. They will do nothing to protect your church, either.
Thankfully, it seems that many evangelical leaders woke up this week. Good for them. We’ve been warning them for years now that this is coming. This was not an isolated event. Welcome to the fight.
And it is still a fight, because this is not the end of the line for the Left. They are always imagining new ways to destroy…
These Leftists and all those who provide them with spiritual cover have no intention of “putting woke away.” They are biding their time, plotting their bloodthirsty deeds. They hate God and hate God’s people. And they really hate God’s people worshipping God rightly and freely…
In (the) New Covenant, the state has been authorized with the sword to strike fear (or terrorize, as some translations put it) into the heart of the evildoer. In the American context, there are many layers of state power that can be dispensed depending on the severity of the crime.
The best thing that could happen now is for the totality of the federal law to be exhaustively applied to every single person who participated in this heinous disruption of worship.
All Southern Baptists should be incensed by this wickedness. That much is clear. A line has been drawn, the die has been cast, all that remains for you, pastor, is to choose the Lord this day. Justice will be served in this life or the next against Don Lemon and his lemmings.
But as far as we are concerned, we must be like Joshua. For us and our houses of worship, we must serve the Lord. And in that service, there cannot be any compromise with the Left. Their script is easily discerned by anyone familiar with their communist revolutions. They went all in on social revolution in 2020. And they display no signs of remorse or repentance. Some even speculate if they still have souls.
Men have a duty before the Lord to defend themselves and their people…
Too many were easily deceived in prior years. Their empathy was taken advantage of, used as a steering wheel in churches to get the church to do the bidding of the left, or at least not offer any resistance to their wickedness other than strongly worded letters.
That day is over. Now is the time for Christians to stop playing defense and go on the offense. It is time to take back our cities and our nation for the glory of God.
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