Hellfire and Brimstone Progressives

Some of the Left's most militant warriors are self-professed Christians who have turned their rhetorical AK-47s on actual Christians.

Aug 18, 2023

Dear friends and supporters:

Modern Leftism has captured every cultural fulcrum in the United States except the least important one: politics. It would be a mistake to assume its ranks are populated only with avowed secularists and neopagans. Some its most militant warriors are self-professed Christians who have turned their rhetorical AK-47s on actual Christians, that is, those of us who rightly see Leftism as diametrically contra-Christian, even if self-alleged Christians champion it.

Since early in the 20th century, theological liberals have uniformly also been political liberals (not to he confused with liberty-loving classical liberals), and the early liberal “social gospel” is the ancestor of today’s “social justice Christianity.” An obvious long-time example is Jim Wallis’ Sojourners. Theological liberalism like this is a false, alternative religion, and modern “progressivism” its political manifestation. “Christian progressivism” (Christian Leftism) is fake Christianity.

What has changed for today’s Christian Leftism is a stark aggressiveness specifically calculated to resist and overcome the activism of the Christian Right in ways that are, from the Leftist standpoint, distinctively Christian. In other words, they depict Jesus as the consummate culture warrior — battling for aborticide, homosexual “marriage,” and transgenderism. For this never-passive-always-aggressive progressive breed, the mild-mannered, non-judgmental, all-inclusive Jesus of the old liberals has become the hot-tempered, strategically activistic, prophetically sectarian Jesus, table-overturning and conservative-scourging in the desecrated temple of the pro-life, pro-family, pro-liberty, pro-racist Christian Right.

This is the tack in a recent issue of The Nation, flagship publication of American Leftism since 1865. Wen Stephenson’s article “Thunder on the Left” reveals and celebrates a new, aggressive, comprehensive Leftism baptized in the waters of vocal Christianity.

Away with the Mainline

The new progressivism has no time for mainline theological liberalism, that is, the view of almost all of the older Protestant denominations, which you’d think would be its natural ally. Stephenson classifies mainline liberalism with right-wing Christianity. What? How? Both are passive in the face of the Christian Right:

What, then, might an authentic Christian resistance to white Christian nationalism look like? I posed this question to more than a dozen Christian thinkers, clergy, and activists and asked them whether the deep tradition of prophetic Christianity in this country, committed to economic and social justice, can offer an effective counter-narrative — if not a counter-movement —to the dominant modes of both right-wing and mainstream liberal Christianity in America. (emphasis added)

Mild-mannered, urbane, diplomatic, gentlemanly (and -womanly) 20th century liberalism won’t defeat the malign forces of orthodox, right-wing Christian darkness. Only a risky, aggressive faith will do. No-holds-barred, takin’-it-to-the-streets Jesusiuan Leftism is the new ticket. These are the scorched-earth Christian Leftists. We might call them “hellfire and brimstone progressives” (hereafter HBP).

White Christian Nationalism

The enemy, you might have noted, is “White Christian Nationalism.” By this they mean a racist, dominionist, almost explicitly KKK-style Christianity in the United States, the sort advocated by the old Confederacy that survives far beyond Dixie. And, truth be told, there is a form of Christian Nationalism with odors of racism, and even a Christian Nationalism that actually isn’t Christian at all. The HBP aren’t tilting at windmills, but rock-ribbed Christian conservatives like Brian Mattson and me have repudiated this Christian Nationalism with every bit the vigor the HPB have, but, in bold contrast to the HPB, from a genuinely Christian perspective.

Here’s the more vexing problem: HBP wish to identify the racist nationalism with wholesome attempts at a biblical Christian culture, an obviously spurious conflation. Christians, like all other humans, have often committed the sin of racism, but there’s no necessary relation between Christian culture, including the influence of Christianity on politics, and racist nationalism. Think only of medieval Christian society, encompassing almost the entirety of Europe, a multinational, multiethnic society if there ever was one. Despite its faults, it resisted both nationalism and racism, both of which it would see as barriers to an international society under the authority of the medieval church. White Christian Nationalism it was not. Christian culture is antithetical to White Christian Nationalism.

But in implicitly identifying White Christian Nationalism with historically global Christian culture, the HBP discloses its true altar-call appeal: an all-out assault on the Lordship of Christ in all areas of life as expressed in the Bible.

“Jesus is Lord, But We Don’t Want the Bible”

They have no problem mouthing “Jesus is Lord,” until we bring up that embarrassing Bible stuff, like biblical truth requiring sexual fidelity; marriage exclusively between one man and one woman; strong male leadership in numerous crucial spheres, especially the church; and economic liberty, meaning free markets. That Lord Jesus is one about whom the HBP are conspicuously silent.

Still, this is a clever rhetorical ploy: anybody who believes Jesus is Lord of everything, and that his word should govern all things, is in their eyes a White Christian Nationalist. There are, of course, genuine Christian Nationalists, white or otherwise, but this version actually means: not biblical. But to unsuspecting observers, standing for biblical faith and culture is to find oneself a White Christian Nationalist to the HBP.

Yet this ploy may be too clever by half. HBP recognize the complexity of their program in light of earlier, American liberal ideals, not just conservative ones:

A reminder of just how complicated this terrain is can be seen in a recent national survey published by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), which aimed to measure “the threat of Christian nationalism to American democracy and culture.” Respondents were asked whether they agreed with each of five statements, such as “God has called Christians to exercise dominion over all areas of American society” (6 percent agreed “completely,” 14 percent “mostly”). Another was “U.S. laws should be based on Christian values” (13 percent agreed completely, 27 percent mostly) — a notion that various iconic figures in the history of the American left, from Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth to Dorothy Day and Martin Luther King Jr., might well have agreed with. Which raises the question: Whose “Christian values”?

Whose indeed? Because the HBP have no interest in conformity to the Bible, they’re adrift on the raging sea of relativistic human speculation. Who decides what Christian sociopolitical action looks like? Well, if you don’t have a Bible or, for that matter, broad Christian tradition, anybody gets to decide. This is how secular ideologies worm their way into the broad fold of Christendom and get to don the respectable uniform of activist Christianity while simultaneously gutting actual Christianity. Here’s another example from Wen Stephenson:

Aaron Scott is a white trans Christian who grew up working-class in a small town in upstate New York that was hit hard by deindustrialization. After completing his studies at Union Seminary, he moved to Washington State and cofounded Chaplains on the Harbor (affiliated with the Episcopal Church) and its Freedom Church of the Poor — “a church of the streets and the jails,” he calls it — in Grays Harbor County. Scott is now heavily involved in the Poor People’s Campaign. In his organizing work with the unhoused, the addicted, and the formerly incarcerated, mostly young and white, he has faced public threats of violence from right-wing vigilantes, as well as violence itself.
In the working-class rural counties where white Christian nationalism finds much of its base, Scott said, progressive churches that could be feeding, sheltering, and caring for people — as well as organizing politically — are held back by institutional barriers and an aversion to risk.
Echoing Traci Blackmon’s [another HBP’s] critique, Scott sees progressive Christianity and the Christian left — especially the older, mainline, mostly white and liberal denominations — often failing to act strategically. They’ve issued statements, he said, “but not really organized differently, like the way we do church: ‘Who is this for? What is the point of this building, this land? What are the risks we should be taking?’” For Scott, the question facing churches is this: “Would you rather close up shop and die sitting on a pile of money? Or would you rather join the struggles of poor people in this country? Maybe you would lose it all; maybe someone would come in and steal the silver. But God forbid you take that risk.”

“Taking a stand” and “issuing statements” and preserving lucrative church edifices of dying Leftist congregations — mainstays of the older, mild-mannered progressivism — are strategies for cultural defeat. It’s time for a fiery, prophetic, risky, activist hellfire and brimstone progressivism to vanquish the well-organized, activist Christian Right.

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Honoring and reviving our forefathers’ Christian-shaped and liberty-drenched vision is the objective of CCL’s 2023 symposium. It will be December 2 at a 4-star hotel in the San Francisco Bay area. The day (9 a.m. to 3 p.m.) includes a catered gourmet lunch and the chance to renew friendships and converse with likeminded, intelligent, culturally attune Christians. This is a highlight of the year, and if you want to know CCL in an intimate setting, this is the place for you.

There is no charge for registration, but this event is by invitation only. Please contact CCL for an invitation: private Facebook message, email sandlin[at]saber[dot]net, or call or text 831-420-7230.

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Worldview Clustering

Because the HBP promote not a loose collection of single Leftist issues but rather a coherent campaign for a Leftist culture veneered in Christianity, they synthesize contra-biblical beliefs into an artful theological mosaic. There’s nothing surprising about this. While no worldview is entirely consistent, over time worldviews develop greater consistency among those who ponder and practice them. Deeply held beliefs unite to create a single worldview. I call this “worldview clustering.” In the case of the HBP, this includes beliefs like the right to aborticide, homosexual “marriage,” transgenderism, state socialism, ideological feminism, and radical environmentalism. These culture warriors complain about other Leftists who do not see, or who will not vocally champion, this “clustering.” Stevenson cites the “Reverend” Traci Blackmon (mentioned above), Senior pastor of the Florissant, Missouri Christ the King United Church of Christ, arguably the most radically Leftist Protestant denomination in the United States:

“The fact that we’ve refused to speak out against it [White Christian Nationalism] in our pulpits and in our theology,” Blackmon said, “has left us ill-equipped in this moment. There are people who will push back strongly against racism but won’t push back at all against sexism. There are people who will push back against sexism and racism, but [calling out] heterosexism is a bit too far. There are people who will push back against all of those but aren’t willing to risk their class status. We have to decide what it means to be on the progressive side of the Gospel.”

To be truly progressive in the Christian church is to be comprehensively progressive. The Christian Right will be thwarted only by a full-orbed and aggressively implemented worldview. The Left’s pet causes must stand and fall together. This is the HBP playbook.

A Contest of Two Christianities

What to make of this? The Faith’s most pernicious enemies are never hostile worldlings outside the gates, but anti-Christians inside. And make no mistake: for all of their Jesus-language, the HBP are enemies of the Lamb and the flock. Racism, homosexuality, transgenderism, ideological feminism, radical environmentalism, and sexual egalitarianism are anti-Christianity.

They are the prophets of Baal inside the Hebrew commonwealth. They are the apostate Judaizers within apostolic Christianity. They are the pew-sitting Gnostics of the patristic church. Like each of these parallel contra-faiths, they’re unwilling to go along to get along. They’re not merely spurious sheep. They’re ravenous wolves in sheep’s clothing bent on savaging, and, eventually, replacing the flock with a counter-Christianity.

If they gain the upper hand inside Christendom, they will persecute and expel the faithful ones. This phenomenon isn’t new. Paul warned the Galatians: “But, as he who was born according to the flesh [Ishmael, the supplanting seed] then persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit [Isaac, the true seed], even so it is now” (Gal. 4:29). Jesus similarly cautioned his disciples about the Judaizers: “They will put you out of the synagogues; yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service” (Jn. 16:2). There can be no détente for the HBP. Some of the HBP might, of course, be utterly sincere — and all the more vicious because of their misguided sincerity. In the name of Jesus they purge Jesus.

They are presently a distinct, vocal minority, aided and abetted by soft-soaping evangelical accommodationists, piously spouting that same-sex “marriage” and on-demand aborticide and transgenderism “are not gospel issues” about which the church should be “unsettled.” For institutional and denominational peace, they will sell Jesus Christ down the river. A hundred years ago, this happened with almost all the mainline denominations in the case of Protestant liberalism. This is how Christendom was lost in the United States. Don’t say it can’t happen in orthodox institutions. It already did happen.

Conclusion

Earnestly contending for the Faith once for all definitively delivered to the saints (Jude 3) isn’t an a polite request. It’s a divinely imposed imperative. The contest between true Christianity and anti-Christianity within the Faith is not a fearful prospect.

It’s a present battle.

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Personal

I had a great time lecturing to high school and college students in Charlotte, North Carolina for a worldview conference convened by Reverend Larry Ball and his faithful adult sons Titus and Tim. It’s possible next year’s conference will include my dear friends and ministry partners Dr. Joe Boot and the Ezra Institute. Listen to the audio of my talks “Christian Worldview or Cultural Marxism?” and “The Creational OS and Knowing God’s Will for Your Life.”

Next time I intend to write on “Trust and Obey, There Is No Other Way,” the unity of faith and obedience, confession and kingdom, and law and gospel.

This week we’ll start proofing the essay collection Virtuous Liberty: A Christian Defense of Classical Liberalism Against Cultural Leftism and the New Right. Current contributors include David L. Bahnsen, Joseph Boot, Kevin D. Johnson, Brian G. Mattson, Dustin Messer, P. Andrew Sandlin, Richard A. Sandlin, Levi Secord, Robert Sirico, and Jeffery J. Ventrella. This book will make a clear, bold, biblical case for society rooted in God’s moral law guaranteeing maximal liberty for individuals, families, churches, and businesses.

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Yours for the King,

Founder & President, Center for Cultural Leadership

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