{"id":1072242,"date":"2021-12-01T11:29:44","date_gmt":"2021-12-01T16:29:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1072242"},"modified":"2021-12-01T11:29:48","modified_gmt":"2021-12-01T16:29:48","slug":"how-the-battle-over-wokeness-has-infiltrated-the-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/how-the-battle-over-wokeness-has-infiltrated-the-church\/","title":{"rendered":"How The Battle Over Wokeness Has Infiltrated The Church"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fhow-the-battle-over-wokeness-has-infiltrated-the-church%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1072242&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>On November 17, Adam Greenway, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (SWBTS) in Dallas-Fort Worth did something rarely seen in the world of evangelical leadership. He publicly criticized another Baptist institution, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AdamGreenway\/status\/1461035803421945858?s=20\">tweeting<\/a> out a letter he\u2019d sent to Michael Spradlin, president of Memphis\u2019 Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary (MABTS).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI write to you with extreme disappointment that the institution you lead has plans to host a \u2018film premiere\u2019 of Enemies Within the Church, Greenway began, placing scare quotes around <em>film premiere<\/em> as if to suggest there was some doubt over whether the movie in question was actually a film.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe film\u2019s trailer,\u201d he went on, \u201ccontains campus footage of the institution I am privileged to lead overlaid with narrative insinuations of \u2018Marxism\u2019 \u2026 I take strong umbrage to such scandalous and scurrilous slander, particularly when it is apparently condoned by an institution such as yours.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Greenway finished by asking Spradlin to reconsider his decision to show the movie.<\/p>\n<p>This post was shared and cheered by hundreds of Christian leaders, journalists, and authors \u2014 many with blue-checks by their names and Washington Post bylines in their bios. But Spradlin was not to be deterred.<\/p>\n<p>His office fired back with a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsweek.com\/seminary-president-protests-screening-film-examining-wokeness-within-church-1651155#slideshow\/1936752\">statement<\/a> saying that the school was \u201cvery concerned\u201d about the evidence of creeping liberalism the film presents. \u201cWe believe Southern Baptists, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, are wise and able to arrive at the conclusion that glorifies our Lord and advances the gospel. Documented information and concerns should be considered instead of suppressed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Spradlin finished by quoting the pastor and author Adrian Rogers: \u201cIt is better to be divided by truth than united in error.\u201d The film screening went on as planned.<\/p>\n<p>Neither Greenway nor anyone else applauding his calls to cancel the showing of <a href=\"https:\/\/enemieswithinthechurch.com\/\">Enemies Within The Church<\/a> (EWTC) offered counter explanations to the detailed and extensive evidence the film presents that individuals motivated to promote a leftist agenda have taken up influential posts within evangelical institutions.<\/p>\n<p>From the outset, it must be noted that this is a documentary that wears its agenda on its sleeve. It doesn\u2019t pretend to be a neutral, journalistic investigation, but rather, is something more like a carefully argued court case that comes complete with a detailed bibliography. And the case, in the words of one of the interview subjects, is that some of America\u2019s foremost evangelical leaders have gone from \u201ccommunicating the Bible to souls to transforming social structures.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Nothing New Under the Sun<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The best service \u201cEnemies Within The Church\u201d renders viewers is the historical context it offers for the ideological shifts people in the pews are seeing today. It broadens the scope of the discussion beyond current headlines on Critical Race Theory and white privilege to their foundational philosophies of socialism and communism, of which these buzzwords are only the latest costume.<\/p>\n<p>The film persuasively traces how, in the 1930s, communists like labor union activist Bella Dodd subverted Catholic ministries, particularly among the more education-oriented Jesuits, and turned them from teaching the gospel to teaching social engineering. Dodd described bringing 1100 young communists into the Catholic church over decades. \u201cBy the time she got out [of communism] 20 or 30 years later,\u201d Michael Hichborn, president of the Catholic Levanto Institute explains, \u201cshe had seen many of those young men raised to the rank of bishop and even cardinal.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>From there, the film moves on to the 1970s and how a who\u2019s who of progressive Christian intellectuals and professors came together to draft the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Chicago_Declaration_of_Evangelical_Social_Concern\">Chicago Declaration<\/a>, a document that argues for \u201cattacking\u201d American \u201cmaterialism\u201d and \u201cthe maldistribution of the nation\u2019s wealth and services.\u201d In full, the declaration reads like a primer for the social justice lingo we hear from so many pulpits today, particularly its assertion that \u201c[Christians] must rethink our values regarding our present standard of living and promote a more just acquisition and distribution of the world\u2019s resources.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The same playbook, the film argues, is playing out now in evangelical educational institutions under the guise of identity politics. We see how deeply seminaries like Fuller and Wheaton have already been compromised by the priorities of social justice over biblical justice and how leaders educated at those institutions are carrying what they learned to once-conservative institutions like Baylor and Biola. There, we see invited speakers discuss how white people need to abstain from their privilege like \u201cvegetarians\u201d abstain from meat.<\/p>\n<p>The message today, narrator Cary Gordon, a pastor himself, explains, \u201cis not that you need to receive Christ and repent of your sins, it\u2019s that you\u2019re under the weight of sexism, racism, and homophobia.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Real Victims<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>If you follow the various evangelical camps on Twitter or other social media, it\u2019s easy to come away thinking that all of this is just so much academic infighting that has little impact on regular folks in real churches. EWTC illustrates how mistaken this assumption is.<\/p>\n<p>Its most disturbing example is how<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On November 17, Adam Greenway, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (SWBTS) in Dallas-Fort Worth did something rarely seen in the world of evangelical leadership. He publicly criticized another Baptist institution, tweeting out a letter he\u2019d sent to Michael Spradlin, president of Memphis\u2019 Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary (MABTS).\u201cI write to you with extreme disappointment that the institution you lead has plans to host a \u2018film premiere\u2019 of Enemies Within the Church, Greenway began, placing scare quotes around film premiere as if to suggest there was some doubt over whether the movie in question was actually a film.\u201cThe film\u2019s trailer,\u201d he went on, \u201ccontains campus footage of the institution I am privileged to lead overlaid with narrative insinuations of \u2018Marxism\u2019 \u2026 I take strong umbrage to such scandalous and scurrilous slander, particularly when it is apparently condoned by an institution such as yours.\u201dGreenway finished by asking Spradlin to reconsider his decision to show the movie.This post was shared and cheered by hundreds of Christian leaders, journalists, and authors \u2014 many with blue-checks by their names and Washington Post bylines in their bios. But Spradlin was not to be deterred.His office fired back with a statement saying that the school was \u201cvery concerned\u201d about the evidence of creeping liberalism the film presents. \u201cWe believe Southern Baptists, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, are wise and able to arrive at the conclusion that glorifies our Lord and advances the gospel. Documented information and concerns should be considered instead of suppressed.\u201dSpradlin finished by quoting the pastor and author Adrian Rogers: \u201cIt is better to be divided by truth than united in error.\u201d The film screening went on as planned.Neither Greenway nor anyone else applauding his calls to cancel the showing of Enemies Within The Church (EWTC) offered counter explanations to the detailed and extensive evidence the film presents that individuals motivated to promote a leftist agenda have taken up influential posts within evangelical institutions.From the outset, it must be noted that this is a documentary that wears its agenda on its sleeve. It doesn\u2019t pretend to be a neutral, journalistic investigation, but rather, is something more like a carefully argued court case that comes complete with a detailed bibliography. And the case, in the words of one of the interview subjects, is that some of America\u2019s foremost evangelical leaders have gone from \u201ccommunicating the Bible to souls to transforming social structures.\u201dNothing New Under the SunThe best service \u201cEnemies Within The Church\u201d renders viewers is the historical context it offers for the ideological shifts people in the pews are seeing today. It broadens the scope of the discussion beyond current headlines on Critical Race Theory and white privilege to their foundational philosophies of socialism and communism, of which these buzzwords are only the latest costume.The film persuasively traces how, in the 1930s, communists like labor union activist Bella Dodd subverted Catholic ministries, particularly among the more education-oriented Jesuits, and turned them from teaching the gospel to teaching social engineering. Dodd described bringing 1100 young communists into the Catholic church over decades. \u201cBy the time she got out [of communism] 20 or 30 years later,\u201d Michael Hichborn, president of the Catholic Levanto Institute explains, \u201cshe had seen many of those young men raised to the rank of bishop and even cardinal.\u201dFrom there, the film moves on to the 1970s and how a who\u2019s who of progressive Christian intellectuals and professors came together to draft the Chicago Declaration, a document that argues for \u201cattacking\u201d American \u201cmaterialism\u201d and \u201cthe maldistribution of the nation\u2019s wealth and services.\u201d In full, the declaration reads like a primer for the social justice lingo we hear from so many pulpits today, particularly its assertion that \u201c[Christians] must rethink our values regarding our present standard of living and promote a more just acquisition and distribution of the world\u2019s resources.\u201dThe same playbook, the film argues, is playing out now in evangelical educational institutions under the guise of identity politics. We see how deeply seminaries like Fuller and Wheaton have already been compromised by the priorities of social justice over biblical justice and how leaders educated at those institutions are carrying what they learned to once-conservative institutions like Baylor and Biola. There, we see invited speakers discuss how white people need to abstain from their privilege like \u201cvegetarians\u201d abstain from meat.The message today, narrator Cary Gordon, a pastor himself, explains, \u201cis not that you need to receive Christ and repent of your sins, it\u2019s that you\u2019re under the weight of sexism, racism, and homophobia.\u201dReal VictimsIf you follow the various evangelical camps on Twitter or other social media, it\u2019s easy to come away thinking that all of this is just so much academic infighting that has little impact on regular folks in real churches. EWTC illustrates how mistaken this assumption is.Its most disturbing example is how members of First Baptist Church Naples were treated when they voted against a black candidate to take over as senior pastor.Though his application came with the strong support of national Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) leaders, many church members were concerned that Marcus Hayes had recommended progressive books like \u201cWoke Church,\u201d tweeted praise for Vice President Kamala Harris, and endorsed ideas like reparations. He also did not meet the requirements the pastoral search committee had originally laid out for a new senior pastor.A group of 30 to 40 longtime church members circulated a petition that received 800 signatures calling for a meeting to discuss those issues, as well as their concern that their 27-year former head pastor had been pushed out and maligned in order to make way for Hayes. They never got the meeting, but nonetheless Hayes failed to meet the vote threshold to win the job. In response, the church\u2019s leadership excommunicated 18 people who led the vote against him. They then released a statement blaming racism on Hayes\u2019 inability to secure 85 percent of the ballots.\u201cA portion of the 19% that voted against Marcus Hayes did so out of racial prejudice,\u201d the executive pastor proclaimed, adding, \u201cit exposed a sickness in what we characterize as a cancer in our fellowship.\u201dThe biggest names and most influential national leaders in the SBC bolstered this version of events. Then-SBC president J.D. Greear called the statement a \u201cbold, Gospel-faithful response\u201d to \u201csinful prejudice.\u201d Danny Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, described the racism charge as a \u201cstrong and redemptive word.\u201d One of the foremost black voices in the SBC, mega-church pastor Dwight McKissic, said, \u201cYou cannot cure racism with an antibiotic, it takes amputations. Grateful that [First Baptist Church Naples] is moving toward amputating the racists.\u201dExcept, there was never an iota of real evidence that any of the church members who voted against Hayes were motivated by racial animus. Yet their motives and character were maligned in major newspapers across the country with the help of the biggest megaphones in the nation\u2019s largest protestant denomination.One of the excommunicated deacons, Bob Caudill \u2014 who had been a member of the church for 50 years \u2014 begged Greear and Akin to retract their implicit accusations of bigotry. Neither deigned to respond to him.Nor were they willing to answer questions from independent religious news outlet The Roys Report. \u201cWe reached out to leaders at FBC Naples about a dozen times, seeking evidence for the racism charge, as well as comment on other issues at the church, but no one responded,\u201d TRR reported. \u201cWe likewise contacted SBC President J.D. Greear, SEBTS President Danny Akin, and Rev. Dwight McKissic for comment, but none responded.\u201dAt least The Roys Report tried. Few established evangelical news outlets even attempted to cite support for the accusation \u2014 which would have been hard, because, to this day, none has been brought forward.Questions That Demand AnswersThat brings us to the main problem the very existence of the film highlights \u2014 the unwillingness of the biggest Christian news publications, religion reporters, and ministry leaders to investigate and demand answers on issues that might discomfit high-profile, institutional figures. Thus, everyday people, worried about what they\u2019re hearing in their churches, are flocking to independent voices who will ask tough questions no one else will.These voices are often labeled as fringe dividers by organizational representatives, as we see happening to the filmmakers behind EWTC. In some cases, it may be deserved. But what those who occupy the upper echelons of the evangelical world fail to recognize as they send each other \u201cthankful for your ministry\/leadership\u201d tweets is that the \u201cfringe\u201d discernment bloggers and rogue filmmakers are increasingly speaking for millions. They represent the concerns of average Christians who are sincerely unnerved to show up to church on Sunday and suddenly hear they\u2019ve been unknowingly raising their kids in\u00a0dens of racism and patriarchal oppression.Is \u201cenemies\u201d too strong a word for some of the individuals highlighted in this film? Probably, and it certainly isn\u2019t one Christians should use of each other carelessly without seeking explanation. But the longtime, faithful members of First Baptist Naples were also treated like enemies when they wouldn\u2019t fall in line. Where is the leadership condemning that slander? Where are those seeking a charitable understanding of their concerns?Unlike those accusations, EWTC has presented evidence. A lot of it. Is it lacking context? Is it slanderous? Then it should be answered rather than censored.Long before this film premiered at MABTS, everyday Christians wanted to know why they\u2019re hearing major pastors using the language of Critical Race Theory and speaking of a \u201cbag of privileges\u201d white people carry around with them, as mega-church pastor, Matt Chandler did. They want to know why J.D. Greear tacitly endorsed the idea that the members of First Baptist Naples were racist without any clear evidence for the charge. They want to know why Southern Seminary New Testament professor Jarvis Williams seemed to suggest that theological textbooks must meet diversity requirements when he called for \u201cdecolonizing\u201d seminary curriculum from \u201cwhiteness.\u201dAgain, that\u2019s not to say there might not be additional background that would cast these slices of speeches and comments in a different light. Perhaps Greear spoke too cavalierly about a situation about which he didn\u2019t possess enough information. (Show me the man or woman who hasn\u2019t sinned on that count.) Williams has given other interviews where he expressly disavows CRT. But it must be said that the disavowal would certainly seem to conflict with his earlier statements, and the interviewer did not explicitly ask him about those comments.That reticence to face hard interrogators is another element contributing to distrust and division. Institutional leaders hear the worries that drifting left and believe, with the applause of echo chambers ringing in their ears, that they are addressing them their with vague, dissembling responses to friendly, in-house interviews. That is not the path of transparency or allaying fears. Instead, they should be talking to real journalists who will ask real adversarial questions or, even better, have actual discourse with their critics.That said, one failing EWTC has is that it doesn\u2019t explore other possible motivations that can account for creeping liberalism in ministries. While I came away convinced that there certainly are actors subtly and not-so-subtly working to introduce the \u201cdifferent gospel\u201d of social justice into evangelical institutions, more common failings than being wolves in sheep clothing could account for why some pastors, presidents, and ministry leaders don\u2019t do more to stop it.The great sin of Adam \u2014 passivity \u2014 comes foremost to mind. There\u2019s also simply the desire to hang on to hard-won positions. Men who have spent lifetimes building up institutional respect aren\u2019t often eager to risk it by stirring up hornets\u2019 nests with angry and energetic social justice warriors in their twenties and thirties.But whatever the cause, concerns over wokeness in the church, even if overblown, will not be dispelled by ignoring or suppressing them. Like so many things in American life, the solution is not less speech, but more. It isn\u2019t in demanding that films screenings be cancelled but that the issues they bring up be forthrightly answered.I don\u2019t know the truthfulness of every allegation \u201cEnemies Within the Church\u201d presents \u2014 it would take weeks to fully flesh out every point. But I know they have presented more than enough to warrant a hearing.The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author\u2019s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a\u00a0member.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":112,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1072242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1072242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/112"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1072242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1072242\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1072242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1072242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1072242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}