The Left used the cult of evangelicalism to embrace progressive politics
Anybody who understands marketing knows how effective celebrity endorsements are. We see this in business, with companies spending millions of dollars to have a celebrity say that they love their product. We see this in politics, with politicians getting their favorite actors or comedians to lend their name as an endorsement to help them get elected. We even see this in the church; famous pastors lending their name to conferences, books or other churches to drive Christians to purchase that product. This age-old marketing tactic is used to get you, the consumer, to buy a particular product.
Since this is such an effective tool, it’s no surprise that the Left uses this marketing strategy to fundamentally change the direction of the church. While the celebrity endorsement model is still being used to sell books, build churches and fill conferences, what you really need to understand is there’s a more sinister game at play. The Left is using celebrity endorsement marketing strategies to change Christianity from a Biblical theology to a leftist, progressive ideology that is a warped version of true Biblical Christianity.
Within Christianity, there’s a serious problem of celebrity worship when it comes to pastors. Part of this happened because technology has given us increasingly more global access to each other. Thirty years ago you probably couldn’t listen to a pastor’s sermon from across the country, but today you have twenty-four hour access to them on social media with the click of a button. You begin to build a connection with them, even though they have no idea who you are. Often times Christians make fun of the secular world for their worship of celebrities like Justin Bieber or Kim Kardashian, yet they do the very same thing to megachurch pastors.
The Bible teaches that we aren’t supposed to idolize our anyone. In 1 Corinthians 3, Paul confronted this issue head-on.“Are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? For when one says, ‘I follow Paul,’ and another, ‘I follow Apollos’ are you not being merely human? What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believe, as the Lord assigned to each.” Even in Biblical times, we saw this trend within the church to identify with a particular pastor, placing them on a pedestal above the rest. Or, in other words, they were being idolized. Paul condemned this kind of mentality, yet we see it rampant in the church today!
One of the ways in which we see the celebrity worship of pastors is in our theology. Often times one will identify as a follower of John MacArthur, John Piper, Tim Keller, Rick Warren or any of the other famous pastors. The problem with this kind of identification is how easy it can be to have blind spots in our theology. We are drawing from the wrong source; we should look to God’s Word for our theological conclusions rather than our favorite pastors. This can lead into serious theological error with a refusal to re-evaluate our positions to make sure they are Biblically accurate, directly violating 1 John 4:1, which reminds us to “test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.” Unlike many of the prominent pastors today, the Apostles encouraged the early church to constantly check and verify what they were being taught.
Instead of starting with a premise of building our theological positions by studying Scripture, we usually take the lazy route and leave the studying to the experts. We are told that these ‘great men of God’ are more learned and should be trusted because of their extensive study of the Bible, their understanding of the original Greek & Hebrew and their seminary and doctorate degrees. On a side note, not everyone who goes by Dr actually earned their doctorate.
An argument is often made that these Evangelical Elite should not be questioned by mere laymen. Why? Because you can’t compete with their superior intellect! This kind of manipulation allows their ministry to go unchallenged while leading literally millions of people astray who are manipulated into following without question. I mean, these pastors can be trusted, right? Let me say that this kind of thinking is nothing more than a cult wrapped up in Biblical theology.
This article is an excerpt of the book Church & State: How the Left Used the Church to Conquer America, which brought together authors Pastor Greg Locke, Dr Michael Brown, Denise McAllister, Pastor Cary Gordon, Jeff Dornik, JD Rucker, Pastor Ken Peters, Dr Robert Oscar Lopez, Dr Mike Spaulding, Pastor Sam Jones and Dustin Faulkner. This team of authors exposes the strategy employed to overthrow America through the infiltration of the Evangelical Church. Order your copy today!
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