That’s according to Ed Young, senior pastor of Fellowship Church, one of North America’s most attended churches over the past decade with locations in Texas, Florida and Oklahoma. In an interview with The Christian Post, Young warned that too many Christians today are being “sucked into the vortex of a secular worldview.”

“‘Woke’ Christian leaders and pastors today are jumping on the ‘hype train’ of what culture is currently applauding,” he said. “But they don’t really look at what the hype train is connected to. For example, many of the things culture applauds are connected to relativism, abortion, transgenderism, the breakup of the nuclear family.”

One example of the “hype train” many Christians have been far too eager to jump on in recent months is the promotion of the Black Lives Matter organization, according to the pastor.

“I wholeheartedly agree with the phrase ‘black lives matter,’” Young clarified. “I believe in it and the church should champion it. We should stand up for equality and justice. I believe we need to lead out.

“But I can’t support or agree with the core beliefs of the organization Black Lives Matter. It’s tied to abortion, homosexuality, transgenderism, and the breakup of the nuclear family, just to name a few. So I’m not going to hashtag that phrase because whenever someone hashtags something, they need to hash it out through Scripture, and they need to understand what the people who have started the hashtag are actually living out and what solutions are they recommending.”

Many Christians blindly accept a secular worldview because they’re “fearful of the backlash, of criticism, fearful of people bolting,” the New York Times bestselling author contended. 

“We want to be liked, we want to seem ‘woke,’ but in reality, we’re afraid to stand for truth or engage in healthy conversation,” he stressed. “We need to be wary of jumping on cultural hype trains. Racism is an obvious issue that must always be addressed. We must call it out and point people to the answers found in the person of Jesus Christ. I’m all for supporting legislation that pushes the ball of equality down the field, but real change is only going to happen when we have a heart transformation. Too many leaders are fearful to stand. Where is the boldness? Both sides of the aisle have dropped the ball. We must have open conversations, face our fears, and find solutions that work.”

When it comes to the issue of race, there is fear on “both sides of the issue,” Young said. “On one side, there’s a fear to talk about feelings, and then on the other side, there’s probably a fear of listening and applying what the other side is saying and meeting in the middle and looking to God. We have to listen like never before. Notice the feelings you have about racism, injustice, equality and acknowledge them, and then filter them through God’s Word.”

“I think that we have more of systemic sin problem in our world than a skin problem. Most people I know aren’t racists — some are, yes, and I do believe there’s a skin problem; I just don’t believe it’s systemically the core issue. The real issue is sin, not skin. That’s the root issue, but we’re too fearful to say that because we could be misunderstood and maligned.”

Believing fear is the root cause of many of today’s issues, Young recently wrote his latest book, The Fear Virus: Vaccinating Yourself Against Life’s Greatest Phobias. In it, he identifies the common fears that hold many back from living in freedom and finding abundant life in Christ. 

“The number one command in Scripture is ‘fear not.’ Yet I believe that what we’re dealing with now is fear on a level like I’ve never seen it in my life,” he said, citing issues like the current coronavirus pandemic, racial unrest, relativism and failure. 

In his book, Young shares personal stories combined with biblical wisdom to help readers identify their own fears, offering the reminder that “perfect love drives out all fear” (1 John 4:18).

“Fear drives us to do a lot of things that aren’t biblical,” he said. “We’re afraid of the truth; those transcendent truths from God that are true in every circumstance and situation. When you don’t have objective truth, you’re going to follow your feelings, you’re going to put your feelings at the center of your life. When you do that, you will walk in fear and there will be hate, turmoil, racism, greed, rioting — all sorts of things that aren’t pretty.” 

The pastor compared fear to a “virus” that can easily “seep into every area of our lives.” It’s what holds many Christians back from addressing hot-button issues like adultery, pornography, racism, and homosexuality, Young said, adding that he, in his role as a pastor, has struggled with fear himself. 

“I talk about these issues from the pulpit, whether it’s homosexuality or adultery. I don’t look to talk about these subjects, but they need to be dealt with,” he admitted. “I’ve had people leave our church and unfollow me because of the truth from God’s Word that I preach.”

When addressing uncomfortable issues through the lens of God’s Word, he clarified that the “last thing” he wants to do is “be unkind.”

“I have friends who are gay, we have sex workers who attend our church, we have millionaires and those on welfare. We accept everybody, but it doesn’t mean we approve of their behavior,” he explained. “What scares me about the secular worldview is they’re trying to force us not only to accept but to approve. In our culture, we have totally conflated acceptance with approval.”

“Pastors are called to address issues culture addresses. We need to have a healthy fear of God. One day, we will be held accountable before Him. We need to have an answer when God asks, ‘Were you true to my word? Did you preach the truth?’ Paul says, ‘I am not ashamed of the Gospel.’ There is a way to build bridges with everyone but draw a line in the sand with the truth.”

Many people are “anchor-less, blown around by the winds of culture,” he added. He encouraged Christians — and young people, in particular — to “understand the difference between a biblical worldview and a secular worldview and understand what it truly means to fear God.”

“When we fear God, meaning, we have reverence and respect and obedience to Him, we shouldn’t fear anything else,” Young stressed. “When people really take a long look at fear, and they start with the fear of God, then they can walk in victory. They can understand the situation that we’re dealing with and find peace amid the mayhem.”

“Then they are able to live in the blessings God has spoken over His people.”

Source: christianpost.com, Author: Leah MarieAnn Klett

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The president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary says the three words that have been embraced by Americans of every race and religion are “profoundly true” because “God made every human being in his image, which means every life on the planet, at every stage, matters.”

“[T]here are very real and urgent moral concerns about the lives and well-being of black Americans,” Mohler writes at ThePublicDiscourse.com.

But Black Lives Matter – the movement that was founded in 2013 and is behind BlackLivesMatter.com – takes stances that oppose biblical sexuality, Mohler writes.

The seminary president quotes the position statements on the movement’s website.

“We are guided,” the BlackLivesMatter.com website says, “by the fact that all black lives matter, regardless of actual or perceived sexual identity, gender identity, gender expression, economic status, ability, disability, religious beliefs or disbeliefs, immigration status, or location.”

On transgenderism, the website says, “We make space for transgender brothers and sisters to participate and lead. We are self-reflexive and do the work required to dismantle cisgender privilege and uplift Black trans folk, especially Black trans women who continue to be disproportionately impacted by trans-antagonistic violence.”

Further, it says, “We foster a queer‐affirming network. When we gather, we do so with the intention of freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking, or rather, the belief that all in the world are heterosexual (unless s/he or they disclose otherwise).”

The Black Lives Matter organization, Mohler writes, “adopts and promotes the entire worldview of the sexual revolution.”

The organization’s website also “seeks to remove any vestige of the traditional nuclear family,” Mohler says. He quotes the organization’s stance on the family: “We build a space that affirms Black women and is free from sexism, misogyny, and environments in which men are centered. . . . We make our spaces family-friendly and enable parents to fully participate with their children. We dismantle the patriarchal practice that requires mothers to work ‘double shifts’ so that they can mother in private even as they participate in public justice work. We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and ‘villages’ that collectively care for one another.”

Mohler also examines the beliefs of the Movement for Black Lives, a partner organization founded in 2014. The Movement for Black Lives published a booklet that calls for “a right to restored land, clean air, clean water and housing and an end to the exploitative privatization of natural resources – including land and water. Democratic control over how resources are preserved, used and distributed and do so while honoring and respecting the rights of our Indigenous family.”

“These are radical claims, which imply the abolition of private property,” Mohler writes. “In this scenario, who would determine what land and water use constitute exploitation? And who would have the authority to seize property from owners who are deemed exploitative? Although this aspect of its message is emphasized less than its anti-racism, the group’s literature demonstrates that the Movement for Black Lives seeks an end to capitalism and free markets.”

Mohler asserts: “When you look at this language, it becomes clear that Black Lives Matter and the Movement for Black Lives share little in common with the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.”

Although Mohler says he affirms the phrase “black lives matter” without “hesitation and with full enthusiasm” he “cannot use” it “because it will be heard, nearly universally, as a movement, not as a sentence. The sentence is no longer a sentence – it is a movement, a platform, an agenda of revolution at odds with the gospel, contrary to and destructive of God’s creational order.

“At the same time, Christians must be those who realize the hurt and fear of our African American brothers and sisters, indeed, of our African American neighbors and coworkers. We must be attentive to what they are saying – we must hear them, listen, and act in a way that demonstrates an urgent level of compassion and Christian love,” he writes. “We will need the spirit of Christ to do this, because mere words clearly will not do.”

Source: christianheadlines.com, Author: Michael Foust

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