President Harrison of the LCMS has a way if looking at conflict, trial, and temptation. He says, and you plug in the verb, “we must pray, preach, or confess our way through it.” All three activities are probably better than one or two.
I recently read an article by Joy Pullman in the “Federalist” in which she quotes Adam Koontz, co-host of the “A Brief History of Power with Two White Guys” podcast who directs pastoral field education as a professor for Concordia Theological Seminary. He says,
The woke “children of the Moral Majority are now doing what their parents did, but in the new politically trendy way,” he observed. He underscored the belief, common to much of evangelicalism and to Roman Catholicism, that humans participate in their own salvation — i.e., “make a decision for Christ” — rather than Christ doing it all, one of the “solas” of the Protestant Reformation.
This fuels the belief that Christianity is not about being transformed solely by Christ through his clearly defined gifts of Word and Sacrament for a life of service to others, but about validating one’s faith through human works. That, in turn, stimulates a religious impetus for pursuing an earthly utopia through politics, a dangerous unity of faith and state that has historically at best fueled failed nation-building abroad and a rogue administrative state at home, and at worst totalitarianism and mass murder.
Just as substituting politics for faith also ultimately decimated mainline denominations, Koontz noted, so those who follow its woke version today will eventually abandon Christianity. The only way out of this is the same way out of every other spiritual dead end: repentance.
Joy Pullmann is executive editor of The Federalist, a happy wife, and the mother of six children. Her newest ebook is a design-your-own summer camp kit, and her bestselling ebook is “Classic Books for Young Children.” Sign up here to get early access to her next full-length book, “How To Control The Internet So It Doesn’t Control You.” A Hillsdale College honors graduate, @JoyPullmann is also the author of “The Education Invasion: How Common Core Fights Parents for Control of American Kids,” from Encounter Books.
