A lot of information comes through our computers these days, and much of it (unless your spam filter needs to be updated) it good and useful. Occasionally, though, something comes through that is a “MUST READ.” The attached article is just that: a “MUST READ” — ESPECIALLY FOR YOUNG ADULT CHRISTIANS AND THOSE WHO HAVE ANY CONNECTION TO, OR INFLUENCE WITH, YOUNG ADULT CHRISTIANS.
As you know, David French spoke at our Areopagus Forum several months ago. He’s a senior counsel with the ACLJ (and formerly with the Alliance Defense Fund), and is heading up the case against Vanderbilt University’s policy whereby the administration, under the guise of promoting liberal/left-wing PC “tolerance,” is forcing campus Christian organizations to drop all doctrinal and moral standards for those in leadership positions.
In the attached article, David addresses a major problem among young Evangelicals today: Having been misinformed, misled and compromised by the unrelenting assault on Christian and conservative values by the mainstream media, academia, and pop culture, many young Evangelicals have bought into the idea that they are above politics and that the culture war is merely a conservative myth. Like French, I also believed this lie for many years until I emerged from the fog of academia and began engaging real life with my eyes wide-open.
There are two reasons why so many young Evangelicals have no interest in politics or otherwise think it’s not important, both of which are shameful: (1)Ignorance, or (2)cowardice.
In the case of ignorance, there are two options: (1)They have never matured intellectually to the point that they understand that politics is important because it has either a direct or indirect affect on public morality, justice and civility; or (2)They have been so thoroughly indoctrinated in secular/liberal propaganda as to think that “all politicians are the same” (corrupt, incompetent, etc.) or that “Christians shouldn’t impose their values on others” through the political process. (Which of course leaves non-Christians free to impose THEIR values on the rest of us!)
The problem of cowardice is even more troubling. Due to a lack of faith, many young Evangelicals are more concerned about being “cool” than principled, so many compromise (or sacrifice) Christian values for the sake of peer acceptance or to further their educational or vocational goals. The pressures in our society to conform can be overwhelming, and this is as true in many vocational and professional fields as it is in middle school, high school, college and graduate school.
Opposing David French is Jonathan Merritt, the son of (at least formerly) a powerful and influential Southern Baptist pastor and a young man who would like to be taken seriously as a spokesman for young Evangelicals. Neither his mind nor his experience is equal to the task, but in contemporary pop Evangelical Christianity such factors matter less than whether one is sufficiently “cool.”
PLEASE READ, DISCUSS, AND CIRCULATE THIS ARTICLE FAR-AND-WIDE, BUT ESPECIALLY AMONG PASTORS, YOUTH PASTORS, AND CHURCH LEADERS WHO WORK WITH YOUNG ADULTS.
