📄The Areopagus Update – January/February 2023
One of the most important books of 2022 was Letter to the American Church by Eric Metaxas, a best-selling author and host of “Socrates in the City” and the nationally syndicated Eric Metaxas Radio Show. The book is a bold and incisive prophetic critique of status quo Christianity in contemporary America tThat all serious Christians should read. As C. S. Lewis observed, the most rare of all the Christian virtues is that of courage– a trait that few Christians and church leaders manifest today in terms of confronting the demonic and insidious “woke” agenda that is subverting and perverting every aspect of our society and culture. The following excerpts highlight some of the key themes in the book, but readers are encouraged to read the book in its entirety so as to fully understand and appreciate the context for these quotes. – Jefrey Breshears
(From the cover)
“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil….”
“Decrying the cowardice that masquerades as godly meekness, Eric Metaxas summons the Church to battle. The author of a bestselling biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Metaxas reveals the haunting similarities between today’s American Church and the German Church of the 1930s. Echoing the German martyr’s prophetic call, he exhorts his fellow Christians to repent of their silence in the face of evil….” insisted, the Church has an irreplaceable role in the culture of a nation. It is our duty to fight the powers of darkness….”
“An attenuated and unbiblical ‘faith’ based on what Bonhoeffer called ‘cheap grace’ has sapped the spiritual vitality of millions of Americans… [who] shrink from combating the evils of our time. Metaxas refutes the pernicious lie that fighting evil politicizes Christianity. As Bonhoeffer and other heroes of the faith
“Silence is not an option. God calls us to defend the unborn, to confront the lies of cultural Marxism, and to battle the global tyranny that crushes human freedom….”
Wayne Grudem: “… Bold and insightful… Metaxas calls for pastors and other Christian leaders to be courageous enough to speak unambiguously against the massive antiChristian forces that now threaten to permanently transform American society and bring to an end America’s role as a beacon of freedom for the world.”
(Excerpts from the book)
“Critical Race Theory – which is atheistic and Marxist – and radical transgender and pro-abortion ideologies, are all inescapably anti-God and anti-human. So are they dedicatedly at war with the ideas of family and marriage…. As Stalin and Hitler and Mao would butcher millions in the name of fighting for ‘the people,’ so these forces do the same [under the guise of ‘social justice’]….”
“Most church leaders have not seen the change and have not adjusted, but continue to act as though it is an unseemly betrayal of their calling to say anything that might open them to the accusation of being ‘political’….”
“Dietrich Bonhoeffer too was told not to be ‘political’….”
“[Meanwhile] secular leftists and leftists in the Church have become radically political and are cynically pretending that those who disagree with them are the ones being political….”
“In some ways it is as though George Orwell had scripted [our current scenario], except it is far stranger than anything he ever wrote…. Suddenly the false, confusing, and wicked ideas that come from Critical Race Theory and Transgender and Queer Theory have not only erupted into culture but have been welcomed into many churches.”
[Note: If you read only one book this week or this month or this year, read Letter to the American Church. Also encourage friends and relatives to do the same, and arrange to discuss the book with them. Christians – especially parents and church leaders – must wake up and speak out before freedom of speech and religious liberty are suppressed as in all totalitarian societies. This has nothing to do with “Christian nationalism” – the latest buzz term used to intimidate Christians into silence and meek submission. This has everything to do with wholistic and comprehensive Christian discipleship what Francis Schaeffer referred to as “the lordship of Jesus Christ over the whole of life.”]
