"We preach the whole Word. Where that includes controversial current issues, we don't avoid them."
"Politics is downstream from culture, which is downstream from worldview (an ethic-philosophy-theology). So this means that the gospel has implications across the board. The preacher's target is the human heart or soul, and by extension, whatever else that heart seeks after..."
"They have the absolute right and responsibility to do both."
"Gospel and culture. The prophetic passages won't make sense without them.
"The gospel is more than our individual salvations. Therefore, relevant issues must be preached or you get exactly what we are seeing all around us. Pandemonium."
"It would be impossible to preach the gospel and not comment on social issues. Matthew 5 is all about social issues."
"If you have a culture engaging in Immoral activities (abortion, LGBT etc, etc) Christians need to call them out (with love of course)." - Dr. Michael Brown
When a pastor is preparing sermons for his congregation, he should not avoid any issues, controversial or not. We preach the whole word. That is not however the nature or business of politics. Dr. Brown spent four years telling us how great Donald Trump was. Did that serve the cause of Christ? Did it save one soul or push away untold numbers? It is interesting how poorly taught the followers of Dr. Brown are. The "target" of the preacher is not the human heart, which is wickedly deceitful above all else. It is certainly not what that deceitful heart seeks after. His job is to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ, not the petty politics of man. Not the cause du jour. From there it is up to God through the Holy Spirit to draw whom He might to His glorious salvation. Narrow is the way and few are those who find it. Those "individual salvations" are the entire point of the Gospel. Period full stop. The pandemonium you see all around you is due to the depravity of man and the failure of the church to do as it is commanded in scripture. Matthew 5, or the Sermon on the Mount, is Jesus teaching us how we ought to live. They are not social teachings for how to reform society. Perhaps no comment is more telling than the last one Brown chose to cite. The church today is taught that it is their job to "call out" sinners. It most certainly is not. Yes we preach against sin and for the need to repent but that is in the individual context of salvation and not this legislative push to codify our beliefs and force them upon people. It is not surprising that this follower has boiled down his faith to stopping unsaved people from abortions and being gay. That is all he is taught and that is what is reinforced through the NAR. It also prevents the person from looking at themselves. The world is steeped in sin because it does not know Christ. The church is steeped in sin because it thinks it is Christ. It is not our job to convict the world of sin. It is our job to tell them about the Savior of the entire world who came to deliver them from that sin. With eternity on the line, why on earth would we want to preach the politics of this world?
