One of more noxious movements among the evangelicals has been the development of growth ministries. These people use the tools of public relations and marketing to encourage people into church. To do this, they tone down the message, make everything seeker friendly and eschew controversy. Mike Scruggs described them better than I can.
The first principle of Evanjellyfish Christianity is TOLERANCE. Tolerance is their ultimate, unquestioned virtue. The underlying multiculturalist principle here is that all moral or theological truths are relative and equal no matter what their source. In this chaotic system of theology, one truth is as good as another, and nobody’s truth is ever questioned—unless they believe that there are absolute truths. Believing in absolute truths is intolerant because it implies that some people are in serious error. Having to defend serious error and all sorts of nonsense and to suppress even obvious absolute truths for the sake of tolerance tends to make Evanjellyfish Christians fact and logic averse. Thus emotion always trumps facts and logic in their discourse, usually accompanied by much rambling nonsense.
Evanjellyfish Christians can become visibly shaken by the suggestion that tolerance is not an unqualified virtue. Try as one may, it is almost impossible to get an Evanjellyfish Christian to consider that perhaps they should be intolerant of evil or of moral and intellectual nonsense. That usually gives them a migraine headache. They are generally very surprised to learn that Jesus would tell a church in Revelation 2:20, “Nevertheless, I have against you that you tolerate that woman Jezebel….” Evanjellyfish Christianity is primarily informed by a belief in the innate goodness of man and the ideals of democratic egalitarianism rather than Scripture.
The second principle of Evanjellyfish Christianity is UNTHINKING CONFORMITY to majority or popular opinion, especially if supported by the mainstream media, publishing, and educational institutions. Unthinking Conformity is the backbone of Evanjellyfish Christianity. For the Evanjellyfish Christian, acceptance and respectability are more important than truth. Knowledge or analysis that does not conform to popular and respectable opinion is avoided. Curiously, Evanjellyfish Christians have a furious intolerance for any facts or straight thinking that might jeopardize their respectability or acceptance. The politically correct environment of the college campus has become the ultimate training ground for enforcing the Unthinking Conformity essential to Evanjellyfishism. The fact that the Evanjellyfish positively avoids serious analysis and thinking should not be confused with stupidity, although it is often difficult to make a distinction. They are constantly in a state of denial that their slavish popular conformity is really just a form of moral cowardice.
The third principle of Evanjellyfish Christianity is LIBERTY UNLIMITED, referring to liberty of conscience. But contrary to traditional Christianity, in which there is a place for liberty of conscience on questions not addressed or given any ethical preference in Scripture, the Evanjellyfish Christian has a remarkable tendency to claim liberty in everything. Scripture is not authoritative to them. They pick what verses they like and how to interpret them. Their private interpretation of Scripture is, in fact, remarkable in its devices. Each one has a personal ethical framework geared to their own success and enjoyment of life. They bristle at any Biblical contradiction of their private, self-centered morality. Their idea of liberty of conscience is a deification of their own idols and desires. As such, it will not submit to any threatening analysis.
A fourth Evanjellyfish principle is the notion that INEQUALITY IS EVIL. It helps to remember their second principle (Unthinking Conformity) to justify this as some sort of moral law. There are, of course, many areas where some kinds of equality are preferable, such as equal justice under the law. However, the Evanjellyfish Christian expands the concept of equality to areas that make no common sense and cannot be justified by Scripture or a study of nature. They presume against God and nature that psychological differences between men and women need to be corrected to conform to their egalitarian vision of society. They even presume to overturn the divinely ordained nature of marriage and family. Economic differences seem especially unfair to them even when the difference is clearly attributable to hard work, perseverance, accumulated knowledge, greater risk taking, and special abilities. They refuse to believe some obvious facts—that many abilities have high genetic inheritability and that these abilities often have a substantial correlation with economic success. A curious characteristic of Evanjellyfish Christians is their constant demand for government mandates to enforce all sorts of silly and unreachable equality. Their approach to correcting presumed social and economic injustices is generally totalitarian.
The fifth and final principle of Evanjellyfish Christianity is PERSONAL PEACE and PROSPERITY at any PRICE. There is hardly any truth they will not ignore or suppress to achieve this. They will go along with the silliest and most inane proposals by demagogues, charlatans, and crackpots, so long as their personal peace, and prosperity can remain intact. They are incredibly vulnerable to verbal bullying in that regard. They grease the wheel that squeaks loudest however unfair or unwise. They are thrown into panic and headlong flight on the mere utterance of certain accusing words—racist, sexist homophobic, and Islamophobic, to name a few. Hearing such an accusing utterance, though it might be far from the truth, they abandon all reason and principle. They will even turn on innocent people to demonstrate their innocence. Their vulnerability to this kind of verbal bullying is known by many and used to manipulate them outrageously. They seek the appearance of righteousness rather than its reality, especially if the reality has a personal cost. Evanjellyfish Christians are not opposed to costs as long as they are borne by other people, most frequently taxpayers. Evanjellyfish Christians are generally very compassionate with other people’s and especially taxpayers’ money. It makes them feel good.
I have many flaws, particularly in the eyes of such. I am not a nice person. Instead, I am that geeky bloke with his nose in a book and limited social skills who says the truth, bluntly.
I offend.
Now, that is not my argument with these people. I know my sins, and one is a certain intellectual pride and coldness: the besetting sin of the Reformed. So when people call be hurtful and horrible, I usually say that is my natural state.
My big argument with the Jellyfish is that they do not follow Christ. Christ’s teaching drove people away. He never said it would be easy. He never said that it would be without conflict, or that we would be happy.
He said he came to save and heal us. This implies that we are flawed, that we need correction, and the cure for our suffering is beyond us. For the mortality rate of humanity remains 100%.
When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, “Do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”
After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.” Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the Twelve? And yet one of you is a devil.” He spoke of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the Twelve, was going to betray him.
(John 6:60-71 ESV)
We need to risk offense. We need to speak the truth. This world craves the authentic, to the point of converting to those false Gods, such as Allah, who claim to be authentic.
Being nice will not help us. Being truthful will.
So do not be scared of offending the sheep. Your truth may save some of them, but it will drive others to rage.
Do not count your success by the number of people in kirk, nor the budget, nor the buildings. Your success is measured on how you affect those around you: by the consequences of your actions you will be judged. On that, the liberals are failing: to breed, to practice the tolerance they preach, to practice the habits of charity with mitigate inequality: instead they demand unthinking conformity to whatever nonsense is currently fashionable.
But they will die within a generation. Do not be them, and do not be like them