Not Ashamed, “Here I Stand”

The words attributed to Martin Luther almost 500 years ago—when he boldly stood on the authority of God’s Word against the compromisers of the day—often echo in my mind: “Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me.”

How we need God’s people today to be like Luther. We need boldness to show that we are not ashamed of the gospel (Romans 1:16) and will handle the Word of God unashamedly (2 Timothy 2:15).

Sadly, as we have illustrated so many times in this newsletter over the years, the majority of theologians and church leaders (and most of the people in their congregations) will not stand on God’s Word in Genesis. They compromise by making allowance for the views of secular scientists and accept millions/billions of years. Some even accept Darwinian evolution. They don’t understand the critical nature of the question as it relates to the gospel itself, and are ashamed to take a stand on the Bible’s clear teaching of a six-day creation, a global Noah’s Flood, and a young earth. Instead, they are unashamed to add secular beliefs of millions of years and/or evolution to God’s Word.

The secular world is not ashamed to profess its anti-Christian beliefs. They see Christians (particularly church leaders) who accept their naturalistic beliefs as unwitting “undercover agents” for them. The secularists actually use these Christians to help undermine the Bible and destroy Christianity.

For instance, there was a report that appeared last year from the anti-creationist, anti-Christian group the NCSE led by atheist Dr. Eugenie Scott. It offers what is now a growing modus operandi for the secularists in their battle against Christianity:

Book reviews in recent issues of RNCSE [the Reports of the NCSE] have showcased a growing number of authors and reviewers who advocate some form of theistic evolution. . . . To . . . move toward defusing evolution as an explosive social and educational issue, I propose the perhaps shocking idea that it is time for theistic evolutionists to take over from atheists as the public face of evolution advocacy.1

The report continued:

As long as the secularists insist on prosecuting the war unilaterally in this way, they will not prevail. The only hope for a successful outcome lies with a coalition: the secularists must ally themselves with—indeed, yield leadership to—theistic evolutionists, who understand the creationists’ religious culture, speak their religious language, and can engage them on their home turf.

The final paragraph stated:

To really protect education from creationism’s inroads, it has to be marginalized not just scientifically and legally but theologically; and the atheists among us cannot do that. The voices of other evolutionists need to be heard. There are many such voices out there; let’s start putting them front and center.

Thus, atheists like those associated with the NCSE want to use church leaders (and scientists that claim to be Christians) who already believe in evolution and millions of years, to help marginalize the church leaders and creation scientists who unashamedly believe God’s Word. In this way, the atheist agenda to eliminate Christianity from education and from public discourse in general can be achieved.

As part of our “I am not ashamed” 2010 campaign that began in January, I am urging God’s people to stand unashamedly on God’s Word, beginning in Genesis, and challenge church leaders to repent of their compromise with secular “science.”

So, as we stand against the destructive beliefs of the secularists, we also need to boldly and unashamedly stand against compromise in the church. Remember:

You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men (Matthew 5:13).