Jesus told his disciples to love their neighbors and modeled how to do so. The Apostle Paul said love is a fruit of the Spirit. Today, some evangelical activists say they have a better idea: Believers should “ruffle feathers” with displays of guts, courage, boldness, conviction, resolve and political muscle.
“It isn’t a sin to offend someone, especially if what offends them is the truth delivered in love,” says Focus on the Family via its Daily Citizen.
Focus says things have grown so bad in America (“biblical truths have been upended, logic has been lost and tossed — and common sense is no longer common at all”) that Christians should show “audacity,” not be “weak, ineffectual and cowardly.”
“Of course, we don’t go out of our way to be disagreeable, but disagreement in an age of insanity is vital and necessary,” the evangelical powerhouse advises. “What we need to face in these times aren’t primarily compassion and understanding. Instead, we need double doses of courage and conviction.”
“What we need to face in these times aren’t primarily compassion and understanding. Instead, we need double doses of courage and conviction.”
That’s an argument Focus has made for four decades: America is on the ropes and demands unusual measures from those who love her:
- “What we’re living through in 2024 is neither ordinary nor anything like our forefathers experienced. Simply put, these are not ordinary times. It’s not time for business as usual. These are extraordinary times, and they demand an extraordinary response from followers of Jesus Christ.”
- “These times demand boldness, courage and guts. They call for us to sacrifice our reputation for the sharing of truth — and maybe swallow our pride by loving and serving those who may despise us for our beliefs.”
- If believers’ boldness leads to them being despised, “we’ll be in good company.”
- Churches need to stir up controversy over political issues, lest their apathy bring about “immeasurable suffering and even apostasy.”
- “Churches and Christians should be at odds with the spirit of the age and willing to accept the consequences that will come with the controversy.”
Focus provides examples of what it says loving courage looks like today:
- “It’s a pastor addressing moral issues from the pulpit, unafraid about complaints from the congregation or bureaucratic bullies from the IRS.”
- “Courage may also be talking to your pastor who seems leery of such subjects, encouraging him to lean into his role as shepherd and teacher.”
- “It’s standing up and speaking out at a PTA meeting or requesting a meeting with a school principal to discuss curriculum.”
“Thriving churches and faithful Christians will love deeply and proclaim God’s truth boldly,” says Focus. “In doing so, they may very well ignite a squabble.”
Harrison Butker speaks to the 2024 graduates of Benedictine College, May 11, 2024, in Atchison, Kan. (Screencap from Benedictine College/YouTube)
The Family Research Council and American Family Association offer their role model of the courageous Christian: NFL football player Harrison Butker, whose commencement speech at Benedictine College in Kansas caused controversy.
“If we are going to be men and women for this time in history, we need to stop pretending that the ‘Church of Nice’ is a winning proposition,” said Butker, who criticized President Joe Biden and Catholic priests while telling women in the audience to emphasize motherhood over work.
The speech offended many but Focus praised Butker’s unbending resolve in a series of articles.
“Predictably, the Left had a meltdown,” Focus said in one piece. “The media and commentators claimed Butker had crossed a line. But instead of issuing the usual half-hearted apology, Butker stood his ground. He didn’t backtrack. He said what he meant, and he meant what he said. There was none of that typical ‘if I offended anyone’ rhetoric that so often follows controversy these days.”
Another Focus article said Butker’s comments “came from a place of love” and criticized those who criticized Butker: “Reasonable people considered Butker’s comments to be thoughtful, healthy and biblically consistent,” Focus said. “The unreasonable? Not so much.”
Among Butker’s critics were the Benedictine Sisters of Mt. Scholastica, who helped found Benedictine College. In a statement, the unmarried nuns said Butker’s speech did not represent “the Catholic, Benedictine, liberal arts college that our founders envisioned. … Rather than promoting unity in our church, our nation and the world, his comments seem to have fostered division.”
Focus on the Family’s activism is based on a novel interpretation of Jesus’ Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) that the ministry has taught to thousands of churches: This individual Samaritan’s charity to an individual needy neighbor was “entirely superficial.” The better way to love your neighbor is using political activism to get streetlights installed along the dangerous Jericho Road.
Focus also has come up with a number of novel ways for Christians to love their neighbors:
Loving your neighbor through conservative political activism: “God commanded us to love our neighbors (Mark 12:31), and one way we can do that is by engaging in the political process to meet people’s needs,” said Tony Perkins, president of Family Research Council, in the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association’s Decision magazine, which bills itself as “the evangelical voice for today.”
Loving your neighbor by loving America and becoming politically involved with Focus aligned groups: “So, how can you best love America, praying and working for her good? As a start, consider becoming more informed on the issues, voting and getting involved with your state’s family policy council to work for and promote family-friendly public policy in your state.”
Loving your neighbor by voting for legislation some of your neighbors oppose: “Voting and trying to enact good government policy is one way that we can love our neighbor.”
Focus has a network of 41 state policy councils that have helped pass legislation restricting access to pornography, abortion-related procedures and transgender medical treatments.
Focus warns its followers against empathy, compassion, diplomacy, tolerance, winsomeness.
“It is essential for voters to learn about the initiatives in their own states and study the wording of each one carefully. For Christians who are American citizens, it is a way by which we can love our neighbors,” including “our preborn neighbors.”
Loving your neighbor by talking to about divisive culture war issues: Rosaria Butterfield, a guest on Focus’ radio program, was introduced this way: “She now helps Christians to identify several prominent lies of the culture — including homosexuality, transgenderism and feminism — and encourages us to lovingly engage those false ideas with a strong biblical worldview.”
Immigration and the southern border is one more divisive issue to discuss with neighbors: “It’s not wrong to acknowledge that illegal immigration facilitates the fentanyl crisis, enriches cartels and endangers the safety of citizens and noncitizens. In fact, biblical compassion demands it — we cannot truly provide for the poor and needy without also trying to materially improve their circumstances. Nor can we protect and care for our neighbors without acknowledging the danger lax borders pose to their safety.”
Loving your neighbor by giving unequivocal support to Israel’s military actions in the Middle East: “As Christians commanded to love our neighbors and supporters of Israel’s biblical right to exist, we are called to denounce the violent antisemitism taking place on Columbia’s campus.”
Loving your neighbor by not playing “the pronoun game” and refusing to call people by their preferred names: Butterfield says using requested gender pronouns is sinful: “Do you love your neighbor? Do you love your Lord? Do you believe that Jesus alone is ‘the way, the truth, and the life? Then we can never speak or participate in lies that question the beauty of male or female. Never.”
Loving your neighbor by opposing pandemic restrictions on schools: “The Bible commands us to love our neighbors as ourselves, which means believers should prevent what happened to kids during the pandemic from happening again.”
Focus warns its followers against empathy, compassion, diplomacy, tolerance, winsomeness and other traits that can divert them from the priority of culture war.
One Focus broadcast guest warned of “those in power” who use “emotional manipulation” to promote “toxic empathy”:
“They will use Christian language and Christian ideas like loving your neighbor and welcoming the foreigner and loving mercy and justice to convince you that, for example, opening up the border, or affirming someone’s so-called gender identity, or affirming the redefinition of the family, or affirming a woman’s so-called right to choose … that these are all not just kind and compassionate positions, but actually biblical positions because this is what it means to love. And the point is really that empathy and love are different things. You can feel how someone else feels, but love is inextricable with the truth, because love never rejoices in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.”
Focus warns against “any parachurch ministry that elevates ‘being winsome,’” and also criticizes peacemakers: “The Lord doesn’t need diplomats. He needs bold and courageous messengers. It takes energy to swim against the tide. It takes guts to resist the world. In other words, it takes strong Christians.”
What about “turning the other cheek” when someone offends? Focus quotes the late D. James Kennedy: “Tolerance is the last virtue of a depraved society.”
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