Christian Capitulation to Secularism is Apostacy

 

“It is doubtful that modern politics is any healthier for having purged itself of religious input. Nor is it at all clear that Christian political thought can meaningfully challenge totalitarianism or secularism without affirming that political authority is accountable to theologically grounded demands.    “Much recent political theology, however, is written in the rarefied language of academic theologians who have never faced political struggles more serious than annual departmental budget battles.    “Christian capitulation to secular politics - more the rule than the exception in the modern church - is nothing less than apostasy, a denial of the gospel that proclaims Jesus as Lord.”1   20th- and 21st-century America should have learned that a nation that divorces itself from its Judeo-Christian heritage and its devotion to Jehovah God cannot thrive, for the simple reason that laws must be rooted in truth, not feelings. If we want to fix our politics, we must reposition the Bible as the “fixed point in order to judge,” as French mathematician, physicist, and religious philosopher Blaise Pascal [1623-1662] once said, and as the American Founders understood throughout the 17th and 18th centuries.   In his commentary of August 4, 2025, titled Trump’s Unknown Frontiers, Victor Davis Hanson observes: “No conservative president has dared to question the last 70 years of progressive cultural, social, economic, and political dominance ... all traditional wisdom, all our renowned ‘experts,’ and all the self-described ‘authorities’ have no real credibility in their mostly flawed analyses and wrong prognoses.”2   Secularism’s long march through America’s institutions is now complete, as Hanson rightly noted on Albert Mohler’s Christianity podcast Thinking in Public.3 Secularists now control academia, K-12 education, corporate boardrooms, Wall Street, traditional media, Silicon Valley, foundations, and even professional sports, prompting Hanson to conclude: “Even though they don’t control or have influence over the majority of Americans, it’s very hard to communicate or retrieve information off the internet or watch the Super Bowl without that imprint of the Left.”   The old saying says it all: “What’s in the well comes up in the bucket.” Since politics is downstream from culture, today’s secular culture is the product of the moral framework imposed by the radically progressive Warren Court [1953-1969] in the mid-1960s, after a two-century war for the soul of American culture. Strangely, eight of the nine male justices were as proud of dismantling America’s Biblical foundation as the Founders were of establishing it.   Which brings us to the present moment: if Evangelical and Pro-Life Catholic Christians are wise, then over the next 3 to 4 political cycles [2026-2032] parishioners must step out from behind the four walls of the church and enter the public square by running for city council, school board, county commission, parks and recreation boards, etc., so taking responsibility for their communities.

In North Carolina in 2022, for example, 50 pastors and spiritual leaders ran for local office ranging from city councils to school boards. Twenty-five won their primaries; 10 were elected in the general.   The bold vision for North Carolina in 2026 and 2028 is to see 500 parishioners, led by their pastors, run for local office across the state. This is how you rebuild a nation: from the ground up, through faithful, God-fearing men and women engaging in civic life. [Pastor Summit - American Renewal Project; www.americanrenewalproject.org/pastorsummit]   IMPORTANT NOTE: The filing deadline to run for public office in North Carolina [2026] is December 19, 2025.   From a Christian perspective, we have come to our kairos moment. If we want to change politics, we must first reclaim the culture. And that starts with pastors and churches boldly standing in the public square.   Let’s be clear: politicians won’t save America. Wall Street won’t save America. Even our military, noble though it is, won’t save America. Our only hope is a return to Jehovah God and a restoration of Biblical values in our homes, communities, and institutions.   Alex Castellanos [born 1954], a Cuban-American political consultant and National Merit Scholar from the University of North Carolina, wrote last week that President Trump has restored the nation’s borders, dismantled elite wokeness, rescued our God-given pronouns, kicked men out of women’s sports, neutered Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and ended taxpayer-funded pro-Hamas campus activism.   But the political reality is this: if President Trump doesn’t expand his majority in Congress in 2026, it’s game over. Castellanos writes: “Few politicians, or political parties, survive success because success kills urgency. And without urgency, voters don’t vote. … His wins vanish the day he leaves the White House for Mar-a-Lago. Give Democrats the House, and they will spend two years impeaching Trump again, trying to jail him, setting the nation on fire, and organizing to reverse his triumphs.”4   To put it in Civics 101 terms: organized mobilizing is the key. Sermons and speeches are not denominations of political currency. Mobilize, mobilize, mobilize!   Dr. Leithart’s cultural diagnosis echoes the warning of Hungarian-American philosopher Thomas Molnar [1921-2010]: “Soon after political power emancipates itself from spiritual authority, it loses its own stability and, in short order, its legitimacy. The downward trend cannot be arrested. Individualism then leads to anarchy, which appears as the natural consequence.”5   A perfect example of Molnar’s warning is Obergefell v. Hodges [2015], where the U.S. Supreme Court redefined marriage, granting same-sex couples a constitutional right to marry. The Court overturned thousands of years of civilizational consensus rooted in Biblical truth and natural law. In doing so, it claimed authority to redefine an institution it did not create, ignored the democratic process, overruled more than 30 state laws, and betrayed judicial restraint.   Rather than gaining legitimacy, the Court sacrificed it, proving how secular power, once severed from higher moral law, becomes overbearing and oppressive.   As English actor and adventurer turned evangelist John Hambleton [1820-1889] put it: “Heathenism is cruel. It is not changed in character since the days when parents made their children to pass through fire to Moloch.”   With the 1 Kings 18:44–46’s announcement that a cloud the size of a man’s hand is on the horizon, we thankfully acknowledge that Gideons and Rahabs have entered the public arena.   David Lane  American Renewal Project   1. Peter J. Leithart, 1 & 2 Kings Commentary. 2. victorhanson.com/trumps-unknown-frontiers/ 3. albertmohler.com/2022/04/06/victor-davis-hanson/ 4. x.com/alexcast/status/1951671836711792760 5. Molnar’s work Twin Powers: Politics and the Sacred [1988] explores the relationship between politics and religion.