2:00PM EDT 8/2/2022 JASON YATES/MY FAITH VOTES

Jason Yates, CEO of My Faith Votes, sat down with Lucas Miles, host of The Lucas Miles Show and The Church Boys Podcast, to talk about his newest book, "The Christian Left: How Liberal Thought has Hijacked the Church."

JY: How is the Christian Left hijacking the church?

LM: We're seeing a hydra of involvements between progressives, leftists and deconstructionists. I define the Christian Left as this growing constituency of left-leaning Christians (at times, Christians in name only) who willingly embrace a downgraded view of the Bible in favor of a held belief about socialism and Marxism.

We hear statements like "Jesus was a socialist," trying to paint Jesus as a Palestinian refugee to support open borders or a diminished view of Israel. We are also seeing a rise in acceptance of the world's definitions of sexuality and gender.

Search the term "progressive Christianity" on social media platforms like TikTok. You'll find thousands of videos of so-called Christians attempting to justify alternative lifestyles and immoral practices using Scripture.

Historically, where two philosophical viewpoints oppose one another, the world tends to enter an age of skepticism. We see this with Plato and Aristotle and Augustine and Thomas Aquinas.

The current divide between red and blue in America has ushered in an age of skepticism, especially in the church. The left knows they cannot win elections unless they divide the family in the church. So, they're spending a lot of marketing dollars to perform the same revisionist history on Scripture that they've tried on the Constitution for years.

JY: Is this belief system originating from a political source invading the church, or is this stemming from faulty theology in the church?

LM: To some degree, you have the chicken and the egg. There are groups bent on infiltrating Christian colleges, Christian organizations, non-profits and the church in general, pushing this agenda.

At the same time, people have bought into these ideas so that they're coming from within the church. For instance, the message of social justice has become an unpacked Trojan horse in our churches.

The church has become convinced that the gospel is a social justice gospel. But typically, social justice is just a ruse for critical theory in various forms. That has distracted us from the central message of Jesus Christ.

JY: My Faith Votes has noticed quite a void of organizations reaching out to Christian colleges with the truth, so we developed a program to reach students on Christian campuses to equip them to vote. On campuses, we find great apathy toward this idea of involvement in political issues, even civic issues such as voting. Is that an outcome of this cultural battle?

LM: There's a general message that, as Christians, we should be above politics. We shouldn't get involved in politics.

From what we see in Scripture, Jesus spent much time talking to the Pharisees and Sadducees. These were the political figures creating rules and laws. Often, we see Jesus actively pushing back against them.

I don't want to make Jesus a lobbyist by taking this beyond what we see in Scripture because that's the same mistake we're seeing on the Left. But Jesus wasn't afraid to engage in politics, and He wasn't scared to express the opinion of His Father.

As Christians, we must recognize the influence we hold. If the state grants us the ability to vote and use our voices to make a difference, we commit a disservice by not stepping up and using that to the best of our ability.

When I was in my early 20s, I was captivated by this idea of Christian socialism, and I determined at one point in my life that I would never vote. Since then, I have been convinced that my voice as a believer matters, and that my faith needs to vote for the sake of this nation and the church.

The left talks about the separation of church and state, but they want a church subservient to the state. One practical way to combat this is using our vote.

Jason Yates is CEO of My Faith Votes, a nonpartisan movement that motivates, equips and activates Christians in America to vote in every election, transforming our communities and influencing our nation with biblical truth.

https://www.charismanews.com/culture/89804-the-damaging-theology-hijacking-the-church-today