Key points: When a growing number of people who claim to be Christians are confused about who Jesus is, the church is in trouble. The church must speak with biblical clarity and with renewed resolve about who Jesus is for the benefit of those inside and outside its walls, as well as for the benefit of the culture at large.

Access all the articles in this series, as well as articles in a related series, here.

Christian blogger and speaker Natasha Crain released an important article on her website on August 27, 2020. Titled “How to Explain to Your Kids Why Social Justice Warriors Hate Christians So Much,” the article highlights three specific ways the social justice movement, including Black Lives Matter, stands in stark opposition to biblical Christianity.

Relying on critical race theory (CRT) as it views and interprets culture and cultural events, social justice warriors (SJWs) see society as divided into two basic groups: the oppressed and the oppressors. The oppressed are minorities, especially blacks, who allegedly have been held back by whites, a group of people who (the narrative goes) oppress blacks in and through a society and culture that is systemically racist. Note carefully that CRT identifies whites as oppressors, not by their actions or character, but by the color of their skin. Note also that CRT and social justice crusaders ignore completely the real progress made in race relations in America over the last several decades. For come key definitions of CRT and related terms, go here.

Note too that CRT heavily emphasizes personal experience — the experiences of those who, by virtue of being black, are oppressed, and those who, by virtue of being white, are oppressors. Yet real stories of blacks who have been successful, financially and otherwise, and of whites who remain poor and disadvantaged, are not taken into consideration. These scenarios do not fit the CRT narrative.

Natasha explains that according to the worldview of CRT,

all relationships between people are understood to be functions of power dynamics. Those in power want to keep their power, so they will want to maintain societal structures that have always been in place because that is supposedly what gave them their power to begin with (and sustains their power still today). Because the historical structure of society is presumed to be the ultimate reason why anyone is currently marginalized, nothing less than a societal revolution is needed to fix the problems we see—a complete overturning of everything considered to be “normal” in America.

Christianity, Objective Truth, and the Teaching that Jesus Is God

A good amount of material at Word Foundations, including this article and this series of articles, already refutes the social justice narrative. We need to realize that Ms. Crain has a different, yet vitally important, goal with her article. She strives in her piece not to debunk the social justice movement, but to demonstrate why its advocates detest the Christian faith so much. She notes that

1. 1. 1. Christianity is part of the perceived norm, that
      2. Christians believe that objective truth exists, which bluntly challenges the SJW’s claim that authority can and should be based on “lived experience,” and that
      3. Christians believe the Bible is God’s Word, which repulses SJWs who see the Bible as a tool of oppression against marginalized groups.

All three of these are worthy of serious discussion and consideration, but I want to hone in on the second item.

Christians believe that objective truth exists, which bluntly challenges the SJW’s claim that authority can and should be based on “lived experience.”

This statement has been true in the past; but today, an increasing number of people who claim to be believers are denying the existence of absolute truth. A recent article published at disrn.com offers a snapshot of a soon-to-be-released poll conducted by LifeWay Research (LWR). LWR administered the survey  in partnership with Ligonier Ministries, which performs a “State of Theology study” every other year. The survey found that just over half of Americans — 52% — and nearly one-third of evangelicals — 30% — affirm Jesus as a “good teacher, but…not God.”¹

Thirty percent of evangelicals — nearly one-third — affirm Jesus as a “good teacher, but…not God.”
—results of a survey conducted by LifeWay Research for Ligonier Ministries’s State of Theology report—

The president of Reformation Bible College and chief academic officer at Ligonier Ministries, Dr. Stephen J. Nichols, said this about the finding.

Statistics like these from the State of Theology survey can give us quite a shock, but they also shed light on the concerns that many American Christians and churches have expressed for decades.

As the culture around us increasingly abandons its moral compass, professing evangelicals are sadly drifting away from God’s absolute standard in Scripture. It’s clear that the church does not have the luxury of idly standing by. This is a time for Christians to study Scripture diligently, engage confidently with people in our culture, and witness fearlessly to the identity and saving work of Jesus Christ in the gospel.

It’s clear that the church does not have the luxury of idly standing by. This is a time for Christians to study Scripture diligently, engage confidently with people in our culture, and witness fearlessly to the identity and saving work of Jesus Christ in the gospel.
—Stephen J. Nichols—

Dr. Nichols understands, and we must as well, that there is a direct correlation between believing that Jesus is God and believing in objective or absolute truth. In other words, a person who doesn’t believe Jesus is God is far more likely to see truth as relative. Moreover, as we will see, if Jesus’ teachings truly are reliable, such a person is far more likely to think he or she is saved when this really isn’t the case.

The Church Must Address this Issue

Why is it that nearly one-third of those claiming to be evangelicals reject the teaching that Jesus is God, yet still say He was a good teacher? What’s wrong with this statement anyway?

While Dr. Nichols is right that “the church does not have the luxury idly standing by” and that believers must

• • 1. study Scripture diligently,
    2. engage confidently with people in our culture, and
    3. witness fearlessly to the identity and saving work of Jesus Christ in the gospel,

The church’s not standing idly by has to mean that it will intentionally guide Christians in their diligent study of Scripture (item #1 above). May I suggest that the State of Theology survey itself has shown the church where it needs to start? Pastors and church leaders must help their people see why it is untenable to believe that “Jesus was a good teacher, but not God.”

This Bible study will help. It’s titled “Could Jesus Have Been a Good Teacher Without Being God?” If you’re a pastor or a church leader, give serious and prayerful consideration to using this material, either in sermon or in a small group Bible study, to help your people see with clarity

• • • Why Jesus was no ordinary teacher
    • What Jesus’ teachings tell us about who He was and is
    • The implications of who Jesus is for our own individual lives and for society today
    • The nature of truth