Lately, there seems to be a debate about the legacy of Tim Keller. Evangelical Dark Web had Tim Keller’s death at #4 on our stories of the year, despite The Gospel Coalition having it at #8. The debate over legacy is exactly why the story was so important. As time Keller’s followers are generally so liberal, there is some maneuvering some conservatives have to do to justify his legacy as a positive for the church, and that maneuvering is to say that his followers misunderstood his message.
Josh Howerton exemplifies this in a recent thread.
🧵How Misapplying Keller Hijacked US Xianity🧵
— Josh Howerton (@howertonjosh) December 28, 2023
Large-platform evangelicalism got covertly hijacked by secular progressivism, many aren't yet understanding what’s happening, and (as a result) are attacking the *opposite* NET problem we are facing.
Here’s how it happened:
He continues:
Step 1: Keller (correctly) popularized phrase “The gospel is neither Right nor Left”
Step 2: His followers incorrectly applied the phrase as “Right and Left are equal and opposite errors”
Step 3: Willingness to adopt Left-coded positions became a sign of “gospel-centeredness”, and saying things that sounded politically conservative became a sign you “weren’t gospel-centered.”
The very phrase “the gospel is neither right nor left” is misleading as liberalism in itself has proven a false gospel of human attempts at utopia. Yet it was not misapplied by the followers of Tim Keller.
As Tim Keller was a registered Democrat, it’s clear that his example proved to be one of morally equivocating between a party that has made transgendering children a platform agenda since 2012 and one that has made some significant progress stopping them.
Yet those who would argue that Tim Kevangelicaldarkweb.org/…/the-gospel-coalition-unveils-keller-center-for-cultural-apologeticseller’s legacy was misunderstood by his liberal acolytes fail to recognize the liberalism that took place under Keller’s name whilst he was still alive. The Tim Keller Center is a prime example of this.
A number of the Tim Keller fellows support Side B Theology including but not limited to Sam Allberry, Joshua Butler, Rachel Gilson, and Rebecca McLaughlin. The list of those who support Critical Race Theory is even larger with notables like Rachel Gilson who peddled that in Cru and Christopher Watkin who wrote a book on it.
Why would a center that bears Tim Keller’s name not have fellows who accurately adhere to his legacy? Did The Gospel Coalition misunderstand Keller’s legacy and ministry if these people were bearing his namesake? By no means is it a rational conclusion that the liberal Keller Center was not a reflection of Keller’s teachings and legacy.
Tim Keller was a false teacher. The Kellerites correctly understood his message. Theistic evolution, Side B theology, and Social Justice were all part of Keller’s ministry. Stop pretending otherwise
3 Responses
I would disagree with both Mr. Howerton and Tim Keller, from a different perspective.
Justification of wickedness and condemnation of righteousness are abominable sins. If voting is an endorsement, which it is even according to their own logic which argues for the lesser of evils, then consideration for which is the lesser of evils becomes entirely irrelevant.
You can’t point the finger at democrats and say “you’re endorsing evil” when you yourself are doing the same. At that point you’re just a satan-serving, hypocritical pharisee. The degree of evil, and quantity of evil, are irrelevant.
God didn’t say to justify more righteousness than wickedness. He said not to justify any wickedness at all, and to not condemn any righteousness at all.
Right, “they’re endorsing more evil than I am” is not exactly a legitimate excuse.
I don’t care how you want to slice it, since republicans have embraced and endorsed homosexuality and transvestism (except for children – and that wont last long, as DeWine just demonstrated), it has become impossible to rationalize a vote for any except solid Christians who vehemently, strongly, and steadfastly stand against their own party. There is no other justifiable option.
If they repent between now and the end of the convention, then maybe that will change. But as it stands now, I’m not going to be a hypocrite. For decades I’ve said democrats were wrong to be endorsing sin. Now I stand by the same principle myself, and hold myself to the same standards.
And by Mr. Howerton’s own logic, he should do the same. The only conclusion is to not vote, or to be extremely careful who you vote for, on the outside chance that there are any candidates, for any office, anywhere on the ballot, with a platform you could endorse in good conscience.
You might say, well if you don’t vote and democrats win it’ll be worse than if republicans win. And that is certainly true. It’s easy to rationalize. And that’s exactly what they want us to do. But we should have more faith in the Lord than that. We shouldn’t be beneath it. We should be standing up and saying look here if you want our vote you’re going to have to earn it. We should be standing up saying if you want our vote, then don’t expect us to violate our conscience. And when we fail to do so, over time, what happens is very obvious – both parties end up leading the nation down the same highway to Hell, one being a small step behind the other.
If there are any good solid Christian candidates, let them step forward. If not, then come election day I’ll be doing something more productive, and less destructive to my conscience, than choosing between sodom or gomorrah.
When and if any such solid Christian candidates do try to run, both sides start hysterically bellyaching about theocracy, Christian nationalism, and so on. It’s not likely to happen. So in all likelihood I may never cast another vote in my life.
If we willingly violate our conscience on election day, what standing do we have then when someone is trying to force us to endorse and support sin in the public square? Are we going to stand up and say that’s a violation of our conscience, when we’ve shown with our vote that we have no problem violating our conscience?
That’s the trap we walk into over and over and over again.
The wealthy, blue-blood, establishment, porneia-pushers have the most to lose. So be it. My “eye shall not pity” those who suffer the consequences of their sin, especially the sinful extortion of brothers and sisters in Christ. To borrow from the tea party, it’s long past time we quit bailing them out and let them fail.
The results are the Lord’s domain. He will deal with them. Our job is to obey Him. And no evil can ever come from obedience to Him.
That’s how I see it. And again, I’m not telling anyone else what to do. If your conscience doesn’t bother you as mine does, that’s ‘between you and the Lord.