Anything the gay agenda can do, the atheists can do better. That seems to be the unbeliever’s mantra for 2013 as godless radicals rise up not only for recognition—and not only to tear down all things Christian in the public square—but to actually woo born-again Bible believers to the dark side.
Call it reverse evangelism. A growing number of atheist activists are no longer content with “freedom from religion” campaigns that seek to keep the local football stars from wearing John 3:16 on their helmets or to stop Christmas caroling on elementary school campuses. This new breed of atheist activism wants to inject doubt into your doctrine with its own brand of Christless charisma.
Consider Peter Boghossian, a philosophy instructor and author of a hot new book dubbed A Manual for Creating Atheists. Yes, it’s actually a book that aims to equip nonbelievers with the skills they need to talk believers into willfully turning their back on Christ. This atheist is hoping to drive Christians into full-blown apostasy.
“Faith is an unreliable reasoning process,” Boghossian told Religion News Service. “It will not take you to reality. So we need to help people value processes of reasoning that will lead them to the truth.”
Jesus is the truth. He’s also the way and the life. (See John 14:6.)
Nevertheless, Boghossian’s book offers specific reverse-evangelism techniques, such as avoiding facts and working instead to get someone to question what they believe, avoiding any show of frustration because so-called “de-conversion” takes longer than conversion, and avoiding politics because they sidetrack the discussion.
Meanwhile, there are bona fide atheist megachurches springing up across the U.S. These groups reportedly look like any other Sunday morning worship service—except that God is not in the mix. It’s a godless church. According to CBN, British comedians Sanderson Jones and Pippa Evans founded the movement and plan to kick-start more anti-God assemblies in the U.S.
“I think the image that we have put forward in a lot of ways has been a scary, mean, we want to tear down the walls, we want to do destructive things kind of image is what a lot of people have of us,” atheist Elijah Senn told CBN. “I’m really excited to be able to come together and show that it’s not about destruction. It’s about making things and making things better.”
Except that the radical atheist agenda is about destruction. It’s about destroying the faith of others. And it was Jesus who said, “He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters abroad” (Matt. 12:30). Building atheist megachurches is drawing people—whether they are already atheists, agnostic or just don’t know what they believe—away from true worship. We’re now competing with aggressive atheists to win the hearts and minds of lost souls on Sunday mornings.
Some atheists are taking another approach: infiltrating the church to plant seeds of doubt. I wrote about that in a recent column, “Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing Actively Working in Pentecostal Church.” An unbeliever I call “Wolf” because he won’t reveal his true identity details his plans to integrate with a friend into a “highly conservative religious community without informing the community that [they] are skeptics,” then look for opportunities to minister and serve before his planned apostasy takes place about a year later. Wolf’s self-proclaimed personal Lord and Savior is named “Doubt.”
All of this was in November alone, as was the revelation that atheists are using the YouVersion of the Bible to evangelize unbelief. Some atheists are trying to position themselves as “friendly,” like Hemant Mehta, author of the Friendly Atheist blog who offered to raise money to cover the medical bills of a pastor who was attacked by a militant atheist.
But some atheists are still angry, including long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad who got up in arms against Oprah because she wouldn’t acknowledge Nyad’s atheism. Oprah’s October Super Soul Sunday program sparked a firestorm in the atheist community, which refuses to be marginalized in its year of momentum.
It goes on and on and on. I’ve just offered a few examples from October and November. So here’s the question: Could an atheist talk you out of your faith? Don’t answer too quickly.
Gay activists have already succeeded in getting many Christians—even pastors and bishops—to compromise the Word of God for the sake of inclusion, unity and perhaps fear of persecution. If the gay agenda can convince Christian leaders to pervert the gospel, then is it so far-fetched to think the atheist agenda could cause believers to doubt what they believe?
I don’t think so. I believe all of these forces—the gay agenda, the atheist agenda and other humanist agendas—are converging on the church in this hour. Peter warned us that the “adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Pet. 5:8). That devil doesn’t always look like a devil or sound like a roaring lion. More often he sounds like tolerance or doubt. Much of the battle still rests in the minds of the believer. What will we ultimately believe? Will we take the Word of God literally, or will we look at it through the eyes of the spirit of the world?
I urge you not to compromise the Word of God for any agenda. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: The great falling away isn’t too far away (2 Thess. 2:1-4). Those who endure to the end shall be saved (Matt. 24:13). That said, don’t fear these devilish agendas. Remember, Jesus said, “I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18).
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