It is possible to swim against the tide and have views on issues that are unpopular. That makes life difficult in many ways right now for faithful, Bible-believing Christian people. It is hard to believe in something when everyone around you sees it as superseded, bizarre or even just wrong. Christians should hold the line. Don’t compromise what you believe because it is unpopular. You are not on the wrong side of history when you look from God’s perspective.

It seems that whenever a traditional Christian viewpoint on a hot topic is raised, Christians are accused of being “on the wrong side of history”. Many see this as a deal-breaking argument. They assume that society has moved on from Christian principles. Why would anyone hold to such a view, they think, when most people in our current culture believe something different? We should think about this accusation clearly; it is not the convincing put-down it seems to be.
An obvious problem with the accusation of being on the wrong side of history is that the popular view on a lot of issues has changed so dramatically over time. If you asked people about whether some races are superior to others in the 1900s and 1910s, the vast majority of people would agree with you. Respected scientific institutions published major works reinforcing this viewpoint. Anyone who put forward a view that all people were fundamentally equal would be laughed at for being unpopular and on the wrong side of history. Yet the popular opinion of that time was wrong both Biblically and practically.
This accusation also assumes a view of history as progressively getting better. It assumes that as we move through time, we are becoming more accurate in our viewpoints.
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Images [of Christ] undermine the supremacy and sufficiency of the means of grace which is a vital organizing concept for reformed ecclesiology, missiology, and piety. Means of grace and images of Christ are antithetical to each other. 

This and the previous article show that images of Christ undermine various essential doctrines, not simply an essential doctrine.  Let us continue setting forth the reasons why.  First, it undermines the doctrine of the bodily resurrection and ascension of Christ. Consider WLC question 53 which states, “How was Christ exalted in his ascension? Answer:
Christ was exalted in his ascension, in that having after his resurrection often appeared unto and conversed with his apostles, speaking to them of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God, and giving them commission to preach the gospel to all nations, forty days after his resurrection, he, in our nature, and as our head, triumphing over enemies, visibly went up into the highest heavens, there to receive gifts for men, to raise up our affections to where He is, and to prepare a place for us, where he himself is, and will continue until his second coming at the end of the world.”
Note a few things. The Catechism teaches that Christ in our nature visibly went up into the highest heavens and that we are to raise our affections to where He presently is visibly. This means that Christ being visible in the throne room of God in true flesh is to be where our affections are to be regularly directed. Our minds and thoughts are to be directed to where He is embodied in heaven, not pictured below. This implies that any embodiment of Christ on earth (whether by statues, movies, or drawings) assumes that His bodily presence in heaven is an insufficient and/or inappropriate embodiment. Indirectly applied, it means, by implication, that by making Christ visible below it assumes that something is wrong with His present visibility above. With that logic, unless Christ can be seen below, His visibility above lacks efficacy and or sufficiency. The necessity of making Christ visible below undermines His embodied efficacy high above and, in so doing, distracts the Christian from setting His affections where Christ is seated above.
The scriptures tell us to find comfort in the knowledge that Christ is visibly in heaven. This is why question WLC question 55 states, “How does Christ make intercession? Answer:
Christ makes intercession, by his appearing in our nature continually before the Father in heaven, in the merit of his obedience and sacrifice on earth, declaring his will to have it applied to all believers.”
Christ’s humanity appearing in our nature continually above means that we do not need to make Him visible anywhere else because He is indeed actually visible where it is essential for Him to be so. To make images of Christ below is to declare that His true incarnate self as seen above is deficient. God perfectly made His Son visible and to make Him visible is to presumptuously assume that the Father’s work needs human improvement. Making Christ visible consequently assaults the doctrine of the incarnation rather than affirming it.
Second, it undermines the efficacy of the word of God and the sacraments. In Galatians 3:1 Christ is said to be vividly portrayed as crucified through the verbal proclamation of Christ. This is to say that in the word of Christ in the Spirit through faith, the Saint indeed sees Christ vividly. WLC question 89 states that God especially makes the preaching of the word of God an effectual means to convince and convert. Chapter 25:3 states, “Unto this catholic visible church Christ hath given the ministry, oracles, and ordinances of God for the gathering and perfecting of the saints in this life to the end of the world and doth, by His own presence and Spirit, according to His promise make them effectual thereunto.” The making of images of Christ seriously undermines the ability of the word of Christ to effectually portray Christ.
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For all their talk of evenhandedness, winsomeness, and giving others the benefit of the doubt, these ideals are tossed out the window the minute the discussion turns to matters that conservatives deeply care about and are willing to advocate for at the political level. As Christians, we should call out this double standard for what it is: hypocrisy. The term “white evangelical” has become purely pejorative in both secular and professedly-Christian news outlets.

We live in contentious times. With virtually every major event or story comes a flood of news reports from both major news outlets and a seemingly endless array of bloggers and podcasters, and these reports demonstrate the sharp ideological differences between various segments of our Western population. It can be difficult for Christians to find trustworthy voices that both report the facts and give sound, biblical insight into current events.
In the midst of this clamor, one group of evangelical cultural commentators has branded itself as the most “nuanced” and “balanced” segment of the Church when it comes to hot-button issues. They continually decry partisanship, calling for both sides of the political aisle to work together and for Christians to be a winsome presence to their surrounding culture. On the surface, this sounds quite laudable. Over time, however, it has become apparent that their version of “balanced” and “nuanced” reporting is consistently slanted in one direction—that is, to the political and cultural Left.
What makes this group difficult to identify is that they often don’t explicitly affirm many of the standard “progressive” or “liberal” dogmas. Because of this, they don’t completely fit within the parameters of what is traditionally labeled “progressive evangelicalism.” Some of them even have a reputation for being “moderate conservatives.” However, I contend that the label of “progressive-lite” is appropriate for this group. Rather than openly subscribing to a full-blown progressive ideology, their public output is characterized by a pattern or disposition that consistently marches to the drumbeat of the Left to the detriment of Christians on the Right.
This leftward slant is evidenced in at least three ways:
1. Presenting “Niceness” as the Solution to Society’s Problems
Individuals in this group downplay any kind of conflict between Christians and those who hold to opposing worldviews. The term “culture war” is always either discouraged or radically redefined. For example, in an article with the tagline “Our ideological opponents are not the enemy,” Russell Moore argues that Christians should never consider themselves engaged in spiritual warfare against other human beings, no matter how hostile they are to the gospel. He writes “there are indeed malevolent spiritual beings in the universe, usually imperceptible to us. These beings mean us harm. They are not our fellow image bearers.” This then “frees us to rage against the old reptile of Eden but constrains us to be gentle toward his prey (2 Tim. 2:23–26).”
Moore and others continually give the impression that what is really causing all of our cultural and political woes is not an irreconcilable clash of truth claims but rather an inability to talk things out and work through our differences in a civilized manner. Their takeaways can frequently be boiled down to, “We should just be nicer to each other.”[1]
While Christians should certainly strive to be kind and gracious towards others as much as possible (Col. 4:5–6; 1 Peter 3:13–17), the idea that our societal problems can be solved with sweet words, listening ears, and thoughtful conversations is problematic for at least two reasons. This solution is, at best, a hollow shell of the actual content of the gospel. The Christian message to society is not “let’s be nice” but rather “repent and believe.” If our solution to a society plagued with open rebellion against our Maker is nothing more substantial than what can be heard on a secular children’s show, then we need to stop and reevaluate just how “Christian” our message really is.
Beyond this, there will inevitably be some form of conflict in a society between those who strive to live according to God’s truth and those who openly and actively set themselves in opposition to such truth. This does not mean that Christians will rise up in arms to do physical battle against their opponents (2 Cor. 10:3–6), but it does at times call for something other than “niceness.” We see this repeatedly in Scripture: Old Testament prophets, New Testament apostles, and even Jesus himself would engage in sharp invectives against those who would either oppress or lead astray God’s people (e.g., Ps. 137; Obadiah; Matt. 23; Gal. 5:12; Rev. 18). In fact, Jesus’s command to love our enemies (Matt. 5:44; cf. Phil. 3:18–19) presupposes that we will, in fact, have human enemies, and we fail to love both our enemies and our fellow Christians by pretending otherwise. As Rosaria Butterfield puts it, “We love our enemies, defining both love and enemy as the Bible teaches.”[2]
Doing so, however, requires us to distinguish between the tax collectors and prostitutes who are genuinely seeking Christ on the one hand, and the Pharisaical elites who are actively opposing him on the other. When it comes to cultural influencers and political activists on the Left, progressive-lite evangelicals erroneously tend to treat them like good-faith seekers instead of dangerous wolves.
2. Applying a Double Standard between the Left and the Right
Progressive-lite evangelicals pride themselves on striving for balance and nuance in political and cultural discussions. They regularly exhort Christians not to outright reject those who disagree with them on the Left but instead to see those on that side as ultimately sharing the same end-goals, even if they differ in the methods to achieve them.[3] Instead of actively opposing them, we should give them grace and strive to come to a mutual understanding, or so they say.
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