Many religious leaders have mistaken American polarization as merely political, thus scapegoating Trump for pulling the rug off many cockroach nests that predate his presidency. Yet this polarization in fact sprouts from irreconcilable theological and philosophical differences, which accounts for its fierceness and existential nature. Americans are debating whether truth and human nature exist, and whether such things can be objectively defined for all or must be subjectively defined by power or “lived experience.” They are debating whether all men truly are created equal, or whether some are more equal than others. Christianity has a lot to say about these philosophical questions that also affect politics.

Along with the rest of the country, American Christianity is in the middle of a cold war. As this war heats up, it will mean church splits, takeovers, fights over denominational resources, and other power struggles as the Donald Trump era has increasingly brought clarity and pushed people to choose sides on existential questions.
The Southern Baptist Convention, the United States’ largest Protestant denomination, is one key example of this dynamic affecting American Christianity as a whole. On Oct. 1 in The American Conservative, Jackson Waters and Emma Posey reported on new developments in that denomination’s growing identity crisis. They contrast the Russell Moore, Beth Moore, and David French wing with the Voddie Baucham, Douglas Wilson, and I’d add Thomas Ascol wing.

“The direction Moore, French, and Moore are walking is not simply traditional evangelicalism, but a form of cultural accommodation dressed as convictional religion,” Waters and Posey write, after describing how the three have theologically shifted in recent years and months. “The result is a religious respectability that promotes national unity, liberalism, and wokeism under the rhetorical guise of love for neighbor. While Moore and his guest [Beth Moore] try to straddle the fence, there is little doubt that their biggest support is now coming from those significantly to their left politically.”
The Polarization Isn’t Superficial or Random
Many religious leaders have mistaken American polarization as merely political, thus scapegoating Trump for pulling the rug off many cockroach nests that predate his presidency. Yet this polarization in fact sprouts from irreconcilable theological and philosophical differences, which accounts for its fierceness and existential nature.
Americans are debating whether truth and human nature exist, and whether such things can be objectively defined for all or must be subjectively defined by power or “lived experience.” They are debating whether all men truly are created equal, or whether some are more equal than others. Christianity has a lot to say about these philosophical questions that also affect politics.
There are other political intersections and parallels. They include how some church leaders often use their authority against their own people instead of on their behalf, are utterly detached from ordinary people’s concerns, and appear to have little understanding of the nature of the cultural battles they try to avoid. These mass failures are prompting new leaders to take up the spiritual warfare many legacy leaders have abandoned.
Christ to the Sons of Peter: Feed My Sheep

While examples of leadership failures in the church are legion, one seems front and center today. In the face of mass government persecution of religious exercise over the past year and a half, Christian leaders overwhelmingly cowered and canceled services.

Shutdowns violate the theology of all Christians, both non-sacramentarians to sacramentarians. Those who don’t believe Christ’s statement, “This is my Body,” do heavily lean on his command called the Great Commission. In it, Christ tells the apostles to “Go and make disciples of all nations,” then tells them exactly how: “Baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.” You can’t baptize or make disciples via Zoom.
In addition, corporate gathering for worship is expressly commanded in the Bible. Christians also don’t live in fear of suffering or death, for “to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”
For Christians who do believe in Christ’s real presence in Holy Communion, forbidding in-person worship is an even greater blasphemy. It means denying the Christ-mandated distribution of his physical Body and Blood to heal and preserve the souls of the redeemed for all eternity, the very reason for which Christ came to earth, was crucified, and resurrected.
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Written by B.C. Newton |
Wednesday, February 1, 2023
The act of making our requests known to God is all about surrendering our stress of the unknown and uncontrollable to our all-loving, all-knowing, and all-controlling Father. Prayer is the finite placing confidence in the infinite.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.Philippians 4:6 ESV

Life is one gigantic string of endless possibilities. We all make plans, but none of them are set in stone. Someone may desire to live a long, healthy life as a rich man, only to die young and a pauper. Many things in life are simply outside of our control. No matter how much preparations we make, life will often take completely unexpected turns, for better or worse.
When any of this happens, the natural inclination of the human heart is to become anxious. In some cases, the stresses of life build to such a level that the person actually has an anxiety attack. Fortunately, the Bible is the most applicable book ever written, and it does not forget to deal with such issues as anxiety.
Shockingly, however, the Bible’s answer for anxiety is merely not to be anxious. Most anxiety sufferers would argue that such a response is kind of like telling someone sick with pneumonia to stop being sick. There does not appear to be any rational way to cease being anxious. You cannot simply turn off worry and stress.
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By teaching us to name our sin, this doctrine gives us hope for growth in Christ. Paul wants Christians to be aware of their remaining sin, but he doesn’t want us to think we’re trapped. He calls us to mortify our sinful nature again and again until we reach glory (Eph. 4:22; Col. 3:5ff.). How do we do this? We don’t obfuscate about our sin but regularly call the “old man” by his name in confession.

“Concupiscence” isn’t a word most people use every day. Even trained pastors and theologians who are more familiar with the term may be confused about its meaning. For many, the word brings to mind Augustine’s battles with lust or our contemporary debates about human sexuality. For these reasons, many think of concupiscence only as a term for illicit sexual desire. Merriam-Webster’s definition—strong desire, especially sexual—reinforces this usage.
But in Christian theology, concupiscence isn’t just about sex. The term applies more broadly to disordered inclinations and desires that are wrongly bent in any way—whether they be greedy, lustful, unfairly prejudiced, or selfishly biased. Church history shows us how embracing a Reformed understanding of desire can help Christians today.
Sin or Not? Augustine’s View of Concupiscence
For much of church history, the debate around concupiscence centered on this question: Does God hold people guilty for illicit desires even if they don’t act on them?
Augustine of Hippo’s early study of Scripture led him to answer this question in the affirmative. He taught that our illicit thoughts, desires, and actions incur guilt regardless of our will and intent. Why? They’re evidence of our participation in the original sin of Adam and Eve. Augustine wrote, “All that a man does wrongfully in ignorance, and all that he cannot do rightly through what he wishes, are called sins because they have their origin in the first sin.” 
In his later debates with Pelagius, Augustine made clear that because of the corruption of humanity’s sinful desires, we can only do good by God’s grace. But he didn’t stop there. His teaching on baptism complicates his doctrine of concupiscence. Augustine wrote that “concupiscence itself is not sin any longer, whenever [baptized Christians] do not consent to it.”
Scholars throughout history have debated what Augustine meant by this statement. Latin doesn’t possess a distinction between active “sin” and “sinfulness.” The term peccatum can carry either meaning, making it difficult to determine what Augustine intended. But since Augustine’s time, the Roman Catholic Church has taught that baptism removes original sin. They’ve maintained that disordered desires that arise in baptized Christians don’t become sin until we act on them. By Martin Luther’s time, some medieval theologians even taught that disordered lusts should be welcomed by believers as opportunities to exercise virtue through resisting them.
We Remain Sinful: The Reformers’ View of Concupiscence
The Reformers saw the Catholic view as dangerous and contrary to God’s Word. They were convinced illicit desire remained sin and continued to incur guilt in believers even after Christian baptism. The King James (KJV) translation of Colossians 3:5 reflects their view (cf. Rom. 7:8, 1 Thess. 4:5). The KJV translators used the English phrase “evil concupiscence” to translate Greek terms our modern versions read as “evil desires.” Paul says that evil desires—along with “sexual immorality, impurity . . . and covetousness”—are “earthly” and should be understood as idolatrous at the core.
In Luther’s 1537 Smalcald Articles, he argued that the Catholic Church’s failure to name concupiscence as sin led them to a corresponding misunderstanding of repentance. Though illicit desires may arise in believers prior to and apart from a conscious act of the will, they stand, argued Luther, as evidence of our old sinful connection to Adam (Eph. 4:22). As such, they shouldn’t be allowed to fester; they must be “put to death” (Col. 3:5; cf. Matt. 5:21–30).
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