At the 2022 Annual Meeting of National Religious Broadcasters (NRB), Pastor Allen Jackson delivered a keynote address dealing with the response of Christians in the midst of a cultural drift away from traditional morals and conservative norms. Jackson noted transgender athletes, gay marriage, abortion, COVID mandates, and a variety of other socio-political oddities as evidence of the erosion of truth in American society. He encouraged Christians to be active in evangelism and speaking the truth. Unbelievers need to know Christ.
Yet, at some point, Jackson moves from the apolitical witness of the church to a conversation about the United States and the preservation of a particular heritage. For instance, Jackson notes:
“We’ve done that [practiced a policy of appeasement]. They took prayer out of the schools, and we nodded: ‘’Well, we’ll pray somewhere else.’ They took the commandments out of the schools, and we nodded, and we said, ‘We can say the commandments someplace else.’ They redefined marriage and put a rainbow on the White House…and we shrugged our shoulders and said, ‘Well, we can still practice our faith the way we want to….Folks, the heritage of this nation is of a Christian worldview. It didn’t demand that you be a Christ follower. We’ve always been a melting pot with people from many faiths and many backgrounds, but the values that have bound us together as a people have always come from a Judeo-Christian worldview, and if we sacrifice that, we will lose our freedoms, our liberties, and our opportunities. Our children will not know the things that have defined our lives.”
I have no desire to defame Jackson. He is a talented preacher and strong biblical teacher. In this instance, however, the perspective he advances is lacking in theological nuance. In particular,r Jackson (1) collapses Christian conviction with a national Christian (or Judeo-Christian) worldview, (2) suggests a connection between podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Life Audio.