In Brief: Pastor Michael Youssef on Wokeism in the Church
Unbiblical social justice activism is “deadly as far as the Gospel of Jesus Christ is concerned.”
There’s a good chance you have friends that have been captivated by unscriptural social justice activism in the church. In an interview with The Christian Post, Pastor Michael Youssef cautions that fealty to such dogma is “deadly as far as the Gospel of Jesus Christ is concerned”:
Those same battles that I fought in the mainline denominations [as an Episcopal in the 1980s] are now invading the evangelical churched. It’s the same arguments, the same lingo, and the same words repeating themselves with such precision [that] I am deeply, deeply concerned. …
Bowing to woke culture allows you to avoid rejection by culture and society. It’s a very, very popular message that is now being preached from many evangelical pulpits; traditionally Bible-believing, Gospel-preaching churches. We have gone so far that it just grieves me to the point that I literally sometimes just weep tears.
I’ve always believed, as goes the pulpit, so goes the pew. As goes the pew, so goes the culture. As a pastor, I put the full blame on us, right in our laps, because we want to be liked, loved, and followed on social media by millions of people. Pastors are the culprits. We need to be about Jesus, not about being liked, because that is deadly as far as the Gospel of Jesus Christ is concerned.
Regarding Critical Race Theory, he notes:
It’s a very Marxist ideology that people are taking very seriously. The idea of the oppressed and the oppressors is not that simple. Now we have private Christian schools here in Atlanta where white children are apologizing to black kids. Apologizing for what? They are innocent; they haven’t done anything. It’s crazy; it’s just going insane.
And on the issue of child-rearing, he observes:
The home is number one [anchor], the church is number two and school is number three. Even if the school is working against the kids, if they have the strength in the home and in the church, they will make it. But when the church avoids talking about issues or goes along with culture, then kids are confused.
Read more of Pastor Youssef’s insightful interview here.
