Be a Man and Follow Jesus Biblically
When Being a Nice Guy in Women's Jeans is Not Enough
"Earnestly contend for the faith once and for all delivered to the saints."
~ Jude 3
by Ed Enochs
Chairman the Evangelical Debate Society
Since becoming a Christian over twenty years ago, I have seen a lot of things come and go in the Evangelical Church here in Southern California. As a very young man, the thing we had to deal with in the late 1980's and early 1990's was the backlash against Evangelicalism due to the Jim and Tammy Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart scandals that rocked America during that era. Almost every conversation I had with non Christians during that time period was directed back to the scandals of one too many big time electronic media pastors who gut busted fleecing their flocks or with one illicit affair or another.
Yet, as I recall that era of American Evangelicalism, things were much different back then, truth was truth and most conservative Evangelicals had a conception of what was true and what was unbiblical. We knew that Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses and Roman Catholics were unbiblical and many of us attempted to demonstrate from the Bible that these things were so.
But we have reached darker times in American Evangelicalism...In our postmodern day and age, things have changed big time. Very few Evangelicals know the essential truths of the Christian faith and almost no Christian will take a stand for the truth if it will make him or her unpopular.
In our pragmatic times, most Christians avoid controversy and confrontation as though it were worst than the AIDS virus. Most Christians I know these days have no convictions and tolerate the most wretched heresies and lifestyles to occur right under their noses. Most Christians I meet these days have very little doctrinal conviction and even less ability to defend their faith if they should encounter a false teaching.
As I survey the current milieu and culture of American Evangelicalism here in Southern California, I have seen many Evangelical Christians fall away into Eastern Orthodoxy and other false teachings because they were not grounded in the essential truths of the Christian faith and very few Christians around them would take a stand against these false teachings when it mattered.
Evangelical Churches and colleges are now moving away from Biblical verse by verse preaching to being proponents and Representatives of seeker sensitive, pragmatic and Emergent Church religion filled with sentimental falsehood. Formerly staunch Evangelical Churches and educational institutions have become bastions of Postmodern relativism where very few Christians know the truth let alone stand for the truth.In Southern California Christianity today, the type of man that is admired is the nice likable guy, the metro-sexual Evangelical, the good guy with the frosted hair, tight black t shirt and the tight faded jeans who is whimsical conversationalist and attempts to tolerate every-ones beliefs and lifestyle irrespective of how contrary to the Bible those beliefs and practices are.
Today's Church is filled with what I would like to christen the "Metro-Sexual" Evangelical. This is the type of Evangelical male who places more emphasis on his personal grooming and appearance than what the Bible teaches. The Metro-Sexual Evangelical is the rock star wannabe, the smooth operator with all the lady friends who tolerates everything and anything in the Christian Church because he does not the know the first thing about what Biblical Christianity is.
The Metro-Sexual Evangelical has risen to popularity and prominence in most Evangelical churches and colleges in Southern California because a generation of American Evangelicals have become pragmatic compromisers and distanced themselves from any semblance of authentic Biblical Christianity.
The real man and woman of God who cares about what is happening with American Christianity will learn what the Bible teaches and what is authentic and historic Evangelicalism is and will avoid the "Metro-Sexual Evangelical" who is destroying the Church with his compromised lifestyle and lack of Biblical knowledge and discernment.
The question is, are there any Biblical men left in American Christianity?
The time has come to leave the women's jeans and Metro-Sexual Evangelical behind and return to the historic Evangelical Christian faith based on the authority of the Bible alone, that teaches that there is still truth and falsehood in the world today, that teaches that Evangelical doctrine matters, that teaches that Jesus Christ is still God the Son, that teaches that the Trinity is still true, that teaches that the Bible is still the inerrant Word of Almighty God, that teaches that men and women are justified by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone.
Evangelical man and woman of God, let's leave the Metro-Sexual Evangelical behind and take a stand for Jesus Christ in our generation. Let's know our God and know our Bibles and stand for the faith once and for all delivered to the saints even if its not the popular thing to do.
