NEO-CONSERVATIVE CHRISTIANITY

The prefix “neo” indicates something that is new, newly revised or recent. We have for example, what is called “neo-science” today and political “neo-conservatives,” etc.. We also have an ever-growing number of neo-conservative Christians today.

Neo-conservative Christians are those who have made what is ”good and acceptable in the eyes of God” synonymous with whatever is good and acceptable in their own eyes. They’ve decided that “pure religion,” that is “undefiled before God and the Father” has nothing whatsoever to do with a Christian’s keeping himself “unspotted from the world,” and they have their own idea as to what constitutes “true holiness” (See 1 Tim. 2:3; Jud. 21:25; Prov. 21:2; James 1:27; Eph. 4:24).

Pews and pulpits are full of neo-conservative Christians who are running on a self-set religious autopilot, and have gone to sleep spiritually (Rom. 13:11-13). They are willfully ignorant of, and suppressors of, any biblical truth that threatens any form of worldliness that they have incorporated into their lifestyles (2 Pet. 3:5; Rom. 1:18}. Consequently, the spiritual renewal and transformation of their minds is hindered to the end that they are  unable to “prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Rom. 12:1, 2). The spiritual trade-off involved is truly tragic.

Neo-conservative Christians, to some degree or other, have chosen to have a “form of godliness” even if it means the forfeiture of the “power” that comes from a relationship with God that depends upon ones practical separation from the world (1 Cor. 6:17; James 4:4; 1 John 2:15-17).  Matthew Henry wrote, “It is an easier thing to persuade men to assume the form of godliness than to submit to the power of godliness.”

The “form of godliness” involves  “performance-based” sham; the desire and effort of people to be seen and thought of as being more spiritual than they really are. This was the sin of Anaias and Sapphira (Acts 5:3-10). It involves the self-gratification of people who think—who have convinced themselves—that  they are something that they are not.

The power of God is at work in the hearts and minds of Christians who humbly and happily “follow after holiness” in their lives (Heb. 12:14), including practical ways whereby they separate themselves from the fashions and fads, the ambitions, aspirations, and the appearance and activities that are consistent with Scripture and a real desire to have the “mind of Christ” (Phil. 2:5).

Be warned and resist today’s popular neo-conservative Christianity. There is something wrong when and where Christians claim to be spiritually “conservative” yet simultaneously reject as “irrelevant,” “legalistic,” and “pharisaical,” the tenets of practical separation from the world that generations of believers have commonly believed in and practiced.