I think that a church should be setting the pace for social justice.
— Max Lucado
The concept of “social justice” is not new, it’s been around for ages. It’s the antithesis to personal responsibility. The New Oxford American Dictionary defines “social justice” as “The objective of creating a fair and equal society in which each individual matters, their rights are recognized and protected, and decisions are made in ways that are fair and honest.” On the surface this sounds like a noble cause, but in reality, it doesn’t work that way. In practice, social justice removes the notion of personal responsibility, and places the burden of individuals on the backs of society. A society devoid of personal responsibility will naturally result in laziness, crime, and a complete lack of motivation for advancement, and eventually total collapse of the society. The social justice system comes in the form of a wolf in sheep’s clothing, disguised as something good, yet it is opposed to the will of God, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
But this doesn’t stop the social progressives from infiltrating the Church to promote their agenda. Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) for the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), has been at this for quite some time. He is known for using his high ranking positions in the Church to promote his social justice causes. He has used the ERLC for the advancement of his “racial reconciliation” cause, in which he supports the idea of “white privilege,” and clearly wants to place criminal responsibility of blacks on the shoulders of society. He also promotes what he terms as “Creation Care” environmentalism. And recently, he formed a coalition with other liberal groups in order to fight against “predatory pay-day lending.” All of these causes diminish the importance of personal responsibility for one’s actions–personal responsibility, of which is a prerequisite to salvation in the Gospel.
Now, in the latest show of his positional authority, and intent to advance and propagate his cause through the Church, he has teamed up with social justice advocate and political activist, president of The National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference (NHCLC), Samuel Rodriguez. Moore has partnered with the NHCLC on a number of occasions in the past, and is now officially yoking together with them by becoming a member of their board. According the the NHCLC website, Rodriguez is a very prominent person, not only in the Latino Evangelical community, but in the world.
CNN and Fox News named Rodriguez, “The leader of the Hispanic Evangelical movement”. NBC/Telemundo called him “America’s most influential Latino Evangelical leader”. Rev. Samuel Rodriguez was nominated by TIME magazine for their “100 Most Influential People in The World” list in 2013 and his description of the Latino faith community emerged as their April 15, 2013 cover story, The Latino Reformation.
This is quite a significant partnership, as the Southern Baptist Convention, and the ERLC are among the most influential evangelical organizations in the world. Rodriguez, and the NHCLC also have strong ties with the New Apostolic Reformation and Cindy Jacobs, a highly controversial and well known false teacher within American evangelicalism. Any true God-fearing, Bible-believing Christian should be running from this camp at full speed. So what does Rodriguez actually stand for? According to NHCLC website, their mission statement reads:
Joining the Christianity of Martin Luther King Jr. and Billy Graham. The Lamb’s Agenda reveals the crucial connection between biblical social justice and spiritual righteousness.
Rodriguez says he grew up in a “very Christian” home, and apparently received a prophetic utterance from the Lord to become a preacher while watching a well known false teacher, Jimmy Swaggart, on television as a child. In an interview with PBS he says:
… when I was 14 years old, I had my epiphany, my Damascus moment, which was simple: I was viewing a very well-known televangelist [Swaggart] around 10:00 in the evening, back in the early ’80s, and it resonated with me. Something in my spirit, something in my heart said, “Samuel, you’re going to do that one day; you’re going to preach.”
Samuel Rodriguez was keynote speaker at the Martin Luther King National Service in 2013. During his speech he threw many red flags. The first red flag was early in his speech, when he introduced King’s daughter, Bernice King, as “prophet,” “elder,” and his “sister [in Christ].” The “prophet/pastor” has been well associated with C. Peter Wagner’s New Apostolic Reformation, in which Dominionism is one of it’s main tenets. Throughout this speech, he proclaims that his mixing of politics with Christianity is a “prophetic movement of God.” He then quotes John 1:29 and Revelation 5:13, and makes the following comment in it’s application:
Now how do we live out Dr. King’s dream in our 21st century reality? How do we advance the cause of justice in a very unjust world? How do we build a firewall against intolerance, abuse, inequality and hatred? Permit me to title this brief word that God has deposited in my heart today; Dr. King’s dream fulfilled the Lamb’s agenda. Behold the Lamb.
This is a completely blasphemous claim that God told him that Dr. King’s social justice dream fulfilled the will of God. This is a total misuse of the Word of God, and this man is not speaking truth, but lies. Our Lord Jesus Christ did not come to make the world a better place, and provide justice and equality to all people. He came to save people from their own sin, through repentance and trust in Him alone. Rodriguez then goes on to say that it’s the “spirit of the Lamb that fulfills dreams,” and later, “The agenda of the Lamb performs freedom of the dream by the message of the cross,” and then says “Life is a cross.” He completely distorts the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and diminishes Jesus’ shed blood on the cross. Folks, Samuel Rodriguez is preaching a false Gospel, and a false Christ. 2 Corinthians 11:4 says:
For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.
Rodriguez is also a supporter of President Obama’s executive action to provide amnesty to 5 million illegal aliens living in the borders of the United States. Of these law-breaking illegal residents, Rodriguez claims:
Their children are born here, they share our values when it comes to life … the primary model for marriage and family [and] on religious liberty, These are not individuals who are married to a political ideology. They love faith, they love family and they love freedom.
Rodriguez also seems to have a hard time understanding who our “brothers and sisters” in Christ are. Most Latino immigrants, legal or illegal, are Roman Catholic. These are not brothers and sisters in Christ. In May of 2015, Rodriguez issued the following statement in response to the U.S. State Department’s denial of a visa to Catholic nun, Sister Diana Momeka of the Dominican Sisters of St. Catherine of Siena in Iraq:
Our Christian faith must be preached, proclaimed, and protected … Having invested her life in Iraq, Sister Momeka has preached, proclaimed and served, and now she needs to be protected. We cannot be complacent when our brothers and sisters in Christ are being persecuted around the world.
We must not forget, that regardless of how bad a situation is for people, telling the world that someone is a Christian, when they are not, is not being faithful to Jesus Christ. Simply because Muslims do not differentiate between true and false Christians does not mean that Christians should not. Roman Catholicism is a counterfeit Christianity, and Catholics need to be evangelized as much as any other false religion. Russell Moore, in his partnering with Rodriguez refers to this nun as “Iraq’s Mother Theresa.”
As a staunch promoter of social justice in the Church, and a New Apostolic “prophet,” Rodriguez recently wrote an article for Charisma Mag, in summary, claiming that the “real reason” the Holy Spirit came down was to empower us to change the world–to “be the answer to someone else’s prayer.” “In conclusion,” he writes:
stand up and cast out demons! Stand up and heal the sick! Stand up and speak in other tongues. Stand up and fulfill the great commission. Stand up and make disciples. Stand up and preach the Word in and out of season. Stand up and be fruitful. Stand up and be faithful. Stand up and be holy. Stand up and be light!
Be filled! Stand up! Raise your voice! And change the world!
This intertwining of social justice and Christianity is a total abuse of the Holy Spirit and God’s Word. As if it isn’t enough to take the Gospel to the lost, calling them to repentance and salvation, and teaching them personal responsibility; Rodriguez believes it is the commission of the church to solve the social problems of the world. The root of the social problems in the world is sin (Galatians 5:19-21, Romans 3:23, Jeremiah 17:9, etc.). And that problem has already been solved, on the sacrificial death, burial and resurrection of Jesus (1 Peter 3:21). And the solution is the Gospel–the Great Commission.
Russell Moore continues to repeatedly align himself with false teachers, false prophets, and political activists in order to promote his agenda. Russell Moore is not being held accountable for his actions, yet he is revered as one of the greatest influences in Christianity. Why is this so? Why can’t people see what is going on, and the destruction that the social justice agenda is doing to the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Why do our Southern Baptist leaders continue to support those who align themselves with this false gospel? Social justice, and the social gospel is a FALSE GOSPEL–it’s an enemy of the Gospel and true Christians should not tolerate it. Jesus’ own words regarding the social gospel in John 4:13-14 are:
… Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.
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