Why Liberal Evangelicals are Lying to Millennials

Newark, N.J. Mayor, and Senate hopeful, Cory Booker is not known for proclaiming his love of Jesus or evangelizing to his fellow politicians and constituents. So as a 20-something evangelical, I find it curious that Mayor Booker is a featured key-note speaker at this weekend’s Catalyst Atlanta 2013, a Christian conference gathering together young evangelicals for worship, learning, and sharing their faith in Jesus Christ.

The mission of the Catalyst conference seems simple. So, why is Mayor Booker hoisted between speakers like Dave Ramsey and John Piper at a conference supposedly geared towards worshiping Jesus Christ, not catapulting Senate campaigns? There is an answer, but it is not so simple: Liberal Christians — despite how “apolitical” they claim to be — are feeding a repackaged version of evangelicalism to millennials for their own radical and, yes, political agenda.

This year’s Catalyst conference is one such example of their crusade to spread liberal ideology, not theology. Why else would Catalyst invite Mayor Booker, whose speaker bio doesn’t even include the word Jesus, Christian, or God? Oh, but according to his political biography, as Democratic National Committee (DNC) co-chair he did advocate for no-restriction abortions and tax-payer funded abortions regardless of infringements to religious liberty.

Eric Teetsel is Executive Director for the Manhattan Declaration, a coalition of Christians calling on the church to take a stand on life, marriage and religious liberty. On Twitter, Teetsel pointed out event planners’ bias by writing, “No main stage or lab speaker addressing #life #marriage #religious freedom. Plenty on poverty, sex trafficking... even nukes. #Catalyst2013” followed by, “Disappointing. What a wasted opportunity for those who ‘feel a burden for our generation.’”

We’ve seen this slight-of-hand at other Christian conferences for college kids. The electric guitars and neon strobe lights are not distracting all of us.

Last year a fellow evangelical millennial, Kristin Rudolph, attended the third annual Justice Conference held in Philadelphia. Sitting among 4,000 other young Christians, Rudolph listened as Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Sheryl WuDunn glossed over abortion in her speech on global discrimination against women and girls. Rudolph noted, “Not once in her 40 minute talk did she mention sex-selective abortion as even a contributing cause to the imbalanced gender ratio.”

Not only are liberal Christians sidestepping abortion, gay marriage or socialism, but are rallying for them.

In a recent op-ed for CNN.com titled, “Why Millennials Are Leaving the Church,” Rachel Held Evans throws out the false claim that young Christians are leaving the church because Christianity has become “Too political, too exclusive, old-fashioned, unconcerned with social justice and hostile to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.”  She advocates for the church to become less concerned with sex (a.k.a. abortion and contraception) and more consumed with eradicating poverty and embracing homosexuality.

If you’re thinking her diatribe resembles less of the Scriptures and more of the DNC platform, you’re not alone.

And it’s not just supporting liberal political candidates like Cory Booker. There lies a two-way street between left-wing political forces and liberal evangelicals. Lest we forget – or perhaps my generation never learned – that Jim Wallis, founder of the uber-liberal evangelical group Sojourners, gladly accepted a $150,000 grant in 2011 from leftist granddaddy George Soros. Soros is an unashamed bankroller of secular leftist agendas including abortion, atheism, and same-sex marriage. Not to mention that Wallis lied to the public when first approached about Soros’ funding.

It is time for the liberal evangelicals to stop lying. It is time they come clean with millennials about their liberal political motives.

And maybe it is time for their “come to Jesus” moment.

Feature Photo Credit: AP

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