NASHVILLE, Tenn.—An Indiana pastor has launched an effort to connect Christian leaders across the country and root out the influence of a “woke” Christianity that undermines the biblical and traditional doctrines of the faith.
“We’ve got 500 pastors that have signed this statement across all sorts of denominational lines, committing themselves to really sound biblical teaching as a primary doctrine and to help eradicate wokeism from the American pulpit,” Lucas Miles, pastor of the Nfluence Church in Granger, Indiana, and leader of the Nfluence network, tells “The Daily Signal Podcast.”
Miles explained his “American Pastor Project” in an interview here at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention last week. The project urges pastors to sign on to a statement committing to “the essential doctrines of the Christian faith” and protecting the faithful from “the deceptions of false teaching and anti-Christ agendas, including, Marxism, socialism, CRT (critical race theory), universalism, critical queer theory, the slaughter of children (both in and out of the womb), climate alarmist theory, and globalism.”
“I see it as almost a modern-day Nicene Creed or Apostle’s Creed,” Miles says, comparing the document to two historic Christian statements of faith that encapsulate essential doctrines and unite Christians of various denominations around the world.
He acknowledges that such a project represents a “tall order,” but says it is necessary because Christian churches have “oftentimes elevated secondary doctrines over primary issues.”
“We’re fighting over ‘once saved, always saved,’ versus ‘lose your salvation,’ and meanwhile, the progressive Left is rolling a whole ‘nother Jesus in for people to bow down to,” Miles warns.
Miles says he enjoys debating theological issues and while he holds strong opinions on these questions, disagreements about them “shouldn’t cause us to break fellowship with one another,” especially when facing the threat of a deceptive “woke” Christianity.
“There’s virtually no difference between what we call the ‘progressive church’ or the ‘Christian Left’ and the current administration in the White House,” the pastor argues. “They have the same views about immigration [and] open borders, [the] same view about socialism, [the] same view about marriage, sexuality, gender.”
“What we have is deception, and we have a propaganda center called the ‘progressive church’ that has literally just become an arm of the leftist movement in this nation,” Miles notes. These views contrast with “scripture and Christian teaching for the last 2,000 years” on issues like marriage, sexuality, and gender, he says.
Miles warns that the Christian Left has “led to schisms” and “heretical beliefs.”
He describes “wokeism” as a “placeholder or moniker for cultural Marxism,” the cultural application of a Marxist theory that the oppressed will cast off the chains of the oppressors.
Miles warns that the Christian Left presents “an alternative of Jesus.”
“We could talk about several different Jesuses, if you will,” such as “the Aryan Jesus of Nazi Germany” or “the black Jesus of Black Liberation Theology,” he argues. The Christian Left’s version involves the “historical Jesus,” he says, or “Jesus minus the miracles, Jesus minus divinity, Jesus minus walking on water and being raised from the dead—it is the sort of Jesus the great social justice warrior, rather than Jesus the savior.”
In 2022, Miles published the book “Woke Jesus: The False Messiah Destroying Christianity.” He describes the book as “a definitive guide to understanding wokeism and how it intersects and integrates into the modern church.”
“Christians and Republicans don’t have the same platform,” the pastor notes, “although we might believe that conservatism is a better solution for the nation than Marxism.”
Miles says he believes that “Christian principles lead to a free market; Christian principles lead to freedom of speech and liberty; and the constitutional values that we have in this nation, I believe, are based in and rooted in that Judeo-Christian framework that we have.”
Miles also spoke about Sex Change Regret, a website geared toward helping detransitioners. Walt Heyer, a man who formerly identified as a woman but later rejected his transgender identity after he had taken hormones and undergone surgery, started the website to connect with other detransitioners and get them the mental health treatment they need.
Miles’ Nfluence network acquired Sex Change Regret and hired Heyer to train mentors and establish the website as an ongoing project long into the future. Heyer, 83, still speaks publicly about his journey and travels the world with his message, but Nfluence is helping him pass the baton.
“I believe that there’s a wave of trauma that is going to be coming to the doors of the church in the next three, five, 10 years like we’ve never seen before, and right now the church isn’t equipped to do this,” Miles says.
“We’re trying to put billboards around this country with the website Sex Change Regret on them with a really nice bold message,” he notes.
Listen to the full interview below.
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