Politics and the National Anthem of Hell

Christ, Caesar, or Self:  Recognizing Political Idolatry

Idols in Our Midst – Part 4

By Dr. Jeffery J Ventrella

“I did it My Way!”^[1]

“The way of the fool is right in his own eyes”^[2]

“Having a rather accurate knowledge of the Way”^[3]

“I am the Way”^[4]

Introduction

Idolizing the State – the collective – has created a modern Leviathan as prior Dicta editions have demonstrated.  Yet, idolizing the Self – the individual – remains a driving force shaping and deforming today’s law and culture.  Consider these popular song lyrics embedded in the wallpaper of today’s culture:

For what is a man?

What has he got?

If not himself, then he is naught

To say the things he truly feels,

And, not the words of one who kneels.

The record shows

I took the blows, 

And did it MY WAY!!^[5]

Christian philosopher Peter Kreeft calls this song the National Anthem of Hell.^[6]  But it gets worse:  The Idol of Self does not stand alone; it combines with the Idol of State, which we’ve explored previously.  The toxic merging of the Idols of Caesar and Self accelerate the political and legal messes we currently face, causing more than individual havoc.  The Church must understand and recognize these seductive and subtle pagan expressions of false worship.  Why?

Because many in the Church have unthinkingly imbibed the Idol of Self – what we might call My Wayism.  We see this in churches that craft their “worship experience” along a consumer model:  What do people want?  What sells?  What generates clicks and conference fees?  What doesn’t rock the boat, thus avoiding public theology and politics^[7]?  

This modality caters to the individual, his desires, and his cravings, and thereby treats people as consumers and customers, not converts.  This has resulted in professing Christians – including some evangelicals – advocating for poisonous fruit fertilized by the Idol of Self:  abortion,^[8]homosexual behavior,^[9] and affirming Transgenderism.^[10]  And in doing so, they become sitting ducks for the Idol of State.  How did this occur?

Advocates on the Left seeking approval for deviant sexual behavior understood that they needed to make a religious argument for LGBTQ acceptance^[11] and they have done so effectively among a swath of evangelicals – In the wake of such efforts, the Idol of Self has confused and convinced a number of evangelicals that they have somehow misunderstood Christian sexual teaching and the Bible for millennia.^[12]   All this results from the Idol of the Self, or My Wayism.  Let’s get to the gist.

Non-Pauline Cosmology:  The Idol of Self and Modern Law and Policy

Certainly, the Idol of State fosters great social chaos and Christians are not immune, as prior Dicta editions have shown.  Sure, certain social media yappers – both Left and Right – push Statism or some version of it, but today’s default setting pushes libertine freedom and individuality – My Wayism.

In fact, My Wayism expresses itself powerfully because it sets the Self as the center of moral authority, thereby driving law and policy:

 “[T]he fundamental idolatry described by the Bible lies also at the heart of the varied modern idolatries:  the idolatry of the self.  The self is set at the center of existence as a god:  ultimate significance is found in god-like individual autonomy, self-set goals and boundaries.”^[13]  

We see this culturally in things like Frank Sinatra’s signature song, My Way^[14], but also in dressed up forms like God-hating Ayn Rand and her Objectivism, here set forth in her book tellingly labeled, The Virtue[!] of Selfishness:

“Man has to be man—by choice; he has to hold his life as a value—by choice; he has to learn to sustain it—by choice; he has to discover the values it requires and practice his virtues—by choice.  A code of values accepted by choice is the code of morality.”^[15]

Note here, according to Rand, it is the allegedly autonomous Self and its choices that determine morality:  the individual’s subjective choice dictates the supposed objective standard.  This comprises reductionism, that is, rooting or deriving ethics solely within or from Creation.

We see this also in popular self-help paganism, as actress Shirley MacLaine intoned:

“Each soul is its own god.  You must never worship anyone or anything other than self.  For you are God.  To love self is to love God.”^[16]

And, we see this in situations unsuited for chuckling.  Treating the Self – and its choices and desires – as the determinative authority fosters turmoil and misery.  Consider Chloe Jennings-White, an able-bodied 40-something Brit who desires to become a paraplegic by having her sciatic nerve severed.  As she explains:

At age four, she visited her aunt who had leg braces . . .

“I wanted them too; I wondered why I wasn’t born needing them, and felt something was wrong with me because I didn’t have them.”^[17]

The news report relates that she actually found a surgeon willing – for a price – to “treat her” however, she’s not yet raised sufficient funds for this paralyzing procedure.

Or, consider Jewel Shuping, a young, troubled girl who dreamed of being blind – and convinced her psychological therapist to use drain cleaner to blind her as part of her “affirming” therapy.^[18]  And, he did so with apparent impunity because she consented^[19] to the procedure as part of her therapy. 

In both foregoing cases, self-destruction and permanent mutilation are deemed appropriate “health care” simply because the Self is deemed authoritative.  Left to itself, the Self, because it is fallen, eventually treats evil as good and good as evil.  

Or, consider the young socially-conscious Brazilian woman who decided to raise money “to build homes for poverty-stricken families” by auctioning off her virginity.  But, of course, there would be rules:

“Under the terms and conditions of the auction, the winning bidder must have a medical examination and a police check.  Rules stipulate that they may not be intoxicated during their time with the virgin, kiss them, involve anyone else or sex toys.”^[20]

Note the moral inversion here:  ethics being used to protect and promote unethical practices—exactly the point Paul makes:  false worship manifests itself by approving unrighteous practices.

Could it be even weirder or worse when the Self is god?  Yes, indeed. Why?  Because, as Paul notes, idolatry drives for the approval of those practices which express idolatrous practices.  It’s one thing to do an unrighteous thing; it’s quite another to have that thing culturally and legally sanctioned, which is Paul’s point in Romans 1:32:

Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

This results in the Idols of State and Self combining to enforce the Self’s choices. Thus, the culture’s law will be invoked to affirm and approve (“codify”) the Self’s autonomous acts, whatever they may be.^[21]  Caesar and Self combine with devastating consequences.  Decorum and good taste are optional, by the way.

For example, consider the once-taboo topic of bestiality.  This is increasingly being advocated as a “sexual orientation” practiced by zoophiles^[22].  And, guess what?  Some argue that the law should affirm and approve such practices by protecting them constitutionally, surprising everyone, except the apostle Paul.^[23]  

Northwestern law professor, Eugene Kontorovich, hopefully writing tongue in cheek, notes how extant jurisprudence, a jurisprudence that often embraces and protects the Idol of Self, supports the zoophile’s claims:

“Bestiality is private sexual conduct and thus prima facie requires a very good justification to regulate. . . 

Bestiality bans regulate human sexual expression.  And, in the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence, sex is special.  The government can also regulate, even ban, consumer products, but not when they are condoms, because that is also a regulation of sexuality.  Cock fighting can be banned not because the animal suffers, but because the government needs little excuse to ban any commercial activity.  Sexual activity is different. . . 

The closest analogy would not be gay sex, or straight sex, but rather other kinds of autonomous sexual activity like sex toys. . . 

One could argue that ick factor aside, bestiality should if anything be more protected than the dominant social paradigm of 2-person sex.  Once there are two people involved, it is a social issue, not purely “private.”  Thus such laws can be justified by some purported negative social consequences:  uncared for kids with heterosexual fornication; unmarried poor men for polygamy; mutation for incest.  By these standards, bestiality (or any other kind of one person sexual activity) is the most innocuous, as it involves only a person and his property.  Spill-over effects on other humans are minimal.”^[24]

This sort of idolatrous thinking influences all facets of the culture — not just law and policy — including religious realms.   And, this stands to reason, as in Paul’s mind, “approval” occurs by the culture’s “approvers,” that is, those icons and institutions which convey public affirmation, whether by word or symbol.^[25]  Churches and religious institutions stand—at least in the Christian West—as icons of approval, condemning or absolving conduct.  With non-Pauline cosmology in play culturally, this produces shocking results, even within religious communities.  Many professing Christians have been seduced by the Idol of Self.

Consider fundamentalist C.S. Lovett.  He trumpets a soteriology (that is, a theology of salvation) virtually indistinguishable from Pelagianism, a heresy rejected by all branches of Christianity.

Pelagius, refuted by Augustine, argued that man’s fall did not affect him volitionally or constitutionally.  Thus, man’s choice—that which the Self wills—reigns supreme, even after the Fall. That sounded good for evangelism and made “getting people saved” easy: “Just make a decision for Christ!”^[26]  But look what happens when thinking that affirms unfettered volitional autonomy migrates to ethics.  Lovett wrote these astonishing words – in a parenting book no less:

“For some Christians this [abortion] is a bad word. A decision for abortion should not be based on public opinion, but your ownopinion as to when the fetus becomes a person…If you hold the opinion that God does not place the person in the fetus until after the fourth month (or when the mother feels life), then an abortion would be no problem for you. The fetus would merely be body tissue with no independent life of its own. It would be like removing an appendix or some other mass of tissue. Certainly it could not be murder as some claim…If you feel there is no child until the moment of birth, then you could also consider abortion as a possible solution…Aside from the moral issue, it has been my experience that abortion solves the problem with the least amount of bad side effects. If the girl is very young, say 13 or 14, then it can be done and forgotten. You avoid any risk of her not being ready for pregnancy. The surgeon’s scalpel removes the tissue and God’s forgiveness removes the guilt feelings.” ^[27]

Choice prevails – the Self’s decisions define ethics.  This idolatry knows no sectarian bounds.  Note the distorted thinking attendant to professing Catholic Gary Wills:

“But is abortion murder?  Most people think not.  Evangelicals may argue that most people in Germany thought it was all right to kill Jews.  But the parallel is not valid.  Killing Jews was killing persons. . . . The question is not whether the fetus is a human life but whether it is a human person, and when it becomes one.”^[28]

Back to the fundamentalists, consider Dr. Robert Theime, who taught that after “getting saved” by choosing Jesus, one could become an atheist and still “be saved” because one’s choice, having accepted God’s offer, “locks in” salvation. 

Again, notice what happens when this sort of noetic autonomy is applied to ethics.  Regarding Roe v. Wade, Theime emphasized:

This is one of the wisest and most brilliant decisions that the Supreme Court has made in many, many, many years.^[29]

Is it coincidental that each of these professing Christians from different traditions favors abortion as a “right”?  Not really.  Why?  They each to some degree have theologically committed to an aspect of idolatrous autonomy, the Idol of Self.  That idolatry, Paul tells us, expresses itself ethically vis a vis human sexuality.^[30]  False worship generates unethical behavior, that is, unrighteous practices.  Abortion is emblematic of this process.^[31]  It is a form of, or a precursor to, apostasy.  Why?   Because the Christian position has long opposed infanticide and abortion from the earliest days of the church.^[32]

According to Paul, theological autonomy attaches itself to ethical autonomy, particularly sexual autonomy.  Abortion reflects the consequences of unfettered autonomous sexual conduct. Abortion, as an approved public policy, thus coheres with Paul’s reasoning about the Truth being exchanged for the Lie.  Jonathan Burnside explains how the scriptural witness connects sexual ordering with public matters.  In other words, false worship eventually leads to societal chaos and disorder:

“[I]n biblical thought, sexual relationships can be used either to create community or to destroy community.  . . . Sexual order helps to create relational order and sexual disorder leads to relational disorder.”^[33]

And, Paul in Romans 1 tells us to expect exactly this, and the pagans understand this as well^[34]; too bad Christians often do not.  Note here, for example, how this pagan author connects Hetero-cosmology with heterosexuality (monogamy) and Homo-cosmology with homosexuality or pansexuality (many sexual partners).  It’s almost as if he is channeling St. Paul:

“You have to have one partner under this one-god system.  We maintained that for two thousand years, but now we have certain openness.  We’re coming up on a new pantheistic age. . . I like all the gods and goddesses.”^[35]

Consider also James Frey’s The Final Testament of the Holy Bible (2011), explicitly linking theology – how we think about God – and sexual ethics – how we may behave sexuality:

“Love and laughter and f—king are what makes life better. God doesn’t care about the petty dramas that mean so much to us.  God doesn’t care what we say or who we f—k or what we do with our bodies or who we love or who we marry.”^[36]

This sexual alchemy, a product of false worship, laces modern culture.  Carla Bruni, France’s former First Lady, recently indicted for witness tampering,^[37] unabashedly (and incoherently) proclaimed:

Monogamy is “terribly boring.”  “I am faithful . . . to myself.  I am monogamous from time to time but I prefer polygamy and polyandry.”^[38]

In the same way, a not-so-famous co-ed from Arizona State University, again reflecting her presuppositional commitment to the Self’s ultimate authoritative status, informs the world:

“I am not a labelist and I do not consider myself anything.  I am simply open to love.  I’m like anyone else in the sense that I am searching for the person who will make me the happiest andserve me best—it just so happens that it may be a guy or a girl.”^[39]

Or, consider Ivy-Leaguer “Bi-gender”, Britt Gilbert, as featured in the New York Times:

“While I definitely knew that I liked girls, I didn’t know that I was one. . . I knew what it was before I knew what it was.”^[40]

And the positive law responds – via the State – to these cultural embodiments of sexual alchemy, consistent with St. Paul’s instruction.  Increasingly, sexual conduct is being “codified” along certain parameters, all consistent with and traceable to the Idol of Self, and enforced by the Idol of State.  

There exist un-argued pagan assumptions committed to non-Pauline cosmology that drive the law’s understanding and thus regulation of sexuality.  Sexual behavior is legally, and therefore, politically deemed:

1. Individualistic
2. Private, instead of Social
3. Consent is the ONLY “standard”
4. Purpose:  pleasure and satisfaction

Unwittingly, but surely following Paul, those advocating sexual autonomy do not mince words.  The true goal is not so-called “marital equality,”^[41] but rather presses for cultural and legal sanction for the Self’s sexual alchemy—no matter how configured.  

For example, a longtime activist and DC ACLU Board member expressed:

“Let us have more and better enjoyment of more and better sexual perversions, by whatever definition, by more and more consenting adults…If bestiality with consenting animals provides happiness to some people, let them pursue their happiness to some people, let them pursue their happiness.” 

Jeffery Levi, former executive director for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, made the “end game” clear—again unknowingly, but nevertheless echoing St. Paul—when he asserted:

“We [homosexuals] are no longer seeking just a right to privacy and a right to protection from wrong. We have a right—as heterosexuals have already—to see government and society affirm our lives.”^[42]

Homosexual author, Urvashi Vaid, similarly proclaimed:

“We have an agenda to create a society in which homosexuality is regarded as healthy, natural and normal.  To me that is the most important agenda item.”^[43]

And this approval mechanism must be totalistic and institutionalized at every cultural strata—or, as Paul says without qualification, the practice and those who practice it, must be approved.  As Daniel Villarreal penned at Queerty.com:

“We want educators to teach future generations of children to accept queer sexuality.  In fact, our very future depends on it… Why would we push anti-bullying programs or social studies classes that teach kids about the historical contributions of famous queers unless we wanted to deliberately educate children to accept queer sexuality as normal?…I and a lot of other people want to indoctrinate, recruit, teach, and expose children to queer sexuality AND THERE’S NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT.” (Emphasis in original)^[44]

But, this ascendency of the Self did not arise from politics or radical activism.  Rather, it arose from those ideas animating—granting permission for—its worldview to be a viable plausibility narrative, rooted in an idolatrous Self, and its handmaiden, supposedly-autonomous reason.  In other words, we ought not ascribe principal blame for sexual anarchy on so-called “Gay Liberation” and the raid on the Stonewall Inn.^[45]

Theologian Tim Keller explains that marriage was actually redefined when idolatrous Enlightenment thinking settled into the cultural atmosphere and provided an alternative plausibility narrative, or in modern parlance, shifted the Overton window^[46]:

“During the Enlightenment, things began to shift.  The meaning of life came to be seen as the fruit of the freedom of the individual to choose the life that most fulfills him or her personally. . . . [M]arriage was redefined as finding emotional and sexual fulfillment and self-actualization.”  

“In short, the Enlightenment privatized marriage,  taking it out of the public sphere, and redefined its purpose as individual gratification, not any “broader good,” such as reflecting God’s nature, producing character, or raising children.”^[47]

In sum, Keller explains in another context:

“Closely related to this radical new hope in human reason was the absolutizing of individual freedom.  Modern societies no longer saw the world as containing binding moral norms of truth to which all people must submit.  Rather, they insisted that there was no standard higher than the right of the individual to choose the life he or she wanted to live.  The only moral wrong, in this view, was to keep other individuals from choosing to live as they found fulfilling. That meant that, ultimately, there was no moral authority or cause higher than the happens of the self.  As many have pointed out, this made “choice” and feelings into something sacred and holy.  In the modern world, now, an individual was the center of the universe, and the creature beyond all is entitled to absolute respect.  In other words, the human self had replaced God.”^[48]

What an entangled – and entrenched – mess!

This foregoing has surveyed in tangible and timely ways that a correlation exists between theology and ethics.  Idolatry produces unrighteous practices, duping professing Christians – just as God’s called Old Covenant people, Israel, fell into deep idolatry.  As a result, Christians have been seduced by deluding pagan spirits, causing them at points to affirm abortion, homosexual behavior, and preferred personal pronouns under the guise of using reality-defying “hospitality pronouns.”^[49]  

We must identify where My Wayism has impacted our thinking – and our assumptions – and then politely refuse to stand for Hell’s national anthem.  Our allegiance is to the Way^[50], not My Way.  In fact, Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life – Christ, not some feel good, but deadly wayward idol.

^[1] My Way, lyrics by Paul Anka

^[2] Prov. 12:15

^[3] Acts 24:22

^[4] John 14:6

^[5] My Way, lyrics by Paul Anka.

^[6] https://x.com/AscensionPress/status/901473107436851201

^[7] Compare, Jeffery J. Ventrella, Politics and the Pulpit:  What Does God Require? (2019).  And unfortunately, some congregations that have started to address public moral and political matters have been seduced by the Idol of State as expressed to varying degrees in Integralism, National Conservativism, and Christian Nationalism – matters addressed in prior Dicta.

^[8] Many today have forgotten that the largest US denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, firmly supported abortion until the 1980’s.  https://theconversation.com/the-history-of-southern-baptists-shows-they-have-not-always-opposed-abortion-183712

^[9] Most recently, the United Methodists and the liberal PCUSA have done so.  https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/01/us/united-methodist-church-lgbtq-clergy-reaj/index.html#:~:text=The%20United%20Methodist%20Church%20overturned,the%20issue%2C%20CNN%20previously%20reported.  https://www.presbyterianmission.org/what-we-believe/sexuality-and-same-gender-relationships/

^[10] See, e.g., https://www.williamsburgbaptist.com/welcoming-and-affirming.html

^[11] See the efforts of V. Gene Robinson, the first homosexual ordained as a bishop in the Episcopal USA denomination.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDiNK7gEnag.  See also the deceptively named The Reformation Project which claims to be a “Bible-based, Christian organization” which “advances LGBTQ inclusion in the church.”  https://reformationproject.org/  The point is that pagans are making [bad] “Christian” arguments for deviant sexual practices.  These practices are driven by false worship stemming from the exchange of the Truth for the Lie.  (Romans 1:25)

^[12] Compare:  S. Donald Fortson and Rollin G. Grams, Unchanging Witness:  The Consistent Christian Teaching on Homosexuality in Scripture and Tradition (2016)

^[13] G.K. Beale, We Become What We Worship (2008), 139 citing Ian Provan.

^[14] Sinatra himself despised this song as he believed it to be wrongly self-aggrandizing and self-indulgent. Sinatra Loathed “My Way” http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/994742.stm

^[15] Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness, 23; Cited in Wiker and DeMarco, Architects of the Culture of Death, 57.  

^[16] G.K. Beale, We Become What we Worship, (2008), 296, citing Vitz, Psychology as Religion (Grand Rapids:  Eerdmanns, 1977), 125, citing MacLaine.

^[17] “Able-bodied woman wants surgery to make her paraplegic,” Fox News, July 17, 2013.

^[18] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3256029/Woman-dreamed-blind-DRAIN-CLEANER-poured-eyes-fulfil-lifelong-wish-says-happier-ever.html  Compare, Abilgail Shrier, Bad Therapy:  Why Kids Aren’t Groing Up (2024)

^[19] “Consent” is the hand maid of “choice.”  Both serve the Idol of Self.

^[20] “Brazilian Student Catarina Migliorini Sells Virginity for £483,000,” International Business Times, October 25, 2012.

^[21] Note the push by the Left, following the overruling of Roe v. Wade, to codify in legislation the holding of Roe via the Orwellian-named Women’s Health Protection Act – it certainly doesn’t protect any unborn woman’s health.  It’s the same dynamic, animated by Idolatry.  https://www.hickenlooper.senate.gov/press_releases/hickenlooper-bennet-reintroduce-bill-to-codify-roe-v-wade/

^[22] “What’s It Like to Date a Horse,” NYMag, November 20, 2014.

^[23] The same push is occurring with pedophilia, which is euphemistically labeled as a sexual orientation, “minor-attracted persons,” instead of the perversion it is. See, e.g., Connecticut Passes Bill to Ban “Discrimination” Against “Minor Attracted Persons,”  https://catholicvote.org/ct-passes-bill-discrimination-minor-attracted-persons/

^[24] The Volokh Conspiracy, The Bestiality Brief, December 5, 2012, accessed December 6, 2012.

^[25] Elsewhere, I have described these icons as those that wear the “Robes of Culture”:  The Ecclesiastical, the Judicial, and the Academic.  These robes correspond to John Frame’s triperspectival scheme, Person, Situation, and Norm.  See, John M. Frame, A Primer on Perspectivalism, https://frame-poythress.org/a-primer-on-perspectivalism/

^[26] See, C. S. Lovett, Soul Winning Made Easy (1959 [1980]).

^[27] C.S. Lovett, What’s A Parent To Do?, [1971], 230-231.

^[28] Garry Wills, “Abortion isn’t a religious issue,” Los Angeles Times, November 4, 2007, cited in Joel McDurmon, Biblical Logic in Theory & Practice, (2009), 130.

^[29] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Thieme_-_cite_note-campo-12

^[30] Romans 1:24-27

^[31] Note that after 40 years of embracing a staunchly pro-life party platform, the GOP has removed large portions of that platform plank and now “approves” abortion in the States, including the use of the destructive abortion pill.  Joe Carter, How the GOP Became Pro-Choice, https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/how-the-gop-became-pro-choice/

^[32] See, The Didache, https://legacyicons.com/content/didache.pdf

^[33] Jonathan Burnside, God, Justice, and Society: Aspects of Law and Legality (2010), 328.

^[34] They are, as Cornelius Van Til often said, becoming more epistemologically self-conscious.  See, e.g., Greg L. Bahnsen, Van Til’s Apologetic – Readings and Analysis. (1998), 295.

^[35] Nathan Harden, Sex and God at Yale: Porn, Political Correctness, and a Good education Gone Bad (2012), 279.

^[36] Ross Douthat, Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics (2012), Citing Frey’s referenced work, 238.

^[37] https://apnews.com/article/france-carla-bruni-sarkozy-illegal-finance-campaign-preliminary-charges-bda333b1ad26068e15040040d3183aa5

^[38] “Carla Bruni: An unlikely First Lady?” The Telegraph, March 7, 2008.

^[39] College Times, November 8, 2007, 10.

^[40] “Generation LGBTQIA,” New York Times, January 9, 2013.

^[41] Christian should support “marital equality,” but the key question remains “What is marriage?”  Same-sex arrangements no matter how labeled, simply do not comprise marriages.  See, Girgis, Anderson, and George, What Is Marriage? Man and Woman:  A Defense (2012)

^[42] Robert R. Reilly, Making Gay Okay: How Rationalizing Homosexual Behavior Is Changing Everything (2014), 7.

^[43] Robert R. Reilly, Making Gay Okay: How Rationalizing Homosexual Behavior Is Changing Everything (2014), 7.

^[44] Robert R. Reilly, Making Gay Okay: How Rationalizing Homosexual Behavior Is Changing Everything (2014), 171.

^[45] 1969:  The Stonewall Uprising, https://guides.loc.gov/lgbtq-studies/stonewall-era#:~:text=On%20June%2028%2C%201969%2C%20the,of%20gay%20and%20lesbian%20life.

^[46] https://www.mackinac.org/OvertonWindow

^[47] Timothy and Kathy Keller, The Meaning of Marriage (2011), 28.

^[48] Timothy Keller, Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your work to God’s Work (2012), 141.

^[49] Even the traditionally orthodox evangelistic group, CRU, succumbed at one point to this idol by imbibing the false teaching of Preston Sprinkle.  https://wng.org/articles/taking-sides-1708229211

For a biblical analysis and rebuttal of using “preferred personal pronouns” see Jeffery J. Ventrella, Who Do YOU Say that I Am: “Preferred Personal Pronouns, Ethics, Language, and the Gospel.  https://docsandlin.com/2018/06/02/who-do-you-say-that-i-am-preferred-personal-pronouns-ethics-language-and-the-gospel-by-jeffery-j-ventrella-j-d-ph-d/

^[50] Acts 9:2, 18:25, 18:26, 19:9, 19:23, 24:14, 24:22,